CPU water cooler leaked

lukus001

lukus001

lukus001

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Joined
22 Mar 2010
Posts
24
Hi all,

I recently bought a PC (2 months old!!) which had an "Eco CoolIT" CPU cooler. The thing (pump) started making rattling sounds so I was sending in an RMA e-mail to overclockers about it; anticipating that it would die on me in the coming week.

Hours after sending the e-mail, the pump explodes (i hear it pop and stop running) and it starts pumping all the fluid out...

I set up a CPU heat monitor before hand, and set it to warn on 55 degrees in case the pump did fail on me. I didn't antipate it to explode and leak on me though... I alt-tabbed to my cpu monitor and watched the temp rise from say to 48 to 51 and as i was about to turn the computer off it crashed (screen froze).

what is the chance of permanent damage? The screen only froze. The motherboard was completely covered in liquid and it looks like the PSU narrowly avoided any contact.

im actually getting some dionised water to clean the motherboard with properly... Does anyone have experience in this?

Pretty ****ed off with the eco coolit right now. The pump failing I can uderstand but popping and forcing a leak? gtfo -_-;;
 
lots of pictures, will be your friend in this situation :)

Proof what happened, and proof to us!

Bad luck though. Get the wet items in the sun to dry out for a good few days quick?
 
Take pics, and return the whole PC rather than just the cooling kit, better to stay safe, you don't want something else to fail at a later date due to the pump leak. Probs best to phone OCUK asap to get the wheels in motion.

Sounds like the pumps built up too much pressure or a blockage in the loop and popped, do water cooling kits have breathers to stop over-pressure?
 
Thanks for the replies.

Well it popped last night, had I been less naive in thinking only the pump would have died (as I really didn't expect it to cause a leak, the unit worked flawlessly otherwise with 27 degrees low load), otherwise I would have been much quicker in turning the power off. Though as soon as the computer crashed and I turned it off i did pull it out from the wall because of a 'burning smell' (which is actually just the liquid that smells :<)

last Night however I was more concerned with getting the pump off asap and getting all the liquid off so didn't stop for one moment to take pics :(. Didnt even know it had leaked utill I took the cover off.

I've just spent today cleaning the motherboard off so the motherboard looks as good as new and i've dried it off as much as possible carefully with some hot air (hairdryer) as I've read online as the recommended thing to do.

As much as sending all the components into OC sounds good, I did order and build it myself so if they are (for arguments sake) all fried completely what are they going to do? its £700 odd worth of componets :/

The pump is one of those self sealed/ contained ones so I don't know if it has a breather of some sort... You'd of thought since they supply corsair with some of their models and they've been supplying theirs for a while now it would account for over pressure, bing self sealed at the manufacturers

I'll probably wait till monday to call them now.
 
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I just wouldn't touch anything else until you have spoken to someone at OCUK, IF it has damaged other components you could argue the faulty pump caused the damage and you wish to be compensated for the parts in question. Its a tricky one to deal with but I hear OCUK's support team are very good, they may even offer to test the other components as a gesture of goodwill?
 
It will usually be CoolIT who compensate, not OCUK. It's happened before with Corsair and a couple of their H- systems.

It's going to be hard to get compensation though without pictures. Have you tried booting? Is everything fried?

PS: (You've probably done this, but make sure your clean off involved lots of isopropyl alcohol (or deionised water at least), as just wiping off the liquid and drying with a hair-dryer would leave lots of residue stuck in slots and in deeper hard to get to bits. They're liable to go up in smoke as soon as you turn it on.)
 
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I have not tried booting and I won't try until it's been left to dry off completely (well, i need a new cpu cooler for that anyway). Everywhere says give it a good week to dry and I believe that would be wise, since there were still wet patches from last night despite my best efforts to soak it all up.

I wouldn't of thought my graphic card, memory or PSU would have been damaged, at most it would be my motherboard and possibly cpu. When I took the CPU out today it was wet underneath so :(

and yes, I've rinsed the motherboard off several times with deionised water, then went around with some super flat /thin "Qtips" that I have for cleaning my fusion splicer

Regarding pictures, I don't know what to do. Sure I don't have any of when it leaked, but I don't see how that would show I didn't just pour water over my motherboard XD
 
For good measure I would give it a good spray with some electrical component cleaner too, also grab a can of compressed air, make sure to get in all the pci lanes, memory slots etc...

I get allot of electrical components at work that have had high exposure to water (left outside on an oil rig or dropped in the north sea). Nothing cures bad insulation like a solvent cleaner and compressed air :D
 
Well I gave them a call today, which seemed pretty pointless :/

Called support > They said motherboard etc should be fine so long as it's all cleaned up. Didn't have my order number on me at hand so they said I would have to call sales to get it since I didn't have access to my computer...

Call sales > they said they can't do the RMA and I would have to call support, got my order number from sales though.

Called support > No you have to use the online form to request an RMA number -_-

this is on top of already sending in 3 e-mails via the RMA webnote system, with the last reply from OC saying "it would be best to RMA the device" + no RMA number? lol. despite clearly saying the thing leaked and was defective.

+ This is now on top of me having to send two e-mails from when I placed my original order asking for an ETA on out of stock items and asking about my hard drives that I ordered having their product pages taken down for the first response just to say "out of stock items will delay your order" < lol??? then for me to re ask about the hard drives, to be told that it was fine and they have been put aside for me For only 1 to arrive and me having to get refund on the second one because they weren't getting any more in stock...

Does OC hate me? :'( lol. I wonder if they gave me this eco coolit on purpose :<
 
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