Bad AIO Pump?
Hello guys! This is my1st ever post on reddit and my 2nd ever PC build. I've had these parts for basically 2-3 months now and have had some issues with what seems to be the AIO Pump and was wondering if someone could help me confirm if its the case before trying to return it and get a new one.
I've been noticing since day one some unprecedented noise coming from what looks like the central region of the Motherboard and maybe from the pump itself.
The AIO is the Corsair iCue Link Titan 360 RX and after some research, I ended up buying this as my fans were all from Corsair and wanted to try out the eco-hub daisy chain system it provides as the motherboard also has more ARGB than RGB headers. I don't see anybody having this particular issue but basically I'm getting a slow humming and sometimes a constant whining noise in unison with some minor vibration that is infuriatingly annoying. Its audible regardless of whatever temps the cpu has. It can be idle at 40-45c and still make the noise (though not as loud) but on 70c+ its definitely audible to the point where I would prefer using headphones. The noise doesn't happen as soon as the pc turns on but rather awhile after, kind of like when a car starts and then after its done heating up the engine, instead of quieting down, in this case, it starts with the low hum and then eventual whine when browsing/gaming or any other cpu focused task. It doesnt always happen, and on occasion, the whining actually stops even under full load at 70 ish temps too. Let me add that the fans are speed regulated to the AIO coolant and that is pretty much always around 30-40c regardless of Cpu speeds and temps (From what iCue tells me). I also believe its coming from the pump due to feeling small vibrations when it gives off those sounds, on the actual pump itself rather than on the GPU, Ram, or any of the fans around the whole case.
I've tried reapplying thermal paste (Initial time was Grizzly and second time was Corsair), removing the AIO to check if the liquid was moving inside the radiator and attempting to remove any possible air bubbles by manually putting the radiator higher up from the pump (when I disassembled it) - while also setting fans to max speed before removing and after inserting the AIO for this test. The temps are fine but the noise is sometimes unbearably annoying. I've checked fan curves and it didn't help at all, and pump fan speed is running on 2,800-2,900 RPM at all times which is said to be absolutely normal.
Am I missing something? Can this just be a flawed design for a marketing design said to be very silent but actually isn't? Is it a bad Pump? Should I return it as its under warranty or try my luck with another AIO?
I will list PC specs below in case of maybe any hardware incompatibility that you guys may see and also a video of the noise (which is quite hard to record as the microphone doesn't capture it as efficiently as I would've liked so definitely need to turn volume up to hear the whine).
CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 9800x3D
CPU Cooler - Corsair iCue Link Titan 360 RX
Motherboard - GIGABYTE X870 AORUS Elite WIFI7 ICE
GPU - XFX Mercury AMD Radeon RX 9070XT OC Magnetic Air White Edition
RAM - CORSAIR Vengeance RGB DDR5 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 6000MHz
Storage - Samsung 990 PRO SSD 2TB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen4 / Samsung 980 PRO SSD 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe Gen 4 Gaming M.2 (Need to update these in the near future)
PSU - Corsair RM850, RM Series, 80 Plus Gold Certified, 850 W Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (From my initial build 4 years ago but said to be completely fine)
Case - Cooler Master MasterCase H500P Mesh White ARGB Airflow ATX Mid-Tower (From initial build 4 years ago)
Fans - CORSAIR iCUE Link RX120 RGB
Thanks once again!