DDC Pump Advice Please

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2004
Posts
13,160
Location
Nottingham
Hello OCUK Watercooling chaps,

For a long time I've used a XSPC / DDC-1PlusT res/pump combo on a CPU (I7-2600G@ 4.0MHz so not insane) loop only (images below). I'll admit now I've not really looked after this as I should, its waaaay past its flush and clean date but its got a couple of kill coils in it, its distilled water only with no additives, at idle the pc is little more than room temperature and under full load it barely goes over 50 degrees and its been a cooling joy since day one....until yesterday.

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Whilst gaming i was getting horrible performance, what felt like CPU hitching etc etc. Anyway I rebooted and got a bios driven CPU overheating warning and noticed the pump was'nt working. A few taps got it going again and away I went. Its never done this before, it clearly needs a water change, flush out and new liquid, i know that but... In September this rig is being completely replaced, bar the SSD's so I am loath to throw money at it replacing things.

Questions then, what to do?

1. Clean / Flush / Replace the water in the hope that the pump is just a bit gunked (you can see some discoloration on one of the photos). Is cleaning the pump likely to help, its silent so its bearings are ok?

2. Do the above but replace the DDC-1plusT, they are around £60 new

3. Do nothing and hope for the best.

If option 2, how feasible is using the pump in the new pc? It wont be being used with this res as I have other plans for a significantly larger case and would be looking at either a traditional cylinder res or something else. I'm so out of the loop :P with things these days I have no idea if these pumps are still usable?

Your thoughts and help are appreciated.
 
Option 1
And I would open the pump too in case there's gunk in there as there's very little
Gap around the impeller
And there's no bearings as such in the pump
At most they use 1 ceramic bearing
Opened a DDC the other day
It's a spindle shaft the impeller sits on
With a ceramic washer at the top
The impeller is turned by magnets and lubricated by the coolant
 
I'm not a fan of the DDC pumps they stick and fail to start too easily. As above I have had a few that have required the tap to start approach even after cleaning. I wasn't confident in it starting every time so had the panel off my case so I could see the pump started every time I powered on my computer. Finally changed to a D5.

If you can get by for now with cleaning it should bring it back to life for a while but I wouldn't carry it over into a new build.
 
i always put the pump pwm on cpu header
if it fails to start you get a cpu fan error message on boot
for non pwm pumps i have free software called sidebar diagnostics
i can always see the cpu temp
so know if my pumps working or not by the temp
it also lists other useful info too

cYuiPkL.png
 
I'm not a fan of the DDC pumps they stick and fail to start too easily. As above I have had a few that have required the tap to start approach even after cleaning. I wasn't confident in it starting every time so had the panel off my case so I could see the pump started every time I powered on my computer. Finally changed to a D5.

If you can get by for now with cleaning it should bring it back to life for a while but I wouldn't carry it over into a new build.

Tell that to my two. 15 years old and going strong :cool:
 
Tell that to my two. 15 years old and going strong :cool:
Without sounding harsh has the production quality remained constant since you purchased yours 15 years ago?

So in the same fashion I could say tell that to my 3 that all died the same way as the ops did.

you could try google though and you will find it is very common for newer ddc pumps to fail in the 1st year.
 
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