Is my pump on its' way out?

[Castle02]

This is my current water cooling setup. Lately, I've been crashing and sometimes the computer reboots on it's own while playing BF3 or Sniper Elite. I game on triple monitors, but I decided to run sli on one monitor to check temps. I noticed that the first video card ran up past 90 degree Celsius. I thought there might be a blockage somewhere in the card, but there wasn't after dismantling part of my loop. Trying to refill the loop, I noticed that the air bubble at the cpu just stays in place and the first card's water block isn't filling up. The line coming out from the 360 to the video cards was only trickling down. There are no leaks anywhere in the system. It kinda seems to me that there is not enough pressure to push out air bubbles and fill water blocks. The water setup is only a year old. Any thoughts?
127113

[Aberration]

My Rad and Res are in roughly the same positions. Its a pain in the ass getting the air out. Once its out, it runs fine. I have a D5 pump and Swiftech res. A steady stream comes into the res.

I still want to change it though :D

[PiLsY]

Youve been running like that for a year????

Slight change to the loop will make it much easier to bleed:
Rotate pump 180 degrees so the top is facing out the side panel, swap both rad inlet and outlet ports over.

You can then lie the pc on its side and detach the res from its clips to fill it. Holding the res above the level of the pc will help loads with bleeding. Rotating the pump makes this easier for you as it gives you some tube slack to move the res. Swapping the inlet and outlet on the rads means the outlet is the top port when you lie the pc on its side letting the air out the way it wants to go.

Hope that helps :).

[Castle02]

So it's possible for the air bubble to have been there all this time? I will rearrange my loop as you suggested. Thanks for your help


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PiLsY]

It couldve been lodged in the top rad, theyre notorious for it in that orientation. I would be careful though, check for dropping water level in your res. Even a slight drip (which could evaporate before ever "dripping") over a year will gradually empty your loop.

If youre saying it hasnt lost fluid (youll be able to tell when you empty the loop to reconfigure it) then it was trapped air in the top rad. If it has lost fluid then youve got a tiny leak somewhere (tighten all fittings and barbs, check acrylic res is tight but be careful not to crack it).

[Liam_G]

One other possibility, and i saw this with my loop after about a year, is that your cpu block might be getting a little bit of gunk build up in it, could be flux from the radiator or whatever, but it will eventually cause a lot of restriction in your loop, the cpu block is the most likely place for all gunk to stop in the loop because the pin matrix acts like a filter (that's if you don't have a filter in your loop).

I noticed my temps rising, my flow dropping and my pump was working harder/making more noise so i just got the cpu block out and pulled it apart and gave it a good clean, it was coated in a blue green sought of gunk, not sure if it was corrosion, algae or flux, after i cleaned it it was just left with the black copper discoloration that you can't do much about, i was only using primochill liquid utopia and distilled water at the time. I observed my flow rate after cleaning the block and flushing out all the other loop components and everything was fine, temps were much lower again, i noticed the flow being about 4 times as strong as before i cleaned it and my temps were about 20 degrees better.. when you pull your cpu block out take out your whole loop and give all your blocks and rad a good flush out. when you put it back together use some good distilled water and a good additive to stop algae/corrosion etc. other ppl can recommend what is a good choice of biocide better than me, i still use primochill liquid utopia but i rebuild my loop quite a bit so don't really have any more issues.

other than that do what pilsy said about changing your loop order to facilitate bleeding a bit better, but i think after you have cleaned your cpu block out you will see all the bubbles pushed along with the added pressure from removing all the restriction the gunk was causing. also, i don't know how other guys bleed their system but i give the loop a 5 minute burst of the pump on setting 5 to clear out big bubbles and then i leave it for about half an hour on setting 2, i usually have zero bubbles after that, just make sure your res is placed above all your components like pilsy said.

[Liam_G]

also, you have tubing going to your drive bay's, what is in there? a second reservoir or radiator or what? have you got your tube res outlet going straight down to your pump inlet or is that line going up to your drive bay first then down to the pump? you need to drop whatever is in the front drive bay because your pump might not have a constant supply of water, instead you should have the bottom outlet of tube res going straight to your pump inlet and just run the return tubing from your GPU's back to tube res, if you run it back to the top of tube res you can keep an eye on the flow too.

edit, duh, lol. just saw the second rad in the front, i'm blind, lol. disregard that last statement. anyway, just make sure that res is going straight down to pump, and add more water to your res just to be safe, if your low on water in the loop that little bit in the res will quickly be sucked into the pump and it will be starved of water and pulling in air bubbles.

[Castle02]

Liam_G - so glad you posted. I took apart my cpu block and found a build up of gunk covering about 75% of the inlet. I originally changed my loop to what PiLsY said, but it was still having trouble getting the air out, laying it on its' side, upside down, shook it. I'm glad all the experienced w/c posted to help inexperienced w/c. Thanks all.

[PiLsY]

What are you using as coolant? I thought that was distilled + coloured tubes?

Glad you've sorted it out, hopefully you saw some benefit from the loop changes anyway :).

[Castle02]

Yes, it's just distiller water, colored tubes and a kill coil. I do have a bottle of biocide, but I never used it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PiLsY]

Shocked you got gunking - must be plasticiser from the tubes. What brand are they?

[Castle02]

It's the XSPC Thermochill Flex 1/2" ID - 3/4"OD. Come to think of it, the tubing was the only thing I didn't flush out with distilled water.

[Liam_G]

no worries about pointing out the gunk in cpu block thing, i was a bit stumped when i first had problems too. that's what we are all on here for though, pool the knowledge :D

yeah i'm wondering if it is plasticiser that was in my loop too, i was using blue primochill pro LRT tubing, i think they are some of the ones that have problems?? Pilsy?

[Yoad]

Mixed metals? Perhaps you have badly plated nickel in your loop? that would have caused some gunking. If you're searching what to blame for.

[PiLsY]

Nickel doesnt cause gunking...it can make it worse due to the flakes being caught up, but its never the cause...

I use XSPC and Masterkleer tube, and while I get some heavy clouding of the tubes/res (only visible when dry) Ive never had any gunking in any of my loops. I would never in a million years expect tubing to be able to actually leech enough plasticiser to gunk a block, but you live and learn.

I suppose its possible he had some leftover flux residue in the rad that started it all. It only takes one small piece of debris/goo to get the ball rolling.