Then, my computer wasn't seeing the data drive. At all. Not sure why. At least that one is one of the more inexpensive components in the system, at around $100 or so. I started to troubleshoot that, and then decided to see how much of a difference it makes in noise levels if I turn off the RAM cooler fan. When I was unplugging the fan, I watched in horror as a leak sprang from my cpu block and dribbled on the graphics card. Luckily, I was right there watching and quickly unplugged the power to the computer, so hopefully no damage was done.

I drained the loop and started disassembling everything. Hmmm... I think I see what I was doing wrong. I wasn't pushing the tubes onto the compression fittings far enough. The whole system was at risk, every single joint is potentially bad. Time to re-do everything. Ah well, I needed to re-do things anyways because I wanted to add some additional fans and try to make every radiator a push-pull setup. If I can't fit as many radiators into the case as I want, the least I can do is to make sure that the ones I do have are operating as efficiently as possible.

So I will be redoing the cooling completely. Things will have about a week to dry out because I will be out of town on business next week. By the time I get back, my sound card and adapter cable should be here -- hopefully.