- Feb 26, 2006
- 62,678
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2 years ago, I bought an IBuyPower desktop from Costco.
i7-9700k cpu, ASUS 2070 GPU, ASRock Phantom Gaming 4 mobo, 2x8 gb RAM. Decent specs.
CPU cooler was their own branded single radiator AIO liquid cooler.
Case is their own brand of case, designed for liquid cooling.(rear fan, room in the top for 2 x 120 or maybe 140mm fans, no side panel fan, front of the case is pretty tight, not sure there's any fan mounting room or air flow there.
Warranty was, 1 year factory, 1 year Costco.
After about 15 months, the water cooling unit crapped out. Since it was now into the Costco portion of the warranty, I had to ship it to some repair place in Wisconsin that Costco contracted.
They replaced it with a low-end CoolerMaster single radiator unit. (Their workmanship was fckng horrid, but that's another thread)
Worked relatively well for about 6 months...then the CPU started getting much hotter than before. (Not CRITICALLY hot...in the 80's during gaming) then taking forever to cool back down.
I grabbed a screwdriver and tightened the cooler mounts...all 4 screws were a bit loose, but not terribly so.
Didn't really make a difference.
So...looks like my options are...
1) grab some TIM, clean and reset the existing cooler pump. (I THINK I have some Noctua goop in the package left over from my last build...gotta be 10 years old...think it's still any good? Yeah, I have to make sure it hasn't dried out in the tube...)
2) replace the cooler with another liquid cooler...maybe dual radiator mounted in the top. Corsair? CoolerMaster? Other brand?
3) Try to fit a decent quality air cooler...Noctua? in there. (I haven't measured to see if a Noctua cooler @ 158 or 160 mm will fit.)
i7-9700k cpu, ASUS 2070 GPU, ASRock Phantom Gaming 4 mobo, 2x8 gb RAM. Decent specs.
CPU cooler was their own branded single radiator AIO liquid cooler.
Case is their own brand of case, designed for liquid cooling.(rear fan, room in the top for 2 x 120 or maybe 140mm fans, no side panel fan, front of the case is pretty tight, not sure there's any fan mounting room or air flow there.
Warranty was, 1 year factory, 1 year Costco.
After about 15 months, the water cooling unit crapped out. Since it was now into the Costco portion of the warranty, I had to ship it to some repair place in Wisconsin that Costco contracted.
They replaced it with a low-end CoolerMaster single radiator unit. (Their workmanship was fckng horrid, but that's another thread)
Worked relatively well for about 6 months...then the CPU started getting much hotter than before. (Not CRITICALLY hot...in the 80's during gaming) then taking forever to cool back down.
I grabbed a screwdriver and tightened the cooler mounts...all 4 screws were a bit loose, but not terribly so.
Didn't really make a difference.
So...looks like my options are...
1) grab some TIM, clean and reset the existing cooler pump. (I THINK I have some Noctua goop in the package left over from my last build...gotta be 10 years old...think it's still any good? Yeah, I have to make sure it hasn't dried out in the tube...)
2) replace the cooler with another liquid cooler...maybe dual radiator mounted in the top. Corsair? CoolerMaster? Other brand?
3) Try to fit a decent quality air cooler...Noctua? in there. (I haven't measured to see if a Noctua cooler @ 158 or 160 mm will fit.)