Loop Fail!

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05-30-2010, 08:59 PM
mlee49

Loop Fail!

So I've spent a ton of money on this new loop not to mention alot of time and I just did an epic brainfart.

I dry fitted every part, lined out all the tubing lengths, cut EVERYTHING, locked it down and filled it up.

When I noticed the head pressure in my radiator was crap, I was wondering what the hell was wrong. I guessed air bubbles or gas and kept trying to rock the case to get them out.

UNTIL I noticed the outlet on my res was gaining a big air bubble. I wondered why there was a constant air bubble there and looked closer. THE OUTLET WAS PUMPING INTO THE RES!!! I planned my loop with the in's and out's of the pumps BACKWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so freakin pissed when I realized this.

I barely have enough length now that I've redone the pumps. One is like half an inch off the ground and the other is jacked up too. I'm gonna need 2 more feet of tubing and a couple more compression fittings to get it right.

I'M SUCH AN IDIOT!!!

Anyone else help me not feel like such an idiot? Please tell me a story of how you forgot a clamp or did something dumb like me.
05-30-2010, 09:05 PM
Kibbler

It happens, take a breather and fix it slowly. Be patient. Next time order extras. I always buy an extra few feet of tubing / a few extra fittings.
05-30-2010, 09:13 PM
Waterlogged

Yeah, crap happens from time to time. . .like the time I forgot to undo the CPU power (4 pin) when trying to bleed a loop, released the magic smoke from a board I could no longer get. :(
05-30-2010, 09:25 PM
mlee49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kibbler

It happens, take a breather and fix it slowly. Be patient. Next time order extras. I always buy an extra few feet of tubing / a few extra fittings.

Funny how I was gonna name this Project Patience. I even had 2 feet of left over tubing from last time.

Funny thing is I'm all about the old carpentry saying: "measure twice, cut once" mentality. I just failed hard on the damn pumps.

I'm going to chalk it up to the EK tops that are on there. There's three freakin holes there, who the hell is supposed to know what goes in and out? :ROTF:
05-30-2010, 09:36 PM
Kibbler

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlee49

When I noticed the head pressure in my radiator was crap, I was wondering what the hell was wrong.

I'm also curious how you noticed this exactly, "head pressure in my radiator was crap."
05-30-2010, 09:41 PM
mlee49

Sorry should have read, "head pressure in my res"

Basically there was no water flowing in the res as it had before.
05-30-2010, 09:57 PM
Kibbler

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlee49

Basically there was no water flowing in the res as it had before.

Then just say that next time. No reason to drop fancy tech jargon, it'll only confuse people. ;)
05-30-2010, 10:29 PM
Sinsear

I just set up my watercooling for the first time today; spilled about 3 cups of water all over my motherboard, CPU and GPU. The fittings between the CPU block and the mobo block weren't even with each other, so the fittings didn't screw in correctly as it was on an angle. Water literally spewed out and I shut off the pump right away. Luckily, the power was disconnected from everything when this happened. So now, I'm waiting overnight for it to all dry before I even attempt to turn my system back on.
05-31-2010, 02:03 AM
shazza

Let's see ... there was the time I set my loop up and turned it on to prime it and run a leak test ... wish I had a photo of the water gushing out of the GPU block (forgot to put the stop plug in!). Fortunately, no damage was done, as there was no power to the motherboard.
05-31-2010, 02:09 AM
Cookiesowns

This makes me not want to build a water setup. ( I do stupid things like this even with stock cooling, lmao )
05-31-2010, 02:46 AM
MpG

In a two-pump loop, installed one of the pumps backwards. Amazingly enough, there didn't seem to be much flow. :D

Spent several hours troubleshooting a zero-flow situation after installing an in-line rotameter. Looked over everything, couldn't figure out why the hell no water was moving. Finally realized that the valve in the rotameter was closed.
05-31-2010, 06:28 AM
Church

lovely gotcha :rofl:
05-31-2010, 06:49 AM
Conumdrum

Not watercooling but a backwards pump mistake.

In the printing press I used to be at, they used a large diaphram pump to suck out the old smelly stinky ink and water out of the purge pans. I'm talking about a 3" ID pipe stuck into a gooey mess of staining, algea stinky gunk. The other end of the pump is put in a 55 gallon drum.

Well someone hooked it up backwards. The person was holding the suction pipe at a perfect 45 degrees up in the air when the pump turned on. Well, the pump whent kachunk-whoosh like normal, except this time a nice fat 3" wide glob of ink flew out the end in a perfect arc and landed on the properly dressed production manager's head about 15 FEET away, splattering all over his white shirt, tie, in his ear and just a really good mess.

Once we picked ourself up off the floor from laughing so hard, the pressmen hooked the pump up right and went on thier merry way. Pro manager showered, changed, stayed stained for a few days, but no one got in big trouble.

OMG, it was sooooo funny!
05-31-2010, 06:59 AM
Adderall

The first time I tried water cooling: I set everything up, tested, double checked all fittings, got all the air bubbles out and ran an overnight test.. no leaks! I was finally ready to turn on the computer............ I had used a northbridge block and didn't put anything on the mosfets :( !!!! Did a slight overclock and the board smelled like smoke and shorted out.. had to save up enough $$ for a new mobo. I don't know how I missed that!! :down:
05-31-2010, 07:41 AM
millertime359

Yep, I learned the hard lesson about order extra of everything. The bad part about watercooling is you really can't just run down to the local electronics store or hardware store and buy a fitting.

I was short a fitting on my one build. I know keep extra of everything. :)
05-31-2010, 08:12 AM
Sparky

Hey, everyone makes a mistake at some point. No biggie :) Extra tubing is usually a good thing, just in case... I went crazy and got extra water when I first built my loop. 9 gallons of it :rofl:
05-31-2010, 10:22 AM
mlee49

Thanks guys for the reassuring words. I've let it sit for a day now since I've been so frustrated, I'll get it up and running soon enough.
05-31-2010, 10:32 AM
Kilyin

One time I installed a waterblock on a video card and had the inlet and outlet parallel so water was just going straight through the card. Then I wondered why the card was idling at 80 degrees. :rofl:

You can probably still find the thread here.
05-31-2010, 01:49 PM
Sadasius

I remember once I put all my tubes on backwards and then I realized I bought ambi-tubing that can run both ways! :rofl:

No but seriously we all do dumb things from time to time. I have dumped water on many parts and some have died and others have lived and some are zombies because they did not want to come back from the dead right away till a month or so later. That's why it is not just a hobby, it's an adventure! :up:
05-31-2010, 04:55 PM
ScottALot

Quote:

Originally Posted by Conumdrum

Not watercooling but a backwards pump mistake.

In the printing press I used to be at, they used a large diaphram pump to suck out the old smelly stinky ink and water out of the purge pans. I'm talking about a 3" ID pipe stuck into a gooey mess of staining, algea stinky gunk. The other end of the pump is put in a 55 gallon drum.

Well someone hooked it up backwards. The person was holding the suction pipe at a perfect 45 degrees up in the air when the pump turned on. Well, the pump whent kachunk-whoosh like normal, except this time a nice fat 3" wide glob of ink flew out the end in a perfect arc and landed on the properly dressed production manager's head about 15 FEET away, splattering all over his white shirt, tie, in his ear and just a really good mess.

Once we picked ourself up off the floor from laughing so hard, the pressmen hooked the pump up right and went on thier merry way. Pro manager showered, changed, stayed stained for a few days, but no one got in big trouble.

OMG, it was sooooo funny!

Haha, the manager could've just purpousely stained the rest of his shirt to match :rofl:

Well... here's my EPIC freaking fail.

Put heatsink on-->Idle was WAY high so I checked the problem...
Forgot the TIM, so put the TIM on-->Lower temps... still high, checked again...
Forgot to take off the protective plastic on the heatsink base-->Still high temps, checked again...
Forgot TIM again-->Still somewhat high temps...
Fan direction was backwards-->Reversed and now temps were WAY high again...
Forgot TIM again-->All better :D
05-31-2010, 05:07 PM
SiGfever

We have all had those "Oh @#%$!" moments when we realized that we did something wrong during our builds. It is all a learning experience and a lesson that you will not forget, so chalk it up to learning, order the tubing and fittings that you need and have another go at it. Heck, if you are like most of us the loop will be changed so many times it will become most of the fun. :up:
05-31-2010, 05:30 PM
Polizei

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottALot

Put heatsink on-->Idle was WAY high so I checked the problem...
Forgot the TIM, so put the TIM on-->Lower temps... still high, checked again...
Forgot to take off the protective plastic on the heatsink base-->Still high temps, checked again...
Forgot TIM again-->Still somewhat high temps...
Fan direction was backwards-->Reversed and now temps were WAY high again...
Forgot TIM again-->All better :D

lolololol
05-31-2010, 05:49 PM
ScottALot

Quote:

Originally Posted by Polizei

lolololol

Indeed... it was my first build, but it was pretty sad :shakes::ROTF:
06-01-2010, 02:36 AM
Fatfool

Well, I'm not sure if anyone else has done it before but never fill your res to the top while the pump is running. I was merrily filling it up and when I got to near the top, I decided that was it. I turned off the power and the pump made a weird noise before a spurt of coolant flew up into the air through the res fill port (some got onto my tongue, nasty propylene glycol). I was stunned for a few seconds before rushing to clean the mess up. :rofl:
06-01-2010, 04:06 AM
motas

Rofl at all the dum mistakes. Famous last words though since in starting my first loop. I'll pribaby be back to post that I have to buy everything again lol. I hope I ordered enough fittings they're permanantly on backorder. Gl getting it done op.
06-01-2010, 06:02 AM
Vinas

While filling a system I shut the pump off without closing the T on top of the case. It then proceeded to shoot a 10' stream of water into the air... Like some kind of electronic blow hole... My then girlfriend asked me if it was suppose to do that LOL.. Fun times!
06-02-2010, 11:34 AM
Quadrapole

i was clearing the loop of bubbles and shaking the case around, but was too lazy to unplug all the power stuff so i was doing this while computer was powered. Nothing leaked, but i forgot to tighten the cap on my micro res, and it dripped water (thankfully distilled) all over my gpu.

Dried it, and it was running again :)