The original post: /r/watercooling by /u/NickNubbz on 2024-12-26 10:04:49.

So I know this has always been a debate but does loop order matter?

I recently finished my water cooled build yesterday and gaming on it last night everything was fine and even gaming on it for hours tonight everything was good but when I was on my last game of valorant I had major fps drops, it wouldn’t even go above 20. I decided to restart my pc and got sent to bios with a cpu overheating error and bios showed it at 86c on idle.

I’m trying to troubleshoot and figure out what the issue is. I currently have 2 360 mm radiators cooling a ryzen 9 5950x and a 3090 with a corsair hydro x res/pump combo.

I guess my first question is could it be the loop order? I currently have it setup like so as it was the easiest and cleanest look.

Pump->rad->gpu->rad->cpu->pump

I also notice a bunch of tiny air bubbles through out the loop including in the cpu block.

Could that be the issue?

The cpu block also looks like it’s only half way filled with coolant and not all the way filled up.

Any input and info would be greatly appreciated!