a word of warning aka you learn the hard way

Reality|Bites · 18 Nov 2018 at 18:10

So a few days ago my loop started getting way too hot and the inlet/outlet fitting were too hot to touch.
My EK 140 pump res combo has been faulty from the get go, in that the res could pop off at anytime but once bled it usually stays there...most of the time.
So anyway the other night my gpu was hitting 75C which was a bad sign and the res kept popping off. I had a spare OC Cool Eisbecher res/pump combo laying around so I thought sod it i'm going to drain and swap pump units. The swap went easily enough but the filling and bleeding was another story. the fluid got as far as the CPU inlet but wasn't coming out the outlet....I'm still new to this and it's a different type of pump res combo so I left it running over night and nothing changed.

Today I came to the conclusion that the CPU block must be well..blocked, So it took it apart and low and behold a big bit of crud/mould stuck in the jet plane then I looked and the GPU block and yup massive crud in there as well. what caused this? I'll tell you!

A few months back when I was building this new loop I ran out of mayhems fluid as the res kept popping off and I thought why not just add a little tap water to top it up what harm can it really do?

Well today I found out what as little as 300ml of tap water can do! I've had to drain, strip and clean the whole system full of black crud! but thankfully a quick clean seems to have done the job....I'll never buy an EK pump res combo ever again.

tldr…...dodgy ek pump, added tap water, things grew, blocked the system up.....

Yeah it's Sunday and I've had a few drinks.

LuckyBenski · 19 Nov 2018 at 00:04

Something tells me your reservoir top was popping off because the blocks were too restrictive... Try your EK pump/res now and see if it does it again.

Were the blocks brand new when you installed the EK pump?

MrMD · 19 Nov 2018 at 03:50

Did you flush your radiators properly when you got them? sounds like gunk from unflushed rads

fornowagain · 19 Nov 2018 at 03:58

That's not from tap water, tiny amounts of contaminant. Your fluid will have biocide, unless you had hardly any in there so maybe algae. Or it could be Radiator resin? Mayhems breaking down? All copper loop, galvanic corrosion? One of the fittings corroding?

A pump running in a loop with no rad or with very little flow, the water will get very hot, then the air in the res expands. Then, well you might want to add an automatic pressure relief valve on the top of the res.

CageyH · 19 Nov 2018 at 18:20

Why don’t you talk to EK customer support. They are very good.
They will probably replace you pump/res if it is faulty, but to me it sounds like the issue of blocked blocks was there before and the res popping off was a symptom of the problem due to a pressure build up.

dlresponse · 20 Nov 2018 at 16:16

Stories like this is why I am terrified to venture into water cooling considering the parts surrounding the cooling system.

CageyH · 20 Nov 2018 at 18:54

I was nervous, but a few precautions make it pretty safe.

Parsley · 21 Nov 2018 at 23:14

dlresponse said:
Stories like this is why I am terrified to venture into water cooling considering the parts surrounding the cooling system.

It's fine if you set the loop up and jump the power supply. You run the pump by itself and leak test, fill the computer with kitchen roll and let it run for awhile, using the opportunity to get as much air out of the loop as you can. If it doesn't leak at that point you're going to be fine. If it leaks then it leaks, no power is going through your components and you can clean it up.,

Using soft tubing and compression fittings also really reduces the chances of anything going wrong.

midweek · 25 Nov 2018 at 11:43

Watercooling is really rewarding. As stated just take your time and thoroughly leak test.

ibpalle · 28 Nov 2018 at 13:17

Had a recent scare as well a couple of months back. In my fileserver I had installed the leftovers of my watercooling components after a few upgrades to my desktop. An XSPC reservoir/pump combo which has been happily humming along for about 3 years UNTIL!!! Due to my lack of diligence, I didn't check water levels for over a year. Over time the water evaporated from the loop, not all of it, just enough so the pump wasn't cooled properly. I was sitting at home (luckily) on a lazy sunday gaming away and all of a sudden I hear a loud bang and smoke start coming out of the reservoir, along with a distinct burning smell. I immediately powered the fileserver off and checked out the damage. The pump was pooched of course, the reservoir cracked at the top. No leakage into the case so components were safe. Very lucky as the reservoir was sat just over my 4 6TB drives in a raid 5 array

Very grateful I was home at the time this happened as the fileserver runs 24/7. Prompted a fileserver upgrade that I had been putting off for a time and went with aircooling for that iteration. Everything that has gone wrong with watercooling in my builds have always been down to user error, never had a failure, knock on wood