I have recently bought a Corsair iCUE H150i PRO XT and have been using iCUE to control it.
However, iCUE seems to leave the fans running at high speed, even after the CPU is down to 27C,
which can only be stopped by forcing an upgrade to the firmware.

I decided to try it without the iCUE software and to my surprise, find that the motherboard is making
a far better job of managing the H150i, the fans make less noise and the CPU is running cooler.
Is this something that is to be expected and do any of you find the same?

 

You should have the fans spin according to liquid temperature which is what really makes sense. If the CPU goes up to say 70 degrees, the fans spinning up like crazy isn't going to do anything because what actually cools the CPU is the water running through the waterblock. It will take a while for the water to heat up and that's when the fans should start to spin up in order to cool the water passing through the radiator.

That's how i have my iCUE set up and it works like a charm. Whenever the water goes up from 35c, the fans start to spin up slowly going to the maximum if the water reaches 60c (it never does, it's just how i have it set). I have made this using a custom profile having the liquid as a temperature source.

Hope this helps.

Edited August 26, 20223 yr by Nuno Pinto

Thanks, could it be that the motherboard and iCUE are conflicting with one another?
I had iCUE set up like that and some of the time it worked.
But then it would just leave the fans running at high speed, even though the CPU temperature was down to 27C.

Edited August 26, 20223 yr by Reader

21 minutes ago, Reader said:

Thanks, could it be that the motherboard and iCUE are conflicting with one another?
I had iCUE set up like that and some of the time it worked.
But then it would just leave the fans running at high speed, even though the CPU temperature was down to 27C.

Maybe that's the problem.Hard to say.

I also recently purchased and have installed a H150i XT in my new Alder Lake rig and while the fans do spin up on the cooler while for instance doing an intensive operation like a large Windows update, it does spin back down again. So I haven't noticed these problems.
What iCUE software version are you running? Maybe send some more screenshots on your iCUE cooling config settings and we can compare?

 

I will also try changing my settings as Nuno suggested above, however when I run P3D I have no noticeable spin up of the 3 fans: It's really pretty quiet when I am simming.

 

Cheers.

Thanks.
I have used the latest version, as installed by iCUE's update and the latest firmware, also as installed by iCUE.
As it seems to work better without iCUE, I am at present assessing it using HWiNFO to see what is going on and it all looks good.
The fans are running slower, but apparently, more effectively, the pump rpm does vary a little and the temperatures are slightly lower across the board.
So less noise, more effort.
 

 

Here is another option (SIV - System Information Viewer) for controlling fan speeds: http://rh-software.com/

It's not terribly intuitive to setup, but I've been using it for 6 years with a Corsair H115i and it works great. One can set separate fan and pump speed curves, although I'm skeptical of the benefit of varying pump speed, with the exception that maybe slower pump speed would seem to logically increase longevity. I like the fact that SIV uses almost no system resources, starts automatically on Windows start, and it's been set-and-forget. I don't think it offers RGB lighting control, but I may be mistaken.

SIV also shows temp values of individual CPU cores, GPU temp and fan speed, core and clock speeds for CPU and GPU and MANY other values. It's not quite HWiNFO level for viewing system values, but close. It appears there are MANY other functions SIV can control but I haven't dug into anything other than fan/pump speed control.

2 hours ago, Reader said:

Thanks, could it be that the motherboard and iCUE are conflicting with one another?
I had iCUE set up like that and some of the time it worked.
But then it would just leave the fans running at high speed, even though the CPU temperature was down to 27C.

It depends. In my case, i have them connected to the pump directly so the motherboard has no effect on them (also, i have QFAN disabled as i have no fans connected to the motherboard).

If you have them connected to the motherboard, i don't think iCUE can control them, but i might be wrong.

Thanks, my fans are also connected to the H150i, with the single wire to the CPU fan header.
The H150i is connected to the motherboard via usb and power drawn from a SATA power plug.
It does appear that the motherboard has taken control of the Corsair fans, their speed varies with the
temperature, as does the speed of the pump, though only slightly.
This is not what I had expected in the absence of the iCUE software.
This is HWiNFO after starting P3D v5, just as an example.
The figures are:                          Current         Minimum        Maximum   Average

Thanks for all the good advice so far.

Edited August 26, 20223 yr by Reader

Just to finish this off, I have found that the motherboard does a far better job of cooling my CPU with the H150i than iCUE does.
I don't need iCUE to control any lighting, so I plan to leave it uninstalled.
Many thanks for all of the good advice that you took the trouble to give me, it's much appreciated.