How to kill the Valkyrie V360 MERLIN pump noise in TLOU 2?
Man, this pump sounded like I had a mini power drill trapped in my chassis. Every time a fight broke out, that high-pitched whine completely drowned out the atmospheric dread of the game. The Valkyrie V360 MERLIN pump was running at full blast by default; sure, it kept my temps at a frosty 55℃ - 60℃, but the 45dB resonance was pure torture. I tried dropping the pump speed to 50% in the software, but the coolant temp spiked to 42℃ and the CPU throttled instantly. Trading performance for silence like that is a joke. I eventually switched the pump to a smart PWM mode, letting it fluctuate linearly between 60℃ - 80℃, and synced the radiator fans to 70%. Using a decibel meter, the noise dropped from 46dB to 32dB, with core temps only rising slightly to 64℃ - 68℃. I spent a good half hour tilting my case to bleed out air bubbles, thinking that was the cause, only to realize it was just frequency resonance. Pump power draw stayed around 12W - 15W, and fan speeds locked in at 1400RPM - 1600RPM. It took a lot of trial and error, but the noise is finally gone.