GPU water block leaked again.

Thekwango · 8 Feb 2017 at 20:25

pastymuncher;30484210 said:
After the farce with the Predator units, not by a long shot. Several of us have had seperate blocks leak as well due to the O rings failing. Customer service seems to have gone really bad too. I have dropped EK altogether after my experience with their customer service.

that's a tad worrying as I'm planning my first WC loop (cpu only) around EK tubbing/fittings and pump. ah well, i'm bound to **** something up myself anyway!

elmuzzy66. · 11 Feb 2017 at 10:48

pastymuncher;30484210 said:
After the farce with the Predator units, not by a long shot. Several of us have had seperate blocks leak as well due to the O rings failing. Customer service seems to have gone really bad too. I have dropped EK altogether after my experience with their customer service.

I dropped them due to nickel flaking on blocks. Cpu was full EN nickel and even that was flaking. Same with my 670 block. Ive turned to xspc for my blocks, copper at that and no problem.

BowdonUK · 12 Feb 2017 at 23:58

Taking the system in to OC tomorrow for them to test it.

The water system was great for months. The only thing I've done recently was plug in a second monitor. It shouldnt have caused this problem. But just seems very coincidental. I'll update the thread when I hear an update.

BluD · 13 Feb 2017 at 00:11

elmuzzy66.;30493052 said:
I dropped them due to nickel flaking on blocks. Cpu was full EN nickel and even that was flaking. Same with my 670 block. Ive turned to xspc for my blocks, copper at that and no problem.

I've never seen the point of nickle plating if your not mixing fittings and rad metals, i would always choose copper blocks if i had the choice but in the past when nickel was the the only option i have noticed the copper starting to show through after a while. Im guessing the anti corrosive premixes probably helps to prevent that though. Im a cheap skate and will probably always be using water though

VKleita · 15 Feb 2017 at 08:11

pastymuncher said:
After the farce with the Predator units, not by a long shot. Several of us have had seperate blocks leak as well due to the O rings failing. Customer service seems to have gone really bad too. I have dropped EK altogether after my experience with their customer service.

+1

Very similar issues and a nightmare to resolve quickly.

BowdonUK · 15 Feb 2017 at 16:48

Just giving an update.

The leak turned out to be a slack fitting. But during testing there was an issue with the gfx's cards. OC replaced the 2x 980ti's with 1070's. They rebuilt the waterblocks back on. But found the system unstable. They ended up upgrading the cpu to an i7-7700K.

I think OC just became my favourite computer shop of all time!

Can't fault the service.

BluD · 15 Feb 2017 at 16:55

Thats good news, im glad they didnt mess you around and just replaced it all. At least it was just a loose fitting, maybe caused by a knock or just heating and cooling. I've noticed when fitting traps in kitchen sinks that sometimes the compression fitting on the waste loosen off after i have ran hot water few them a few times while testing, maybe a similar thing happened here. Hopefully it will put a few peoples mind to rest who were worried about leaking EK blocks too.

I bet you've got a big smile on your face with two new GPUs and a new CPU

BowdonUK · 15 Feb 2017 at 17:09

I agree about the fittings thing. From what I've read the loose fittings seem to be a thing with water cooling. Something to keep an eye on.

Yes, that was a surprise about the gfx cards and cpu. A belated Christmas present! lol

It shows what a difference it is to have the personal service when buying computers, especially the very expensive ones. It's always good to buy from a good computer shop rather than business retailers.

Hopefully it'll give people confidence when dealing with OC themselves too. It's good to know that if something goes wrong we're not left holding the baby, or in this case, the water block!

Thekwango · 15 Feb 2017 at 17:11

BluD said:
Hopefully it will put a few peoples mind to rest who were worried about leaking EK blocks too.

hardly - what would put peoples mind at rest would be them not leaking!

whiterabbit · 15 Feb 2017 at 18:48

We're the fittings tightened with an allen key?

If it was the rings ypu could try some thumb training exercises.

Never had a problem with ek fittings leaking.

BluD · 15 Feb 2017 at 18:48

Thekwango said:
hardly - what would put peoples mind at rest would be them not leaking!

hehe gotta admit i was just been a bit cheaky to see if anyone would respond

Thekwango · 15 Feb 2017 at 19:05

BluD said:
hehe gotta admit i was just been a bit cheaky to see if anyone would respond

Ahhh my sarcasm radar is out of kilter today! Apologies.

Bluntwrapped · 16 Feb 2017 at 18:42

Looking at the second pic, the compression fitting on the right looks like it has the wrong sized o ring fitted and it's been pushed down into the thread of the fitting.

Glad you got it sorted either way

BowdonUK · 17 Feb 2017 at 11:55

Comp arrived back today... I wish they wouldn't put so much packaging inside the comp. By the time I pulled it out I noticed the water tank was leaking from the bottom. I tightened it up.. so hopefully that will have fixed that. I'm going to keep my eye on it.

orbitalwalsh · 19 Feb 2017 at 21:03

BowdonUK said:
Comp arrived back today... I wish they wouldn't put so much packaging inside the comp. By the time I pulled it out I noticed the water tank was leaking from the bottom. I tightened it up.. so hopefully that will have fixed that. I'm going to keep my eye on it.

Double unlucky to be lucky to having another small has luck. Hopefully res leak is ok

BowdonUK · 19 Feb 2017 at 22:48

orbitalwalsh said:
Double unlucky to be lucky to having another small has luck. Hopefully res leak is ok

Sadly it seems something is still wrong. Water res is dropping water level an inch per day, and there is a bubble that only grows bigger the longer the machine is on.

It is starting to get very stressful all this back and forth repairing. OC are being good though and correcting things. But it is annoying to buy a £3000+ water cooled computer when its had nothing but issues with it. I think I've only been able to enjoy gaming on it for about 6 months before it developed a (second) fault.

I just want a working PC. I didn't think a water cooled PC would be so delicate. I've just sent a web note to see what we can get sorted.

I like OC and I've bought my new monitor from them and intend to buy more things in the future. I like to support local computer businesses. But my water cooling experience is giving me all the stress I tried to avoid by ordering a pre-made build.

Sorry for ranting guys. It just stresses me out.

pastymuncher · 20 Feb 2017 at 08:54

So where is all this water going? Surely not over your components? I would be tempted to do one of two things. The first would be to push for a full refund and get shot of the damn thing once and for all. The second would be to strip the watercooling down and fix it myself once and for all. Yes you paid for a built system but for some reason either they are incapable of fixing it or it's getting damaged in transit and in either case that's unacceptable. I would at least stop using it and drain the loop to prevent anything nasty happening.

Jediben · 20 Feb 2017 at 14:01

I wonder if there are bubbles (big ones?!) that have shifted in the loop and dropped the water level that much. If you can't see where the water is going, maybe it isn't a leak but air instead? Have you topped up the fluid at all?

BowdonUK · 20 Feb 2017 at 15:12

Jediben said:
I wonder if there are bubbles (big ones?!) that have shifted in the loop and dropped the water level that much. If you can't see where the water is going, maybe it isn't a leak but air instead? Have you topped up the fluid at all?

I haven't topped up the liquid. I got it back on Friday and the water res was nearly at the top. Inspecting the inside before I plugged it in I noticed the water res dripping at the bottom, an actual trickle. I screwed the water res tight and it stopped that trickle.

At that point I didn't notice the big bubble. It was only after running the system during Friday that at night I noticed the bubble and also noticed the water level dropped.

The bubble still sits there and the water level still drops. I've no doubt the bubble is keeping the water level high and if the bubble does go in to the res the level will predictably drop lower. I think if there wasn't a leak then the water level would just stay the same until the bubble worked its way out.

I did leave a webnote last night and expected them to reply this morning, as they usually have done before. Instead I got an automatic email asking 'How did we do?" and trying to get me to leave feedback on trustpilot. I think at this moment I wouldn't want to give a probably unfair view of my experiences.

I'm going to leave a message in the private sections in the forum to see if I can get any joy in there.

Disco_P · 20 Feb 2017 at 16:43

It's normal for air bubbles to get in the system after filling or if the system has been tipped over for some reason.

It's not normal for a bubble of that size to form. To get rid of bubbles quickly I'd usually tip the system side to side and front to back or shake the system whilst the pump is running at full pelt then let it sit completely off for a few seconds before starting the pump again and repeating. However I understand if you can't do this so the next best thing is to leave the pump running at full whack.

But seeing as this is an OcUK prebuild there shouldn't be any need for this. I'd give them one more shot do it right, even if it takes a day or two to properly leak test and everything and then consider other options.