I have had my vega 56 running on an ek waterblock for 2 years without issue but it had come the time that the block needed cleaning as it was gunking up.
I went to remove the waterblock from the card however the cheese metal screws seem to have welded themselves to the waterblock standoffs. The standoffs came free from the waterblock and the screws were firmly attached to them still, which is a ridiculous situation to be in and it apears no threadlocker was used to adhere the standoffs to the waterblock.
So i was at the point where i could get the screws out of the standoffs and off the gfx card but i also couldnt screw the standoffs back into the waterblock as the cheap screws had disintegrated which meant i now had a functional vega 56 but i could not use it.
The next step in the process was the remove the buggered screw from the standoff and replace it with a new one and reassemble the whole thing however the screw was so tightly stuck the the standoff i had to hold the standoff with a spanner and cut a new slot in the screw head to turn it.
The result of all-this appears to be that some tiny surface mount components may have been damaged trying to remove the screw from the standoff and my gfx card no longer powers up or is recognised by the pc.
So Thanks EK for cheaping out on materials and putting me in a situation where my gfx card is now dead, I spent over £90 on this block of copper and I expect the parts it comes with to be able to withstand disassembly for required maintenance not to fail and cause the needless death of a high end gpu.
I went to remove the waterblock from the card however the cheese metal screws seem to have welded themselves to the waterblock standoffs. The standoffs came free from the waterblock and the screws were firmly attached to them still, which is a ridiculous situation to be in and it apears no threadlocker was used to adhere the standoffs to the waterblock.
So i was at the point where i could get the screws out of the standoffs and off the gfx card but i also couldnt screw the standoffs back into the waterblock as the cheap screws had disintegrated which meant i now had a functional vega 56 but i could not use it.
The next step in the process was the remove the buggered screw from the standoff and replace it with a new one and reassemble the whole thing however the screw was so tightly stuck the the standoff i had to hold the standoff with a spanner and cut a new slot in the screw head to turn it.
The result of all-this appears to be that some tiny surface mount components may have been damaged trying to remove the screw from the standoff and my gfx card no longer powers up or is recognised by the pc.
So Thanks EK for cheaping out on materials and putting me in a situation where my gfx card is now dead, I spent over £90 on this block of copper and I expect the parts it comes with to be able to withstand disassembly for required maintenance not to fail and cause the needless death of a high end gpu.
should take some pics of the damage so we can see. Don't worry I won't judge, another member got his vega64 replaced (with one of my spares) and I fixed his 
That one was broken with a block as well.