h100i is a disaster..sad and disappointing..

[Dan3345]

I ordered my H100I on Friday from newegg. It got here Saturday. I installed it, and loved it. It had a few issues such as the fans at low RPM's made a high pitch whining/grinding noise. This is caused by the fan controller of the unit not keeping the voltage constant. No big deal, Corsair even said a fix was out soon for that. The corsair link software was buggy, it crashed often and froze when I tried to look at what version I was on. Again, no big deal, overall it worked and I was pleased.

 

Today I decided I would get better cooling results if I changed out the fans and put them in a different push/pull orientation. Did that and closed up my case thinking "It will work fine, all I did was change the fans." Wrong. Booted it up and the Corsair LED on the pump was flashing red. Now, I am so mad because I can't even explain what is wrong with it. Believe me I have tried everything I can think of. My guess? The firmware within the device has gotten confused and cannot correct itself, that or something inside the unit is shorting for whatever reason.

 

I had to remove my overclock on my CPU and put on my backup Intel heatsink.. Ya, know the really crappy things that come with your CPU..

 

Anyways, I guess I got a bad unit. Very disappointing, and I must say while it was working it did a great job.

 

So there you have it.. I would advise everyone who is thinking about getting one of these to stay away for the time being. Or maybe just stay away from the H100I for a bit. Seems like the H80I and below work fine. So I guess like many companies Corsair apparently likes to beta test new products on consumers. I wonder which video game company does that. Perhaps its one of the ones on this nexus?

[Erik005]

You probably just got a bad one, every company seems to suffer from this.

 

As long as it isn't a fatal flaw with all the products there isn't a really big problem, it just sucks that you got a bad one I understand that.

 

I don't understand what the whole fuss is about with these closed loop watercoolers, they are louder and more expensive than the good air-coolers.

[hoofhearted4]

they are louder and more expensive than the good air-coolers.

 

yes and no. they are not louder. that has everything to do with the fans and nothing to do with the heatsink itself. with stock fans, then maybe...

 

the biggest thing is that those good air coolers always look ugly. no one wants a case with a window looking at a massive heatsink. esp the ones with two towers....those who get the closed loop systems get them because of their aesthetics....for example, me. i plan on getting one when i get a window for my case. i dont wanna look at some ugly heatsink taking up 75% of my window. i wanna see the beautiful sleek look of the cooling system.

 

those that get them for a case with no window, well maybe they just wanted it for poops and giggles idk. as i said, the biggest appeal i think would be the clean look of them over heatsinks.

 

as far as price goes. the D-14 is like $100. an H100 is like $115. when youve already spent $1500+ on your rig, whats $15 more? then again, there are heatsinks just as good as the D-14 for near half the price like the Havik 140 for only $60. but yea. lol

[Dan3345]

they are louder and more expensive than the good air-coolers.

 

yes and no. they are not louder. that has everything to do with the fans and nothing to do with the heatsink itself. with stock fans, then maybe...

 

the biggest thing is that those good air coolers always look ugly. no one wants a case with a window looking at a massive heatsink. esp the ones with two towers....those who get the closed loop systems get them because of their aesthetics....for example, me. i plan on getting one when i get a window for my case. i dont wanna look at some ugly heatsink taking up 75% of my window. i wanna see the beautiful sleek look of the cooling system.

 

those that get them for a case with no window, well maybe they just wanted it for poops and giggles idk. as i said, the biggest appeal i think would be the clean look of them over heatsinks.

 

as far as price goes. the D-14 is like $100. an H100 is like $115. when youve already spent $1500+ on your rig, whats $15 more? then again, there are heatsinks just as good as the D-14 for near half the price like the Havik 140 for only $60. but yea. lol

glad someone else gets it. Anyways yeah, I did just get unlucky. I have filled out my RMA and its going back to newegg to be replaced.

 

And Erick, even with the stock fans it was really quite and still did a great job on cooling.

[hoofhearted4]

i just wanted to post in this giving my short review so far of the H100i

 

got it in the other day, installed it yesterday. shipping was fast, under a week. there were a few bent fins on it, but i think thats actually pretty common, and doesnt affect performance or anything at all.

 

anyways, it went in fine, i have it in push configuration for the moment, with stock fans. evenentually i want to outfit my case with corsair air series fan, and put the h100i in push/pull. but yea, my temps dropped a little bit at idle. i think they were around 40-50C with stockheatsink, now they are down to 35-40C idle. i might be able to get it cooler as the top of my case has dust filtering. if i took it out (since i dont need it cause thats exhaust) it might drop a little more. we will see. i havent done any tests during gameplay or any stress tests or anything. didnt do anything with the original heatsink either, so nothing from my personal use to compare to...i did OC my CPU up to 4.0Ghz, with the build in OC Gene on the ASRock Z77 mobo.

 

but yea, just wanted to say so far no issues. looks clean and good with my side panel window. easy to install. very quite, even with stock fans. as in i cant hear it unless i put my ear to it. and especially not over the fan i have going in my room. and my tower is right next to me.

[Dan3345]

As long as your posting your review, I should update mine..

 

After the first one was DOA, I RMA'ed it and got a working one which I am still using.

 

Software works, its quiet, fan profiles are sort of finnicky though. They don't always work at the RPM I set for them. The controller only works properly with the included fans. I plugged in the high rpm static pressure corsair fans and they only spun at the max RPM (which is insanely loud for those fans), I plugged in some generic NZXT fans and they spun at a normal RPM, but could not be changed in the software and there was a voltage incombatability so the fan motors made a whining noise.

 

Corsair Rep said this normal, and as it stands the software only works with included fans...

 

 

If you get a unit that works its a great piece of hardware. Though personnaly I would prefer the h100 without the software. Which is why I am buy the H110 so I can get the increased tubing size but not have to mess with this poorly designed and poorly implemented software.

[blove]

Corsair SP120 Performance fans are loud and droney (new word!), the AF120 Performance fans are slightly loud, the AF140 Quiet fans ROCK . I read a review somewhere that stated the stock fans with the H80i had a higher static pressure with slightly lower noise than the SP120 Performance fans.

[hoofhearted4]

I'll be getting the sp120 quiet fans for push pull and then af140 quiet for my case

[Dan3345]

I'll be getting the sp120 quiet fans for push pull and then af140 quiet for my case

I'de be interested to know if they end up working, as with mine I could not control the RPM's at all..

[ziitch]

If you've got the case that can support it, I would suggest a horizontal/front pull and a vertical/back push. My i7 3770 is idling around 25-30C right now and all I'm using is several 120mm fans and one big 200mm fan on top with an old CNPS 9700 I got back in 2009. A bit noisy with them all going at once, but nonetheless very effective.