Originally Posted by
Vicey
Took the rig apart today and I found a few issues. But I did not find any visible signs of issue with the pump. It was however very hard to turn by hand when compared to my brand new pump. The pumps are essentially identical D5's and it felt to me like the old pump had a lot more resistance to turning.
I found no gunk build up, no plasticiser powder, no bacteria.
What I did find however is the acrylic in my build specifically the little EK piece that goes inside the reservoir to stop a vortex like action was sticky. Very sticky like a licked lollypop. It was also cloudy instead of completely transparent like when I first got it.
I washed it in the sink and it looks brand new now but that stickiness is I think serious indicator of something wrong and perhaps part of the reason why the pump was finding it hard to move? - I didn't find any other parts sticky, the acrylic part of the reservoir for example was smooth and not sticky at all.
When I drained the loop and closely inspected my CPU Block I noticed a whole host of problems. Firstly the front acrylic had a hairline crack in it next to where the barb screws in. I believe I overtightened the barb causing the crack to occur. It was not far enough to cause any leaks however.
One thing that was alarming the nickel plating on my CPU block has come off in three places. One near the outter rubber o-ring, this is a piece of nickel missing over an inch long and about 2mm wide. The copper underneath shines through like a dull penny.
The other area is in the bottom left of the CPU block and then the fins about 3 of them have lost their nickel coating.
I thought that EK fixed this problem a number of years ago but it appears not. I only built this rig in March by the way.
In my build I use Monsoon fittings on everything except in two places that can't be seen in the bottom where I use EK black fittings instead. I'm wishing I didn't do that now because just like the CPU block the black coating has come off where the water touches the barb and another metal is shining through. I don't know what process EK uses to make these but it is not great, again only 4 months old and showing terrible wear.
The tubing I was using was XSPC stuff because the Primoflex Advanced LRT I wanted wasn't available when I originally built the system.
This appears to have been a mistake as the tubing is visibly changing colour, stained beyond belief and just doesn't look good at all. I used Tygon tubing in my old build with the same blood red coolant for over a year and it didn't look anywhere as bad as this XSPC does after just four months.
So I've cleaned everything, changed the tubing I'm now using Primoflex Advanced LRT. I've changed the pump and I have a new CPU block coming tomorrow morning, I'm going with a copper one this time, I think I'm 100% done with nickel plating and I'm glad I never went with the Nickel 780 blocks.
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