Official EK statement - Nickel Plating Issues

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Originally Posted by Petra

That said, feel free to ignore me.

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dont we always? :p:

My mate who bought his blocks around september last year has just checked his (plexi/nickel 470) and he has a small 5mm size piece of wear through the nickel on one of his blocks. Not on the cooling surface, on one of the corners of the plexi lid. The other looks fine, but this is just at a cursory glance through the top. He uses lab distilled + killcoil and has never had anything else in his loop. He did say no flakes - it looks like its worn away rather than flaked off.

DEFINITELY not just limited to US/Canada/Australia.

i will unmount mine @ weekend and check. let u then know the condition.

another question: does this issues depend on all nickel revisions ?

It's a shame EK's (the company) customer service pattern has recently been so poor. I remember an EK (the person), not so long ago, who took an unpopular position with his full cover blocks I found so compelling I contacted him to personally ship me one from Slovenia.

Over the years EK (the company) has made an innovation or two, improved the performance of every one of their products and made some incredibly beautiful pieces. It's unfortunate that I'm accosted by reasons to take my business elsewhere, and forced to convince myself to purchase EK's (the company) product over another's.

When it comes down to it, H2o cooling is a luxury, a hobby and a means to an end. It's not worth becoming a hassle, and in the end I am far less likely to purchase a product that might become one. I am even less disposed to purchase from a company that is, itself, likely to become the bother should an issue arise.

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Originally Posted by Kayin

Older nickel appears to be a lot better.

I found something far more disturbing, but I'm not done with the analysis yet.

I'm also conferring with some others who have had a chance to play with the blocks and have info to share. I feel like I'm on the cusp of a breakthrough, but I don't want to be hasty in the least. Let's just say a test I left running today gave wild results.

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Please do share :P

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Originally Posted by Kayin

Older nickel appears to be a lot better.

I found something far more disturbing, but I'm not done with the analysis yet.

I'm also conferring with some others who have had a chance to play with the blocks and have info to share. I feel like I'm on the cusp of a breakthrough, but I don't want to be hasty in the least. Let's just say a test I left running today gave wild results.

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Oooohhh, mad science! :) I better be impressed! Now that you set me up this way, you cannot disappoint hahahahahaha :D

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Originally Posted by shazza

Guys - we're not going to post the poll. We already have two large threads with the issue, and others are popping up with more detail about specifics.

I understand the idea of the poll is well-intentioned (is that a word?), but we still won't be able to get a true representation, as not everyone comes to forums. I'd say that most of the people who visit here and have been affected have posted.

EK has posted their findings and response, and people are getting the opportunity to voice their opinion. We'll leave it at that for now.

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Would you post a poll along the lines of:

which are you?

1. I use nickel plated EK product with silver kill coil and had no such issue
2. I use nickel plated EK product with silver kill coil and had corrosion
3. I use nickel plated EK product with a biocide and had no issue
4. I use nickel plated EK product with a biocide and had corrosion
5. I do not use nickel plated EK products.

would that be acceptable? it seems some people say they are ok and some say not, I don't know what's what (and I'm a potential customer)

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Originally Posted by theron

Would you post a poll along the lines of:

which are you?

1. I use nickel plated EK product with silver kill coil and had no such issue
2. I use nickel plated EK product with silver kill coil and had corrosion
3. I use nickel plated EK product with a biocide and had no issue
4. I use nickel plated EK product with a biocide and had corrosion
5. I do not use nickel plated EK products.

would that be acceptable? it seems some people say they are ok and some say not, I don't know what's what (and I'm a potential customer)

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I don't mind this.

ok, i am on the rev 2 block. will c then if i got this issue also.

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Originally Posted by wermad

I'm looking into MetalX B-929 to strip the nickel. I won't send my blocks and pay for shipping, that's ridiculous. Plus, once the nickel is all gone, I can run copper with distilled with ease. I use to run all copper until I jumped on the nickel bandwagon, what a nightmare :(

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I won't be shipping mine either

-never tried it my self ,
- but would it be possible for you \ us on the gpu block's to just mask off the area just out side the "O" ring[wet area only] , mask it then have it gently sand blasted[ body shop ?] should remove nickel - maybe\will leave lightly pitted copper but the rest of the block will look like new ,stripping it will look like crap I think.
-that area also has only one threaded hole[580] [mask also or insert old screw]
-does not need sharp sand to be used. any sand blasters in the house ?
-any pic's of a year old copper only gpu block using DT & Kill coil ?

I got EK 6990 and 6970 blocks and I won't be RMAing them instead I will be throwing these POS Slovenian blocks in the trash :down:

@ theron - we won't be doing any polls on the EK situation.

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Originally Posted by Kayin

I would give Eddy a chance to make good on this.

Let him chase a supplier for a bit. My research didn't look like intentional cheaping out-it looked like a supplier that gives C110 electrolytic one week and reclaimed phosphor/copper alloy the next. It was the oddest thing ever.

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Considering that the price of metals has been fluctuating a lot lately and that copper theft was pretty rampant locally here (people are cutting out telcom wires all over the place over the last 2-3 years) I would not be surprised if this is a classic case of switching the supply mid-way on the supplier side hoping that nobody will notice. If this turns out to be the case I really feel for EK.

Thanks for testing the copper Kayin, seems like we all missed that.

OK...

If EK looks into the supplier side, and does find shenanigans going on from the supplier, I think we all owe each other an apology.

EK to us for blaming us.
Us to EK for mercilessly attacking EK over the plating when it wasn't that at all.

When I say "Us" I just mean collectively. I know some of us have been much more level-headed than others over this whole ordeal but I'm just speaking about XS as a whole.

So EK, time to look into your copper supply.

And thanks again Kayin for taking the time to look into this deeper and find the root of the problem that everyone missed!

EK actually has a Poll on their website already that is VERY similar to this:

1. I use nickel plated EK product with silver kill coil and had no such issue
2. I use nickel plated EK product with silver kill coil and had corrosion
3. I use nickel plated EK product with a biocide and had no issue
4. I use nickel plated EK product with a biocide and had corrosion
5. I do not use nickel plated EK products.

Would other metals affect Nickel Plated blocks such as the Metal Plug contained in the Koolance 452X2 Reservoir ?

Duped or knowingly knew it was impure and bought it at little to no cost.

That part of the world is known for doing shady stuff and there's no way to know for sure if Edvard knew or not..

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Originally Posted by BDW88

Duped or knowingly knew it was impure and bought it at little to no cost.

That part of the world is known for doing shady stuff and there's no way to know for sure if Edvard knew or not..

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Let's not go opening that can of worms. While that is a possibility, we don't need to go assuming things.

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Originally Posted by Sparky

Let's not go opening that can of worms. While that is a possibility, we don't need to go assuming things.

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:up:

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Originally Posted by Kayin

There is no way to know for sure, but I choose at this point in time based on my findings to believe this was a good faith effort-it costs about as much in disposal costs to plate nickel right as it does to buy good copper. If the plating was done right and wouldn't stick in some areas, it would point to someone attempting to plate in good faith and being given bad materials.

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Originally Posted by Sparky

Let's not go opening that can of worms. While that is a possibility, we don't need to go assuming things.

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Absolutely agree. Lets wait to hear back from Eddy. Seems like he's got some more testing to do.

I don't know what you guys are waiting for Edvard to say he said it already..

He blames the end-user but since he's such a good guy he's gonna go out of his way and rma our screwup's for using silver/PT+distilled.

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Originally Posted by Kayin

I would give Eddy a chance to make good on this.

Let him chase a supplier for a bit. My research didn't look like intentional cheaping out-it looked like a supplier that gives C110 electrolytic one week and reclaimed phosphor/copper alloy the next. It was the oddest thing ever.

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:rofl:

You know what tho, this would answer a lot of the corrosion we were seeing in some of the pictures.

If the plating failed, and the copper wasnt pure, then yeah, i can see the results happening..
Also some of the blocks that werent performing correctly... yeah, if the copper was tainted, i can also see that happening.

oh man... this will shatter EK.

Because instead of voiding just his nickle blocks... we cant use ANY of his blocks... :down:

Oh man... i wont say anymore on this..

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Originally Posted by Sparky

OK...

If EK looks into the supplier side, and does find shenanigans going on from the supplier, I think we all owe each other an apology.

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no..

not this time sparky...
If it comes out bad copper then it is going to be BAD for EK.

Why?

Because they spent all that money on "expensive and through" testing... and it didnt show the copper base plate itself was tainted.

Im sorry, isnt it included in every test to make sure your source is solid and pure?
Instead of picking several blocks at random, did they pick there best samples and send it over?
Is that really a test?


So if the copper is bad... no... this is going to be a VERY BAD SCREW UP on PR for EK.
And im talking Biblical proportions.


Someone who has a yamyamyam'd block send it to Kayin.
If he pulls 2 / 2 ... i dont care if even CalTech / MIT did EK's report...

Kayin b4 you go on the second block... run a control sample though, so you can make sure your setup isnt tainted.

You're not very forgiving about this, are you Naekuh?

Maybe I'm too nice, too forgiving. Fine.

But if it certainly is bad copper, let's not chew EK out over it, OK? Chew out his supplier? Yes. Tell Eddy he should have paid a little more attention? Yes. Chew him out? No. We've done enough of that (and maybe too much of that) already.

Even the most observant person can miss things sometimes. Especially if the focus is somewhere else.

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Originally Posted by Kayin

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...0&postcount=24

And if someone wants to repeat some of these tests (as I'm running on a bare minimum of stuff here) I'll send out the block.

Petra, wanna test this and see if we get any correlation?

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Sounds interesting... I'd need time to look into my options here as well as get in touch with some people, though.