What happens if your rad leaks?

Michaeljcox24 · 26 Apr 2012 at 08:30

I was at the OcUk counter last week and struck up a conversation with a lad in there who was returning some watercooling kit. He said the rad had leaked, but fortunately he had mounted it outside the case so none of his components were knackered.

Say for example if he had of mounted it inside and the thing leaked and it did indeed bugger everything up. What is the situation legally in terms of replacing parts. Who do you contact? Are you covered by any sort of insurance?

To be fair it put me off w/c a tad so I would be interested in knowing the answer to this question.

jeff6475 · 26 Apr 2012 at 08:58

home insurance should cover any damage,like having a flood

craarc · 26 Apr 2012 at 08:59

all my kit except one res is outside my case, i think thats better and it assists in cooling also imo.
But if you build it well enough you shouldnt have any leaks. i guess just like any parts tho if its a manufacturing fault and it leaks you can send it back depending on age but if it also ruins other items in the process i guess your only recourse is house insurance claim. ive just claimed some back on an old monitor to cover the cost of a new one so i guess the same would be true other items. just an lol thought "water damage" most policys cover that .

craarc · 26 Apr 2012 at 08:59

jeff6475 said:
home insurance should cover any damage,like having a flood

ha you just beat me to the water bit

gatecrasherlok · 26 Apr 2012 at 09:30

It's like any other product, be it air or water, if it does not work then it needs to be returned. in the case of watercooling you should always test the watercooling componants outside of the case first to check for leaks. In the case of a radiator, in the unfortunate circumstance when flushing a radiator you should pretty much find out if the product is damaged or not pretty quickly.

Michaeljcox24 · 26 Apr 2012 at 09:44

gatecrasherlok said:
It's like any other product, be it air or water, if it does not work then it needs to be returned. in the case of watercooling you should always test the watercooling componants outside of the case first to check for leaks. In the case of a radiator, in the unfortunate circumstance when flushing a radiator you should pretty much find out if the product is damaged or not pretty quickly.

He said he'd had the loop in his rig since Feb, and the rad leaked a couple of months later. Manufacturers fault? If so, would the people who make the rad be liable for paying for your new parts?

craarc · 26 Apr 2012 at 09:56

i wouldnt think so but maybe replacing the rad only as its not lasted as expected. the only other route would be the insurrance one i guess

gatecrasherlok · 26 Apr 2012 at 10:11

Ahh kk,if that is the case then I'd still send it back as I'm sure the life of a radiator in todays day and age should last more than a couple of months.

TwsT · 26 Apr 2012 at 10:23

Rad's rarely leak, and you know about it if you puncture it fitting it.

Always test the loop away from cream carpets with no power going to the components.

If a rad did go faulty due to normal wear and tear then it would be covered under it's warranty like everything else, and treated as such.

zx|muppet · 26 Apr 2012 at 10:45

i had one of my old systems covered in DI water and it still worked fine lol! guess its just luck in some cases tho

Mayhems · 26 Apr 2012 at 11:34

If a rad leaks then it means shoddy workmanship from who ever made it "OR" they pierced the rad with there screws or the placed the rad on some thing and pierced it.. The former is extremely rare the latter is very common.

Vore · 26 Apr 2012 at 20:52

Dionized water is less likely to conduct electricity compared to less pure water, so hopefully you will not need to leverage insurance if something leaks

JonJ678 · 27 Apr 2012 at 07:34

I cracked a cpu block at one point and didn't notice until water was running out the bottom of the case. That was a steady trickle down the board, pooling around the base of the gpu, then out a hole in the bottom. The system was switched on at the time, seems to be no harm done.

Electronics don't hate water as much as I used to think they did. There's a guy on here running a chilled water setup that features water running off his gpu, doesn't seem to have hurt him either.

paradigm · 27 Apr 2012 at 08:11

JonJ678 said:
I cracked a cpu block at one point and didn't notice until water was running out the bottom of the case. That was a steady trickle down the board, pooling around the base of the gpu, then out a hole in the bottom. The system was switched on at the time, seems to be no harm done.

Electronics don't hate water as much as I used to think they did. There's a guy on here running a chilled water setup that features water running off his gpu, doesn't seem to have hurt him either.

DC voltage doesn't really "hate" water at all. You can quite happily run most DC circuits quite literally under water.

Getting a leak into your PSU however, there's a nasty waiting to happen!

zx|muppet · 27 Apr 2012 at 08:45

with the antec case im running now i dread the day i get a leak! psu in the bottom of the case

when i was running my vapochill i remember when doing stupid oc's and getting the cpu to + temps it used to drip down the back of the mobo! the asus mobo i was using then that was also watercooled is STILL working today and when i say it was dripping.. it was basically streaming during some benchmarks

Cold_And_Miserable · 27 Apr 2012 at 16:03

JonJ678 said:
That was a steady trickle down the board, pooling around the base of the gpu, then out a hole in the bottom. The system was switched on at the time, seems to be no harm done.

Same here except it slightly damaged the soundcard and made the GPU annoyingly extend the desktop every restart to a ghost VGA monitor. Washing in DI almost entirely cured the soundcard but I haven't tried washing the GPU yet.

Peedee · 27 Apr 2012 at 16:16

i had a PA120.3 that decided one day to leak from a pin hole sized hole, Worked fine for 3 years before.

I solderd over the hole and sold it long ago

craarc · 27 Apr 2012 at 22:20

dunno why i never thought of this before maybe i was sober all week but now.....

put a raw egg white in it......

JonJ678 · 27 Apr 2012 at 22:44

paradigm said:
DC voltage doesn't really "hate" water at all. You can quite happily run most DC circuits quite literally under water.

Getting a leak into your PSU however, there's a nasty waiting to happen!

AC and water doesn't behave anything like I expect it to, chemistry only told me about DC and Google's no great help. I think I expect water + psu to be bad- I wonder if it's the alternating voltage or using 230V rather than <12V that makes the difference.

Don't put egg white in a radiator to block holes. You don't want egg white in your cpu block. Solder is a good approach, alternatively I've filled a (bleed screw) hole in one with epoxy.

craarc · 27 Apr 2012 at 22:50

JonJ678 said:
AC and water doesn't behave anything like I expect it to, chemistry only told me about DC and Google's no great help. I think I expect water + psu to be bad- I wonder if it's the alternating voltage or using 230V rather than <12V that makes the difference.

Don't put egg white in a radiator to block holes. You don't want egg white in your cpu block. Solder is a good approach, alternatively I've filled a (bleed screw) hole in one with epoxy.

erm i was joking bout the egg bit im sure people would realise that .... hopefully

What happens if your rad leaks?

Vore

Vore