a cautionary tale

generalmiaow

Hello, I'm mostly new to boards, but I'd thought I'd share with you a disaster that happened to me last night... I'm sure some of you will slag me for this but it's better it be told in case lest it happen to any of ye.
I had a cheap-ish watercooling set in my pc, a thermaltake bigwater SE. It was fine for my purposes and made a lovely noise. I was happy not to be hearing the "overheating beep" from the PC speaker. However, last night, while playing Doom of all things, I heard the beep twice, and then windows shut itself down. I ignored this, citing the high temp in the room, and powered back on after opening a few windows. However, then it happened again, so I opened the case, to find the pipes boiling hot and no water flowing through them. Eek. I immediately noticed the pump wasn't working, so I switched it to a different power source, powered it back on, thought, ah, the water is flowing again, great. I was about to close the case, when suddenly a jet of water shoots out of the CPU block! I didn't have time to reach the power switch before the poor X850XT was covered in water, and the second before it powered off I saw the display was covered with random non-ascii coloured squares...

After two hours of drying, cleaning, emptying of pipes, I had discovered what went wrong. A power connector under strain, that had supplied power to both the water pump and the GPU fan had come loose, killing the pump. The CPU temp went up and up, causing the top part of the CPU block to distort, creating the hole out of which all the water spurted. And after all that work, I still get nothing but random squares on the display. I'm assuming the video card is dead, or else the PCI-E bus, and I don't even know how I can tell, as I've only one PCI-E motherboard and only one PCI-E card... that's quite apart from the possible damage to the CPU (it seems OK) and the emotional distress it caused, and the fact that I was beating my girlfriend in doom at the time...

so, my advice, most of which you already know anyway is,

*if something seems funny with watercooling, power off immediately!
*make sure your pump's power is never compromised!
*when something seems odd with water, take the WHOLE THING out! I was so sure that it was secured against leaks, I never dreamed one of the components would start spurting like that!
*be wary of cheap CPU blocks (although this may not be related to that, just keep in mind what's at stake!)
*don't route power cables around corners if it puts strain on them!

okay, I hope this never happens to any of you, I'm off to try and find my way out of this mess!

ShiverinEskimo

Sickened.

Still not as good as another boardsie (Babyeater) trying to measure his gfx card for a water block while it was on and tipping the tape against it and shorting it - thus frying his card.

po0k

generalmiaow wrote:

I had a cheap-ish watercooling set in my pc, a thermaltake bigwater SE.

< Mechanic> "There's your problem right there buddy"

generalmiaow

wow. I ended up finding babyeater's story at [procooling, and following the general advice in the thread, I doused the Gfx card in IPA and hairdryered it, as well as any affected parts of the motherboard esp the pci-e slot, and lo an behold, I have video again. Not sure if the full extent of the damage is revealed, but I might be in the clear... thank god I bought some decent non-conductive coolant! going to do some serious thinking about turning that watercooling setup on again though, I'll need to at least buy a new waterblock...

L31mr0d

this is precisely the reason why I won't go near watercooling. A really good air solution, albeit noiser, is a helluvalot safer. Electronics and water do not mix. I'd be worried about not tightening something and water leaking out.

po0k

It's all in the build quality.

Don't use water.

Cuddlesworth

, you would be surpized at how ofen you can get away with it. I have a z859xt here that was doused(spilled a refill cup when setting up) and its working fine,

ShiverinEskimo

generalmiaow wrote:

wow. I ended up finding babyeater's story at [procooling, and following the general advice in the thread,

That's another of his instances.

That story of his brother forgetting to turn on the pump. Serves Babyeater right for keeping his cooling pump on a seperate power source. He's had a few nightmares. He also ruined a graphics card while plugging in the the power molex to the card's socket. He thought his leveraging finger was on the back of the socket when in fact is was a heatsink glued to a chip - snapped the chip off. Game over. 300 quid gone before he even got to see his BIOS load.

Cuddlesworth

Sounds like the type of person that shoulf not be allowed near a pc.

generalmiaow

looks like I've been praying to all the right gods anyway. I decided to use the hairdryer/IPA method today to rescue a mobile that drowned at oxegen last year. everything but the keypad and the backlight work now it's all about the buildup of electrolytes apparently. turns out my dad did this with a phone he found in his compost heap (don't ask me how it turned up there)! and it worked there too...not that I'm recommending people allow any of this to happen.

He thought his leveraging finger was on the back of the socket when in fact is was a heatsink glued to a chip - snapped the chip off. Game over. 300 quid gone before he even got to see his BIOS load.

I can hear the sound of it snapping off in my head...ow...

gline

ah watercooling aint that bad, once its tested and then left alone.... my advice is have a windowed pc with a light inside the case so u can take a gander every once in awhile, have my main rig running on water and not 1 issue since i got it up and running properly.

and avoid badly built watercooling stuff


oh yeh and if gfx goes kaput.... rma.... the best solution

if done this to all sorts of physically damaged cards and got replacements everytime from all different companies... ati,komplett etc

po0k

krazy_8s wrote:

Sounds like the type of person that shoulf not be allowed near a pc.

I assure you, you're wrong.

Cuddlesworth

SyxPak wrote:

I assure you, you're wrong.

It seems I'm assured.

I always wondered what was wrong with that card gline.

gline

krazy_8s wrote:

It seems I'm assured.

I always wondered what was wrong with that card gline.

i rma'd 3 gfx cards (maybe more) in the past 1-2 years, all top spec at the time

ShiverinEskimo

krazy_8s wrote:

Sounds like the type of person that shoulf not be allowed near a pc.

He's actually a genius with them. He currently has a pilfered beer cooler rigged up to cool his Opty. He's an ignorant farmer who works in a steel works so granted he can lack the delicate touch sometimes required but the man has some knack for overclocking and electronics in general - he's gone as far as dremmelling a trough out of his CPU socket to squeez a thermometer sensor in under his chip for better readings. Something I simply don't have the balls to try.

Anti

SyxPak wrote:

It's all in the build quality.

Don't use water.

Agreed, Ive had a few to many mishaps with watercooling too. from highend swiftech kit to low end coolermaster aquagate muck. As someone else said, water + electronics do not mix well. No matter how well you put it together something can always go wrong.

po0k

I propose making watercooling a censored word, thus forcing everyone to adopt LiquidCooling, thereby introducing further muddlement and confusion amongst the uninitiated and increasing the overall sense of smugness amongst the regulars.

It's a pity there are so many "affordable" [strike]WC[/strike] LC kits available, they're a false economy and server only to annoy.

generalmiaow

I don't know if I'm convinced against using it (that is, LiquidCooling[tm]) yet. The problem was more that I was an idiot, and the rubbish half-plastic waterblock couldn't withstand a bit of heat. The location where it was purchased (that shall not be named) did grant me a refund though, even after I explained the full story.

Cuddlesworth

When Lc is done right, with proper hose connecters and blocks, and with proper leak testing it should never leak. The quick connect fittings are the tool of Satan\Gline.

CombatCow

SyxPak wrote:

I propose making watercooling a censored word, thus forcing everyone to adopt LiquidCooling, thereby introducing further muddlement and confusion amongst the uninitiated and increasing the overall sense of smugness amongst the regulars.

It's a pity there are so many "affordable" [strike]WC[/strike] LC kits available, they're a false economy and server only to annoy.

I think somebody wants a watercoo..... liquidcooling™ rig themselves


CC