Water cooling high temps

Hi guys, I have a stupid watercooling question. I just bough a Phobya 240lt kit, link here

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=207_160_45&products_id=25061

Im getting unusually high temps at idle, around 40c (its fairly warm in here though) and running prime in at around 80c.
My old water cooling system never saw 80c!

Basic system details are
I7 3770k oc'd to 4.6ghz @ 1.25v, and is very stable at that, ran prime etc overnight.
2x 6970's xfire'd
Asrock z77 extreme board

The loop goes, pump,flow meter,cpu,rad, res. fans run at 1500rpm but i can whip them up to 2500 using the controller, pump runs at 100% all the time. Pump does seem to turn the flow meter slower than id thought, and the res doesn.t really have much turbulence at all.

Rad doesn't seem to have and specific port for in and out either.

Pics here: http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h446/matt_297/IMAG1036.jpg...
Obviously the system is empty just in case you were wondering.

I did have the Outlet from the Cpu running into the right hand end of the rad, so the coolant would flow through the whole rad back down to the left, down to the res, but it made no difference in temps. Also reseated the CPU block and re-bled all the air from the system, tilting the rad to move the bubbles out.

So im thinking maybe the pump is too slow.
Any ideas would be appreciated!

When possible, I always go from rad out directly to CPU inlet.

Lvcoyote said:

When possible, I always go from rad out directly to CPU inlet.

Click to expand...

Thanks bud, i did some reading up a few days ago and the majority seems to think the temp difference is negligible, it didn't matter too much which way, if i remember correctly it was a 0.5 to1.0c temp difference. Sitting here atm it sitting at 40c (centigrade) in a warm room of about maybe 26c centigrade.

Do you think the pump is two small for the setup? Its 105glh or 400lph.

If you're only cooling the CPU it should be fine.

Lvcoyote said:

If you're only cooling the CPU it should be fine.

Click to expand...

Any other ideas for high temps? Or do you consider this normal?/

Other than rechecking the mounting and TIM application, it might just not be that great of a kit or water block itself.

Lvcoyote said:

Other than rechecking the mounting and TIM application, it might just not be that great of a kit or water block itself.

Click to expand...

So my routing of the cooling hoses from the rad seems ok? That's mainly what i was worried about tbh. I'll mount the block again and see how it goes.

Well, you said you researched it and are satisfied with the routing. I gave you my opinion, in the end it's up to you.

I am not familiar or not sure about that kit but the pump is one of the weakest pumps out there. One of the best starter custom kits out there is the XSPC RayStorm D5 Photon AX240 Water Cooling Kit. I don't think I've even seen that Phobya WB tested before either. I for one thing would not add a flow meter to the loop because I don't believe that pump can handle that. That pump is enough for a small simple loop with the parts that came with the kit. If you add more to it I would advise on a more powerful pump, budget permitting. Than again the WB might not be that great either so I can't say to change one thing and notice no temp difference. I am sure the flow will improve but the waterblock can be at fault as well. What liquids and biocide are you using as well?

Here's a nice chart of 90% of the pumps out there.

+1 on the XSPC Raystorm kit for starting out. I started out with one of their kits with GREAT success and good temps on my 3770k.

GTXJackBauer said:

I am not familiar or not sure about that kit but the pump is one of the weakest pumps out there. One of the best starter custom kits out there is the XSPC RayStorm D5 Photon AX240 Water Cooling Kit. I don't think I've even seen that Phobya WB tested before either. I for one thing would not add a flow meter to the loop because I don't believe that pump can handle that. That pump is enough for a small simple loop with the parts that came with the kit. If you add more to it I would advise on a more powerful pump, budget permitting. Than again the WB might not be that great either so I can't say to change one thing and notice no temp difference. I am sure the flow will improve but the waterblock can be at fault as well. What liquids and biocide are you using as well?

Here's a nice chart of 90% of the pumps out there.

Click to expand...

Hey bud, the kit had some good reviews from what I read, and the block has some really good ones too, I suppose it depends what you read. I'm 90% sure the Alphacool kit I have in another pc is a 500lph pump and that loop was smaller, I wasn't running a flow meter. The one I put in this one was a last minute add on. I'm not worried what a new pump will cost as long as it has provision for g1/4 fittings. I'm just using an XSPC premix at the moment til i get things sorted. Thanks for the reply too!

sobe said:

+1 on the XSPC Raystorm kit for starting out. I started out with one of their kits with GREAT success and good temps on my 3770k.

Click to expand...

What kind of temps are you getting with that kit bud?

I started with the XSPC Raystorm RX360 D5 kit, which instead of the tube res, it had a dual bay res. I no longer have that hooked up to this machine, but while I was running it, the only pic I still have I attached for you. The ambient temps were somewhere around 70f - 75f.

Great kit for someone like myself getting into watercooling for the first time, but right now it is resting in an HTPC.

I can't be certain from the pictures but it looks like you may have both inlet and outlet on the same side of the radiator. I just can't tell from the photo.

Do some testing. Stick your finger on the rad to see if it feels warm, do same on the cpu inlet and outlet. If the radiator isn't heating up at all then your cpu block isn't performing.
If the rad is warm and cpu inlet feels warm then your radiator is performing bad and you might want to increase fan speed. I personally don't recommend having the radiator after pump and before blocks since it can lower pumps life in some cases although I doubt it's a very significant difference.

If all checks out you probably have just too slow flow.

Yeah the way the layout is is just too much for that little pump. I notice you have a slant angle feeding the pump from the reservoir. Than forcing the pump to shoot straight up sideways to the radiator before continuing to the loop. You need to change your loop layout to get a bit better flow. Having the pumps inlet facing upward and the outlet facing horizontal can help. Sometimes a pump might not perform well when sideways as it can impede in the pumps performance.

Waza said:

Do some testing. Stick your finger on the rad to see if it feels warm, do same on the cpu inlet and outlet. If the radiator isn't heating up at all then your cpu block isn't performing.
If the rad is warm and cpu inlet feels warm then your radiator is performing bad and you might want to increase fan speed. I personally don't recommend having the radiator after pump and before blocks since it can lower pumps life in some cases although I doubt it's a very significant difference.

If all checks out you probably have just too slow flow.

Click to expand...

Checked all the hoses, they all feel about the same temp, even running Prime.
The temp definitely goes up if I lower the pump speed quite low, and immediately drops down to a safer temp when i speed it back up. I might grab my laser thermometer and do some testing later this week.

GTXJackBauer said:

Yeah the way the layout is is just too much for that little pump. I notice you have a slant angle feeding the pump from the reservoir. Than forcing the pump to shoot straight up sideways to the radiator before continuing to the loop. You need to change your loop layout to get a bit better flow. Having the pumps inlet facing upward and the outlet facing horizontal can help. Sometimes a pump might not perform well when sideways as it can impede in the pumps performance.

Click to expand...

I just changed to an 800lph pump of the same design. Flow meter spins faster, but the pump is at 100% all the time as im not satisfied with the meter running slower below 100%....its just not fast enough even at 100%.
The outlet of the pump is facing upward, the inlet is the lower. Maybe i missed what you meant? The pump isn't sideways.... Outlet (facing up) to flow meter to rad.

Clovett said:

I can't be certain from the pictures but it looks like you may have both inlet and outlet on the same side of the radiator. I just can't tell from the photo.

Click to expand...

I do, inlet and outlet are next to eachother. There is no indication for inlet and outlet on the rad. I had it setup so that inlet was at one end and outlet was at the other, and it made no difference at all.

just did a quick vid of the loop. The flow meter looks like its spinning a million miles an hour but its maybe half the speed of what it seems.

http://s1110.photobucket.com/user/matt_297/media/VIDEO0142.mp4.html

What kind of fans do you have? and do they have clear path to exhaust from top of the case?
Also are your temps bad right away when you start the computer first time of the day?

Waza said:

What kind of fans do you have? and do they have clear path to exhaust from top of the case?
Also are your temps bad right away when you start the computer first time of the day?

Click to expand...

I'm using the Thermaltake PWM fans of my Frio cooler at the moment. I think they spin up to 2500rpm. I put them on just to see if the temps changed at speeds over 1500rpm (the fans that came with it only run to that). they have a clear path aside from a small support bracket that covers stuff all of one.
Sitting here at idle right now its at 35c and its about 26c in the room. Im only going by what Core temp says too, no other temp sensors connected. And they stay around 30-35 most times even when just turned the pc on.