Catastrophic Problem...

[003]

I've never actually fried anything with a WC accident. I recently came close, though. Had water leak onto my video card, got underneath the unisink and started to what looked like corrode some small SMD parts. I was only alerted to the problem when my video all of a sudden turned to garbled mess and I could no longer boot into windows. Ironically, this happened right in the middle of stress testing a new overclock, which made things worse because I thought the problem was with the CPU or something.

I only discovered what had happened when I disassembled my PC and noticed a tiny bit of wetness by a barb, that was right above the video card.

Took it out, took all the sinks off, and cleaned it with contact cleaner very thoroughly and scrubbed off the corrosion with the contact cleaner and a toothbrush. Amazingly, it now works good as new.

The only other major accident I had was when I first got into watercooling. I punctured a PA120.3 with a screw that was too long. Quite an expensive accident Needless to say, that has not happened since

[NaeKuh]

Tell me this is not you and you did not mix those koolance blocks with that beautiful PA?

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...d.php?t=291519

okey as i was playing on Extreme, what i dont understand is...

You got help there..

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...d.php?t=291760

And your coming to rant here? OR you hit a problem which couldnt be solved there, so you come here?

[MaXXimus]

First off the pic I posted was not mine, only using it as a reference. now as for going there and coming here...well, I also belong to another and depending upon the senerio I will post the same question in all 3 forums and compare the replies... it has nothing to do with wanting to rant, I joined all 3 differant forums around the exact same time. Kinda like getting a 2nd and 3rd opinion... dont see any harm in that

Tell me this is not you and you did not mix those koolance blocks with that beautiful PA?

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...d.php?t=291519

okey as i was playing on Extreme, what i dont understand is...

You got help there..

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...d.php?t=291760

And your coming to rant here? OR you hit a problem which couldnt be solved there, so you come here?

[MaXXimus]

And I spoke to the place I purchased the rads at and no they will not be covered... and Im way past the return for a refund. Anyway... told me what was posted earlier in here, that they can be fixed very easily... recommended taken them to an auto radiator shop.

I have removed everything from the case and have opted to stick with air, so I will be posting a little later the list of things I have for sale... pretty much selling the entire lot as a whole and not single items. But considering they are brand new and the price Im gonna drop everything... it will be a literal steal.

[rangerone7669]

sorry to hear about your troubles, happens i suppose. and yes leaky rads are very easy to fix for a radiator shop. repairs would most likely cost less than shipping them back.

are you positive you punctured the rad with long screws? if both rads are leaking, and both were shipped to you in the same shipment. it is possible shipping damage.

my pa120.3 got delivered to my today for my new setup. looking at the rad, you can see that the water tubes are directly under the fan screw holes on mine. i'll have to pay special attention when i mount my fans.

you would think that the engineer who designed that rad would have made it where if too long of a screw was used that it would just thread into the honeycomb louvres. but i guess thats why engineers get payed the big dollars.

if you do decide to sell your gear, and part any of it out. i'd be interested in a pump.

[MaXXimus]

Im actually looking to sell the entire contents... lock, stock and barrel... makes it easier on me to recover a portion of my losses and as mentioned the price will be an actual steal. Actually half price to be correct... so even if there are items you dont need, you shold easily be able to re-sell them and make a profit. Tomorrow I will sit down and do as needed to post in the Sales threads and take pics of everything.

[Martinm210]

You can repair the rads with a simple soldering iron and some flux paste. I poked a hole in one of my MCR320's a while back and just soldered the pin hole.

It happens to alot of us. My first loop I spilled from the res into the PSU and fried it.

We've all gone through some pain. I'm pretty darn careful with the fan bolts now..

[MaXXimus]

Ya know WC is really cool but I guess I needed to learn the hard way that it wasnt meant for me. After the leaking started I sat there thinking of the headache of getting everything right and then this happening, it then dawned on me that having to go through all this again within 6 months or so to put new tubing on and yadda yadda was just more work then what I was willing to cope with. Items are all removed from my case, cleaned with distilled water and repackaged.

[Clue69Less]

What pump and res wil you have to sell?

[MaXXimus]

Im not parting anything out... complete package only, but the pumps are MCP655's and the res's are XSPC Dual Bay

[IanY]

Just for the benefit of everyone else. Before you screw any screws into a Thermochill (actually any radiator but especially a Thermochill because the channels are below the screw hole), get an expired credit card and use it as a shield. If the screws hit the credit card, the length is no good.

[MaXXimus]

Its funny though because I called up where I ordered from and he asks if I used the included screws. I said yes but then dawned on me that I didnt, actually used the ones that came with the rad grill... but anyway, the screws that come with the PA120.3 arent even long enough to go all the way through my Yate Loons LOL.

[IanY]

Here's the difference. The Yate Loons that you have are closed corner fans. You need 1-1/4 inch screws to go through the fan, into the gasket, then into the radiator.

Thermochill included 6/32 1/4 inch screws. They are meant for open corner fans into the gasket then into the radiator. If you don't use a gasket, there would also be a high likelihood that you would have punctured the radiator.

Thermochill's tolerances are tight, and they use self-tapping screws, which have sharp pointy ends, which punctures radiators doubly easy.

[gojirasan]

I really think you should give yourself a bit of time to cool off before just selling all your gear. I was treating my insanely expensive 120.3 like it was my baby or something and putting a huge dent into those beautiful fins and tubes hurt me almost physically. Like someone stabbing a knife into my belly. It took me at least a week before I could think clearly and rationally about things. I realize you need to use your computer. So go to air for a while then. But my advice is to keep your gear. It won't be worth any less in a month or two when you will have a better perspective on things.

[MaXXimus]

Its all good man, as mentioned earlier... the thought of having to go through the whole draining, retubing and all every 6 - 8 months is just not what Im looking for. Yes, I was already aware of this procedure before I started but until I actually went through the whole tubing and routing process for the first time, it became evident that this was a pain in the pooper and wasnt going to be my cup of tea. I gracefully bow down and tip my hat to all you guys who have sweet kick ass rigs and had the patience to push through the little speed bumps and get 'er done.

[Waterlogged]

Yes, never make a decision when your angry or upset, odds are 95% of the time you'll end up regretting it. Go air for now, think it over and have the rads fixed if you feel you'd like to give it another shot. Once you get bit by the WC bug, changing things doesn't seem like such a chore.

Hmm you've been without a rig for a week you say?... pfft, mere child's play for me, I've been without a gaming rig for over 2 years now, I think I should be the one upset.

[lennox]

it's not for everyone... I think most of the Xtreme addicts around here just love to build, and rebuild. Just like I do

[003]

Its all good man, as mentioned earlier... the thought of having to go through the whole draining, retubing and all every 6 - 8 months is just not what Im looking for. Yes, I was already aware of this procedure before I started but until I actually went through the whole tubing and routing process for the first time, it became evident that this was a pain in the pooper and wasnt going to be my cup of tea. I gracefully bow down and tip my hat to all you guys who have sweet kick ass rigs and had the patience to push through the little speed bumps and get 'er done.

You don't need to get new tubing if you start out with very good tubing, such as Tygon B-44-4X, 2075, 2275, etc... Also, if you stick with plain distilled water and the only additive you use is for pH balancing, corrosion inhibiting and surface tension lowering, and contains no dissolved solids, you likely won't need to flush and replace your coolant either. At least not for a very long time.

Water is worth it, trust me.

[MaXXimus]

Honestly Waterlogged this was not out of anger or frustration, it just took this to open my eyes that on a personal level I just dont have the patience it take to go through the retubing and all every so many months. When I had everything together I was more like "THANK GOD THATS OVER" and not "wow this is sweet".

I actually expeced to see one of the blocks leak considering I pulled them all apart to clean them and had some minor issues with some of the gaskets reseating properly... never did I once think that there would be a problem with the darned screws for the rads. I just assumed that since they came with the freakin grill an was meant for the PA then all was good. Hell... I thought the holes went all the way through, if I had known (or paid more attention) I would have been more careful...

[MaXXimus]

You don't need to get new tubing if you start out with very good tubing, such as Tygon B-44-4X, 2075, 2275, etc... Also, if you stick with plain distilled water and the only additive you use is for pH balancing, corrosion inhibiting and surface tension lowering, and contains no dissolved solids, you likely won't need to flush and replace your coolant either. At least not for a very long time.

Water is worth it, trust me.

I was using the Feser One coolant but figured on the first change I would go ahead and get that nice lookin Feser One UV tubing and go with distilled... ah well.

[NaeKuh]

First off the pic I posted was not mine, only using it as a reference. now as for going there and coming here...well, I also belong to another and depending upon the senerio I will post the same question in all 3 forums and compare the replies... it has nothing to do with wanting to rant, I joined all 3 differant forums around the exact same time. Kinda like getting a 2nd and 3rd opinion... dont see any harm in that

:P

Well it just seemed kinda funny.

Anyhow, i think you punctured your radiator. Visually inspect where its leaking.

[MaXXimus]

Each rad has a single pinhole in the same spot.

Maybe someone in here can help me... what kind of paste is it that under the stock NB and SB? It wasnt a pad and wasnt regular paste. This stuff was as hard as a rock and took a hairdryer to pry it loose and took like an hour of rubbing it with acetal to get rid of it.

[Soulwind]

Sorry you had issues with your first build Maxximus.

Go back to air for now, but hang onto your stuff for awhile
(clean it good and just pack it up for now).

Give it a couple of weeks once you've got your machine running on air again. You just might surprise yourself and decide to give WC another go. I mean, there was a reason you decided to go WC in the first place, no?

If after a few weeks or so, you still decide to sell everything, then come back and do so. Those couple of weeks aren't going to affect the prices you'll be able to get and might just save you in the long run if you do change your mind again.

As far as horror stories, I don't have any yet from my first build. A few minor glitches, as I ran some tubing backwards and I ended up re-doing my loops last weekend to seperate my cpu/gpu onto different loops, but that's it.

(I'm using a fan shroud on my rads so I'm going -> Case -> Fans -> Shroud > Radiator, so I was able to use really small screws just to hook the shroud to the rad)

[shazza]

I hope you don't give up MaXXimus. You've done so much work already, it would be a shame not to get a chance to enjoy it.

You bit off a very EXTREME project for your first water cooling attempt, and you picked parts that took a while to get to you (343B), so I can see why you're frustrated and tired of the time it has taken. BUT ... you're going to end up with a beautiful system when it's done. HANG IN THERE!!!


EDIT: posted before reading page 2 ... looks like it is a done deal that MaXXimus is out of the water cooling business. I can understand ... if you don't enjoy the actual building process, and the tinkering, then it probably isn't worth it.

[MaXXimus]

Given up is an understatement... about 80% of my parts are already sold and flying out the door. I would say that maybe once Im back on my feet and working again, I will probably look at maybe trying again... but thats probably a good year down the road. I have a good system minus the water cooling right now and am very satisified. Yes I took a good hit on $$ with reselling but at this point between the frustration of what happened and needing the $$... was better to see some of that back in my pocket verus seeing parts collecting dust on a shelf and reminding me of the failure every time I see them.

I can say this much though... outside of the leaks my experience was fairly pleasant. I gained a ton of knowledge now on water cooling and of course also learned some valuable lessons after this attempt... but all in all, next time (if there is one) I will be able to tackle it like a professional football player. I was quite impressed with myself that I was able to get it all installed and loops looked awesome IMHO and that no leaks came from any of the fittings or the blocks... next time... SHORTER FREAKIN SCREWS for the rads LMAO... actually maybe even play it safe and go with a bracket system to hold them up and compleatly avoid screws near the rads... we shall see though.