Solved Can a water cooled CPU be replaced by a CPU fan

T-R-A December 29, 2020 at 23:21:35

"If not can I replace it by a normal motorised CPU fan on the processor" Depends on the amount of real-estate that the water-cooling system is taking up and the amount of room you have available in your case. If the machine was designed around a water-cooled system, it'd likely be better to stick with that. Is this a machine you built yourself? "Channeling the spirit of jboy..." message edited by T-R-A

trvlr December 30, 2020 at 01:32:22

At the very least blow out all accumulated dust....

ijack December 30, 2020 at 01:47:33

The first thing to do is to determine where the buzzing noise is coming from. It seems more likely to be a fan (easily replaced) rather than the cooling pump.

willem1933 December 30, 2020 at 03:07:43

This is a machine that was built, assembled for my son for use in his profession. I was given the possibility to further use it when he replaced the machine I am not a gamer, so high demands on the colling are out I have assembled a number of PCs in my life and I am quite conversant with installing a normal motorised CPU fan on the processor with conduction paste I have found the noise to be coming from the ventilator of the water cooling system I already have blown the dust out before I do anything else There is plenty of room to replace the Corsair cooler and the water fan block A CPU fan on the processor is more economic message edited by willem1933

ijack December 30, 2020 at 05:37:36

✔ Best Answer

If by "the ventilator" you mean the radiator, then the noise is coming from the radiator fan. It just needs cleaning, or possibly replacing. In either case it's a cheap and easy fix. Or it could even be a lose mounting screw. It would be overkill to replace the water-cooling setup for such a trivial fault.

riider December 30, 2020 at 06:11:53

I agree with ijack. If the fan is making the noise, just replace the fan; there's no need to rip everything out & then buy & install a standard heatsink/fan. Even though I'm not a fan (no pun intended) of water cooling, since it's there, you might as well stick with it. Just blow out all the dust & replace the fan. Or if you want to buy yourself some time, try adding a drop of oil or a touch of synthetic grease to the fan bearing.

willem1933 December 30, 2020 at 13:57:07

Thank you all! Replacing the cooling fam seems the easiest because the noise still comes when I startup, but it disappears quite quickly shall look around and see if I can find a loose fan for water cooling. I need some info on how to prevent air bubbles forming in the flow circuit during the repair. Appreciated all the help W

ijack December 31, 2020 at 01:26:25

You don't need to disassemble the fluid carrying parts to replace the radiator fan. In fact, you definitely shouldn't as these Corsair units are sealed. You may need to remove the radiator and pump (the bit on the CPU) as a complete unit if access is difficult, but once you can get at it there should only be four screws holding the fan to the radiator. On my setup I could do this without removing the unit, using a stubby screwdriver. Make sure that the new fan faces in the same (rotational) direction as the old one. E.g., if the old fan blew air out of the case the new one should do the same. message edited by ijack