Need advice

[Akrian]

Hello.
Well I need your ideas my friends.
I've finished my build. Ran the system, and wohoo it worked at everything was a-ok!
Then I noticed that there was that electrical buzz sound comming from my PC, well I though it might have been some wire going bad on a fan or smthg, and I was planning to re-do the fans and arrange the wiring soon.
However in two days after the build was in its final "test,play, OC" stage I saw that my reservoir was about 8/10 full, although I filled it up completely and let it run for 7h bfr that.
Soo I filled the thing up again, and later noticed that buzz sound again, and basically there is a leak somewhere in the system, because there seems to be air comming from god knows where and water level in reservoir dropping slowly, but dropping non-the-less.
I've checked the CPU block, and all three gpu blocks, checked all of the connections and fittings, no leaks there ( checked them about 15 times in 5h span, making sure that it werent them, but then again, if it where, my wouldnt be able to play BF3 last night like crazy), so it must come from one of the rads. I pinpointed that buzz sound ( its there only when the whole system is working with all fans), and its comming from the right top corner of the system ( soo I would assume somewhere there my rad is slowly leaking water on to one of the fans, which creates the buzz).
At any rate, I just drained the system out ( ekoolant clear...I will miss you).

Now I need some great way to check all three rads ( RX120, RX360, Koolance140) for micro-leaks, so that I can RMA it with frozencpu or XSPC or Koolance ( whomever will take it and/or will be the source of my leaks.)


Ehhh and here I thought I will assemble the loop and forget it, and the temps where great too: 56c on CPU max, and 40 on GPUs max ( 3x7970 @ 1179/1630)



Any ideas will be greatly appreciated!!!! Thanks in advance!

[matari]

You should leak test 24-48 hours with only the pump on. The water reservoir will normally go down during this period. So just because it goes down doesn't imply leak. Depending on how well the loop is bleed, it might still see the water in the reservoir go down over the week. Once, you complete the the leak test, load up defaults and force load for at least 12 hours. Watch for leaks and make sure your gear is stable.

As for your radiator, submerge it in water. You should be able see any holes in the rad via bubbles. Don't leave the radiator in the water too long, the copper fins with oxidize/corrode Also, make sure the radiator is all copper/brass before you try this.

[Akrian]

Sooo it might be the case that I just had a random panic attack with no reason?

If I use distilled water for that test, is shouldnt corrode too much right?

[matari]

No, of you herd a buzz, you prolly have a leak. If it was a large leak you would see it. Water on live components can damage/destroy your gear. I would at bare minimum turn off your computer and let it dry for few days. If you know the area where the water leaked then you need to clean it.

The copper fins have no lacquer applied to them; they will oxidize/corrode much faster. The inside brass/copper tubes normally have lacquer applied, so no worries. Just make sure those fin are copper, not aluminum. Aluminum + copper or brass = bad

[matari]

Also, I would spend a bit more time bleeding your loop (moving case back and forth). Aeration of the coolant can lead to oxidation/corrosion of your copper components.

[Waterlogged]

Way too much emphasis on oxidation/corrosion for a simple dunk test.

[penguins]

I agree with waterlogged,

also you don't have a leak you just don't have all the air worked out
you can still have micro bubbles in a loop for weeks. ask questions before panic! : ). trust me we've all panicked.

[Akrian]

Well my panic is over :
1. Took apart the whole system
2. Filled plastic container with distilled water
3. put the rads in with tubing stuck in the air and pushed air through all of them -> no bubbles
4. Just in case I'm blind, filled the rads with distilled water, selaed them up, shook them as if I had a fit of anger or smthg -> no droppings anywhere.

Sooooo now since my system is torn apart, I will also replace a fan on 120mm and then put the whole thing back together.

Well now I'm sure I wont get leak from rads, and know that it is the air being pushed out. My first build here, didnt want to fry my shiny 7970s.

[Polizei]

Way too much emphasis on oxidation/corrosion for a simple dunk test.

Along with leak testing. 24-48hr is ridiculous, IMO, as is completely assembling the loop outside and mounting it up inside without taking it apart.

To jump start my pump, I use an old IDE hard drive external enclosure with the drive removed. Connect my pump up and voila, I have a push button to turn the pump on and off to bleed. The bleed process for my most recent loop took an hour because of my radiator orientations and reservoir size relative to radiator volume, so as soon as I got the majority of the air out with the case sitting on its feet, I started rotating it to burp it, adding water once in a while. If it doesn't leak in the hour that you're bleeding it, why would it leak after that?

That's also after putting all of my blocks on, installing hardware in the case, and then running tubing.

Maybe I'm more adept at taking risks than others, but I feel the "precautions" are going to get to the point where people are assembling loops in "clean rooms" so airborne mold and dust doesn't get in the res and create growth.

[wez]

Along with leak testing. 24-48hr is ridiculous, IMO, as is completely assembling the loop outside and mounting it up inside without taking it apart.

To jump start my pump, I use an old IDE hard drive external enclosure with the drive removed. Connect my pump up and voila, I have a push button to turn the pump on and off to bleed. The bleed process for my most recent loop took an hour because of my radiator orientations and reservoir size relative to radiator volume, so as soon as I got the majority of the air out with the case sitting on its feet, I started rotating it to burp it, adding water once in a while. If it doesn't leak in the hour that you're bleeding it, why would it leak after that?

That's also after putting all of my blocks on, installing hardware in the case, and then running tubing.

Maybe I'm more adept at taking risks than others, but I feel the "precautions" are going to get to the point where people are assembling loops in "clean rooms" so airborne mold and dust doesn't get in the res and create growth.

I would even say that its more risky to assemble a loop outside the case, and then mount it inside the case.

[Akrian]

Re-did the loop, ran it for 24h so far. My PC is back to working condition now w00t. So far idles : core 0,1 -> 26-27c core 2,3 - 37 (wen loaded all cores go to 57-60 range).Idk why, but t> that's the case with my chip -> same stuff happened when I had my cooler. Gpus idles at 26, and go to 38-40 under load.
Sounds alright, right?

[Polizei]

Sounds good to me. Idle temps don't matter, load does.