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Is it normal for a radiator to be warm?

shevanel

shevanel

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I know this might be a stupid question and I didn't want to really ask it but nothing returned from a google search.

I noticed top of rad is warm, near psu.. but the bottom of the rad is warm too. Is this normal?
 
depends on your ambient air temp and the load your system is under but yeah it will get warm,i always put my radiator out my window during the winter to get nice cold air through it
 
Mine get warm. Especially when you crank up the load.

But I think that they should... they're absorbing the heat in the water.
 
I'd be worried if the radiators in my house wern't warm...

Anyways... Warm, yes. Hot, NO.
 
I see you are running an i7, which seem to dump quite alot of heat, so therefore your rad will heat up as it cools your fluid.

If it is really warm to the touch, you may want to upgrade your fans or rad to a better one.
 
stock temps are 44/60-+ tops at stock

oc'd temps are 52/75-+ @ 1.3v and 190x21 4ghz
 
personally, the outside temp of my rad is about 23c right now, the ambient temp of the room is 18... and i'm gaming a lot right now so there is some load, however, my temps never get about 43 gaming at this ambient, and prolly 45 tops under full stress load at 1.55v 3.95Ghz... just my thoughts
 
Shev what fans are you running? I would look into getting some 120mm x 38mm fans if you already dont have them, they cool much better because of the static pressure and the extra cfm.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185054&Tpk=ultra kaze

I have 2 of these and they work great on my PII and AII. Granted those chips both run cooler than an i7. Delta also make some nice choices. Personally my cheapo rad is never warm to the touch.
 
it cools your loop by "radiating" heat.... so yes thats normal ;)
 
twicksisted said:
it cools your loop by "radiating" heat.... so yes thats normal ;)
Click to expand...

Well kinda of, it cools the loop by absorbing the heat from whatever coolant is being used, then fans are suppose to remove that heat.
 
I have 4 120mm fans on the radiator.. Right now after the pc has been off for a few hours the idle temp is 35c at stock. Later after the heat in my room builds up it'll idle nearly 10c hotter.
 
What CFM are those fans though? Most basic 120mm's are 60 - 70 cfm, which isn't bad, but the Ultra Kaze's are like 137cfm. I run 2 Ultra Kaze's on push and 2 lame 120mm's on pull. One time I found a loose fan connection somewhere and couldn't figure it out as all my fans looked to be spinning at the right speeds. I finally traced the wire to my top 120mm pull fan on my rad. It was spinning at full speed from the air the ultra kaze pushed through the rad and into it, I almost just left it unplugged, lol.
 
Do you have the fans mounted correctly?

Their was a guy in a another thread who had his fans blowing into his case.

And he had another rad as an exhaust, but he put the fan on the other side of it so it was sucking air from the rad rather then blowing air through it.
 
all fans blow away from the pc.

Temps are awesome stock, but once i crank up the i7 @ 4ghz it'll get toasty.

Pc has been on for about an hour @ stock

temp.jpg
 
Your getting heat soak, once you move into that there is no going back. i7's are heat mosters, adding another rad into the loop might do the trick, some higher CFM fans, or maybe a better flowing block. I'm thinking either better fans or a block, if I'm looking at it right you have a 1x 120mm rad and a 2x 120mm rad which should be enough. I'm telling you up that CFM, I dropped 10C going to my Ultra Kaze's, the noise is worth it.
 
I wish I didn't move to FL. Friggin october and it's going to be upper 90's, again.

I'm looking forward to the 45-60 days it'll get below 50f... come on winter!
 
shevanel said:
I wish I didn't move to FL. Friggin october and it's going to be upper 90's, again.

I'm looking forward to the 45-60 days it'll get below 50f... come on winter!
Click to expand...

Then you should move to the mid-west were for 45-60 days it might hit the 90's:laugh: To the point though the rad will get warm depending on load and how long it is running cause remember water may remove alot more heat than air but it also takes water longer to cool down.
 
yeah FL weather lol... setting heat records in October. Where is your rad? if its at the back of your rig, then you may wanna change locations and put it up front.

Usually rads that are too warm mean that they are overloaded. Ideally it should be only slightly warmer than ambient... but if you're getting 75C at load for 4ghz i7, I would say that you're doing well.
 
kenkickr said:
Then you should move to the mid-west were for 45-60 days it might hit the 90's:laugh: To the point though the rad will get warm depending on load and how long it is running cause remember water may remove alot more heat than air but it also takes water longer to cool down.
Click to expand...

No doubt, even on air cooling, I open my patio door and move my computer over by it I get load temps of 40c at my clock on AIR.

Wonderful -20 days.
 
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