Help - Water cooling leak!

Mr Mcgoo · 25 Jan 2021 at 15:17

fingers crossed it's fine. if not and your aio is still in warranty you could claim from corsair as they should not do that.

Malton49 · 25 Jan 2021 at 17:00

GOOD NEWS!! The airing cupboard seems have done the trick, just plugged it in al instantly all the lights came back on and now up and running ran it all the way to the bios and all good no issues.

must have been still wet and obviously shorting it but a good iso clean and airing cupboard seems to have fixed it. Now I can look to get a new GPU, thanks for all the advice guys! Legends.

Mr Mcgoo · 25 Jan 2021 at 17:08

Glad it's all working for you. Give it a few days of use before you jump on the gpu wagon. Want to make sure it doesn't fail/short again. Either way you got very lucky. Was your aio still in warranty?

Zeeflyboy · 25 Jan 2021 at 18:02

Happy days!

IICIIEII · 25 Jan 2021 at 19:33

One good trick to quickly and safely recover wetted PCBs or boards is to immerse them in distilled water to remove salt traces. This also promotes oxidation, so the board needs to be dried afterwards and, when no water is visible, the component has to be immersed in ultrapure isopropanol. In this step all the remaining water mixes with the isopropanol and the board becomes "dehydrated", preventing oxidation and effectively removing any water that could be left on it. Immersion in isopropanol is also a great cleaning method. I am aware that people do not usually have litres of isopropanol and distilled water at home but if your PC is liquid cooled the idea of having a smal stash is not so crazy

.

Malton49 · 25 Jan 2021 at 21:42

My main pc is currently out of action as I’m now waiting for a new CPU cooler, opted for air this time rather than an AIO. Went for the Be Quiet Dark Rock 135mm. (Any previous experience would be of help)

Therefore, while I patiently wait for it to be delivered, give it some more time to dry fully to be 100% safe. In the meantime I’m using my old PC from 2012. Blast in the past, prepare yourselves, AMD fx 6100 with a MSI 7850 twin frozr. It has windows 10 installed on it and still can run csgo comfortably.

Just shows you can still enjoy gaming on a 2012 gaming PC in 2021!

Malton49 · 25 Jan 2021 at 21:44

Also, not too sure if it is in warranty, Called Corsair up today and they’ve raised a ticket for claims so we’ll find out, they even offered to repair any damage, presumably if still in warranty, although it’s a Corsair H105. Let’s just say I’m not hopeful.

Mr Mcgoo · 25 Jan 2021 at 23:43

they have a 5 year warranty so if it was purchased within the last 5 years for good for refund/replacement

adrichardson81 · 26 Jan 2021 at 13:22

Really glad it worked out! Makes me wonder why AIOs don't have leak detection though.

Wolfdale · 26 Jan 2021 at 18:30

Be Quiet Dark Rock 4 - works fine for me. You get a nice screwdriver included!

Assemble with the motherboard out of the case. Will save a lot of swearing trying to get the fan clips on. The elements will bend easily too so handle with care!

The 135mm fan does obstruct the 1st DIMM slot on my motherboard. Bear this in mind.

adrichardson81 · 26 Jan 2021 at 20:31

Wolfdale said:
Be Quiet Dark Rock 4 - works fine for me. You get a nice screwdriver included!

Assemble with the motherboard out of the case. Will save a lot of swearing trying to get the fan clips on. The elements will bend easily too so handle with care!

The 135mm fan does obstruct the 1st DIMM slot on my motherboard. Bear this in mind.

Kind of reminds me why I use an AIO (leak risk aside) - 4 dimms and zero space in my case. Not that I'd change the case!

Malton49 · 27 Jan 2021 at 10:47

Gentlemen, we’re back again with more issues, now the computer is stuck in a boot loop. Last night was working a treat, never seen it run better any better. Switched it off last night, went to boot it up this morning and constant boot loop cycle.

All the lights on the motherboard indicating one issue VRAM on the LED indicator which seems to me I’ve got dodgy RAM. But when I get the screen to enter the bios, I’m mashing F2 and DEL, but nothing happens. Then it cycles into another loop and another loop?

Any ideas what this could be?

mickyflinn · 27 Jan 2021 at 11:04

Vram do you mean dram ?

Usually relates to memory try one stick at a time.

Mr Mcgoo · 27 Jan 2021 at 14:00

it maybe that some residue has been left after you ran the system last night. as the system heated up it evaporated the excess alcohol and coolant but left maybe some dust in the dram slot. give it a clean with a some canned air or give it and really hearty blow out with your breath

Stu · 29 Jan 2021 at 14:18

Zeeflyboy said:
Did you take the cpu out when you dried it? Liquid would hang around there.

I would take the motherboard out again, take the cpu and ram etc all out and ideally give it all a rinse in some IPA if you have any (not the beer, isopropyl alcohol) and leave it in a warm place for 72hrs to make sure every crevice is fully dried.

An AIO usually uses non conductive liquid (distilled water and maybe some glycol) so if you can get it cleaned with alcohol and fully dried out you might still be ok.

I really don't believe that water in an AIO is so ultra pure to be non conducting.

Zeeflyboy · 29 Jan 2021 at 14:54

Stu said:
I really don't believe that water in an AIO is so ultra pure to be non conducting.

Even normal tap water is a seriously poor conductor and we’re only talking 12v at most here unless it hits the PSU. Throw a 12v lead acid into a bucket of water and watch as nothing spectacular happens - the current flow is absolutely tiny due to how high the resistance is.

So even just plain old poor DI water isn’t likely going to cause any surge in a short circuit and damage things at 12v, the concern is mostly oxidation damage.

Stu · 29 Jan 2021 at 15:27

Zeeflyboy said:
Even normal tap water is a seriously poor conductor and we’re only talking 12v at most here unless it hits the PSU. Throw a 12v lead acid into a bucket of water and watch as nothing spectacular happens - the current flow is absolutely tiny due to how high the resistance is.

So even just plain old poor DI water isn’t likely going to cause any surge in short circuit and damage things at 12v, the concern is mostly oxidation damage.

The water from the AIO is obviously conductive enough otherwise the leak would not have shorted out the system.

Zeeflyboy · 29 Jan 2021 at 16:43

Who says it shorted it, all it has to do is alter the resistance across sensitive components (like a shunt mod in essence) and the system will stop working.

The very fact it worked after drying out despite being powered when the leak occurred (and then again before being fully dried out) is proof enough that the liquid isn’t conductive enough to cause damage by shorting - the resistance is far too high for sufficient current to flow at 12v or less to burn out traces/components.

Zeeflyboy · 29 Jan 2021 at 18:06

Malton49 said:
Gentlemen, we’re back again with more issues, now the computer is stuck in a boot loop. Last night was working a treat, never seen it run better any better. Switched it off last night, went to boot it up this morning and constant boot loop cycle.

All the lights on the motherboard indicating one issue VRAM on the LED indicator which seems to me I’ve got dodgy RAM. But when I get the screen to enter the bios, I’m mashing F2 and DEL, but nothing happens. Then it cycles into another loop and another loop?

Any ideas what this could be?

You definitely mean VRAM? If so probably corrosion on at least some of the PCIe connector pins causing dodgy contact with the GPU (or the GPU got liquid damage - can you test in another system?).

If dram, try one stick at a time - could again be corrosion on the ram slot connectors.