Over Heated Water Cooling Loop

[Ollii]

Hey, I invested heavily on a very good water cooling loop for my rig at Christmas. However I am sorry to say that I do regret it; mostly due to the performance not being what I thought it was going to be (Although my CPU also contributes to this due to it being very bad at overclocking) and also due to the sheer hassle I have had with it.

Anyway now to the problem. This evening I went out with some friends and stupidly left my computer on for the entire time (not something I would normally do) Upon coming back I started up a game and found it to be slightly laggy which was certainly odd as it has never been so before and my rig should technically eat it for breakfast.

I then lent over and had a quick look over at the front of my rig and noticed that my fan controller's screen was black, I touched a button and it sprung to life...along with the fans. I quickly noticed this and touched the top of the case which was almost to hot to touch, so I quickly shut down the system.

I whipped off the side of the case and found an exceptionally hot area. I quickly took the other side off and held a fan at the bottom to cool it down. Once it was cooled, which took around 15 mins, I inspected the innards to see if there had been any damage.

Now for the main problem: From what I can see the entire water cooling system has been effected. Firstly all the tubes have elongated and widened, also due to the elongation one of the tubes has kinked beyond repair. All this I guess was down to the heat. Another problem I have discovered is that If I turn the rig on two of the three tubes suddenly get a LOT wider, as if water is blocked somewhere. I have held the kinked tubing flat so it is completely circular, but the other tubes still widen.

I am rather irritated at the moment as you can imagine and am really tempted to simply rip the water cooling loop out and just shove a Noctua in there.

Could you wise people please advise me on what to do from here on? and could you please advise me on the tubing problems?

Thanks a lot if you have even made it down here

and as always, all advice is welcome.

 

[S_I_N]

sounds like it went into a power saving mode (sleep mode) and basically shut down your fans and maybe the pump. I would either replace the tubing after tearing it all down and checking for blockages. or two go back to air. after you get it back up and running I would make sure to turn off hybernation in the control panel so it doesnt happen again (incase ya forget again lol)

 

[KaraMurat]

sounds like it went into a power saving mode (sleep mode) and basically shut down your fans and maybe the pump. I would either replace the tubing after tearing it all down and checking for blockages. or two go back to air. after you get it back up and running I would make sure to turn off hybernation in the control panel so it doesnt happen again (incase ya forget again lol)

I could swear sleep mode kills all power i.e. heat would be impossible to produce (with the low electricity running through the computer)

My guess is fan controller screwed up somehow and lost power (lol sorry i know not a lot of help) which in result stopped the fans, to be honest i'm impressed the computer was running when you came back.

Only thing to do would be replacing all of the tubing along with the fluid of course and testing the fan controller to see if you can find any faults i.e. going into sleep mode then waking the computer up etc, i'm guessing if the fans were attached the mobo then this wouldn't have happened, you may want to do that if your fan controller is buggy.

 

[S_I_N]

yeah rereading it again I'll go with that Kara lol I'm tired and prolly shouldnt be answering lmao been at hospital all day with youngest getting an mri done on her noggin (again) Thanks for saving me

 

[ShortAlieN]

I agree with kara as well. if you want to stick with the water cooling I would have to say tear it down, check for blockage and replace the tubes. did you by any chance notice what your temps were at before you shut the system down? What does your loop consist of(blocks, pump, etc.)? What kind of tubing did you use? Maybe post a pic of what it looks like.

 

[SmoulderingCircuits]

I could swear sleep mode kills all power i.e. heat would be impossible to produce (with the low electricity running through the computer)

My guess is fan controller screwed up somehow and lost power (lol sorry i know not a lot of help) which in result stopped the fans, to be honest i'm impressed the computer was running when you came back.

Only thing to do would be replacing all of the tubing along with the fluid of course and testing the fan controller to see if you can find any faults i.e. going into sleep mode then waking the computer up etc, i'm guessing if the fans were attached the mobo then this wouldn't have happened, you may want to do that if your fan controller is buggy.

That is a possibility but even in sleep mode with minimal power flowing, it would gradually heat up, explaining why the game was laggy but didn't crash - nothing had died, just been damaged but not too severely.

Good job on shutting down the system, smart move.

I agree here with Kara, it's likely your fan controller, I certainly wouldn't ditch watercooling just because of this

 

[Ollii]

Thanks a lot guys for all your advice

I think I'll keep with the WC and just replace the tubing etc. I am about to move house so lots of hassle at the moment but will redo everything once I move and I might even post some pictures up before, during and after repairs.

 

[ShortAlieN]

that would be good. I'm always interested to see what happens when stuff goes wrong, except when it goes wrong for me

 

[tinytomlogan]

Just change the tubing. Once the tubing gets hot its had it THATS why the tubing swells when the system is on, as the pump starts its creates a preasure and it expands the hose like an inner tube in a bike tyre.

So to recap.

Change the tube.

and make sure everythings connected properly! The same could have happened with a D14 if the fan controller wasnt connected properly