Water cooled system overheated but more than just cooling issues.

[chownsy]

Okay here we go. . . . Please be patient and if I need to create more than one topic then I will do so.

I have a water cooled set up that I bought from a respected (well. Thought so but now I have issues they are dragging their feet to help and I have to pay £60 for return to base warranty when it was agreed on the phone that I would be upgraded to collect and return warranty due to hassle I have had in the past with people etc) and the other night I was playing a game for the first time in a while and it shut down with overheating.

I let it cool, switched it on and the bios boot screen was totally different and the it would not load at all, turned off the CPU fan monitoring with help from the phone technical support so was thinking great they actually can help me over the phone. Rebooted and it then said no HDD found. Tried all they said, they didn't reply to emails now as I had to work and dropped them an email saying done all the things needed but still no joy. Tried to recover the boot section and it said the version on the win 7 disc I have is not compatible with the installed version and the wouldn't let me progress any further.

I have been told now that I need to fresh install the system to get it back up and running. This is now where I am at and want some help to get the system running (faster if possible) and to find out if I am able to seek some kind of legal aid against the company as I asked for a system that specifically could run in my loft conversion where it is used. The temp in the room was not that hot on the evening it went down, it gets a lot hotter in the summer which we still have to come.

The specs of the system are:
Power Supply: Modular 1000W Power Supply (80 Plus Certified)
Processor: Core i7 3930K 12MB Cache Socket 2011 overclocked to 4.4ghz
CPU Cooler: EK Supreme HF Full Copper universal CPU Block
Liquid Cooling Kit: Laing DDC 18W Pump + XSPC Dual Bay Reservoir For
Laing DDC + EK Barbs
Radiators: Thermochil Quad TA120.4 Radiator
Tubing: 3 x Tygon R3603 3/8
Coolant: Primochill Pure Performance Black/UV Blue Non-Conductive Coolant
Cooling Fans (Case/Radiator): White 120mm LED Case and Radiator Fans
Fan Controller: Lamptron FC Touch Screen Fan Controller
Optimisation and Tuning: Wired2Fire Cable Management
Graphics Card 1: Radeon HD6970 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express Graphics Card
Graphics Card 2: Radeon HD6970 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express Graphics Card
Graphics Card 3: None
GPU Cooling (check number of graphics cards): 2 x EK Full Cover GPU
Water Block
Monitor: Water temp monitor.
Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1866MHz C9 Quad Channel Memory
Kit (4 x 4GB)
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 Pro Intel X79 (Socket 2011) Motherboard
Hard Disk Drive 1: 120GB OCZ Agility Drive
Hard Disk Drive 2: Seagate 1TB Barracuda 7200.12 32MB Cache SATA III Hard Disk Drive
Optical Drive One: Blu-Ray Reader & DVD-RW Combo Drive
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Warranty: 2 Year Return to Base Warranty

The system got to 91 celcius and then gave out. It is running 3 screens but only was in 1 screen mode when I was on the game and it was at high specs and about 30% load. It shut down and the just would not reboot. There was no dust in the fans and they were on 100% load apart from the front fan which is controlled off the water temp monitor.

A few things,
1.should the system cope with running bf3 max out on eyefinity? Let alone just on 1 screen and 30% load. Or does this need to be a dual loop system.

2. Do they do Sata II to USB converters to try and recover the data from the HDD's as there is some important data on the drives that I need to try and retrieve which is not included on my full system back up.

3. Would adding another SSD drive help with things. Have 120gb for operating system only, a 240gb drive for games and the 1tb for slower games and all files etc. I have it now with documents folders all located on the d drive 1tb HDD.

4. Would someone be able to show or help with setting up the documents on the tb drive properly as it was to right before.

5. Can eyefinity be set up to drop in and out of eyefinity easily with out it moving all my icons about on the desktop

6. Would black cathodes light up purple if they were working as the system don't glow like it should do.


I will probably think of more thins to ask but these are all that seems t come to my head
Would you say this is miss sold to me as I said it needed to cope with games and it doesn't.

Richard

 

[OmegaStalker]

just out of curosity who did you buy the system from?

 

[S_I_N]

thats alot of heat for a quad rad imho any overclocks???

 

[chownsy]

just out of curosity who did you buy the system from?

Beast computers but was built under wired2fire as they are the same company

thats alot of heat for a quad rad imho any overclocks???

The CPU overclocked to 4.4ghz but graphics are stock clocks

 

[Master&Puppet]

Sounds like they haven't tested this properly at all. Personally I would have liked a little more rad space since you are running some hotter parts but that is somewhat irrelevant since they should have done their job properly.

IMO you shouldn't need to be running the pump or fans at anywhere near 100%. More like 60% is what I'd expect.

The CPU temp could be as simple as poorly applied TIM or it could be worse - a poorly setup OC.

If I were you I'd complain politely on their forums. That usually gets responses from people.

http://www.beastcomputers.co.uk/community/?osCsid=e2dc15434b63683cfbde59b918acdd76

 

[NRG!]

Do not buy watercooled systems from anyone.

 

[Greenback]

It could be they didn't bleed it properly and you got air trapped in the cpu block, I agree with having more rad space for what your cooling

 

[chownsy]

Do not buy watercooled systems from anyone.

That's unhelpful now as I have had it over a year now and this is the 2nd major problem. I'm trying to sort it out now.
It cost me over 3000 and I feel it's been a rip off and need to get it sorted ASAP plus I cannot afford much as all my savings went on this.

 

[NRG!]

That's unhelpful now as I have had it over a year now and this is the 2nd major problem. I'm trying to sort it out now.
It cost me over 3000 and I feel it's been a rip off and need to get it sorted ASAP plus I cannot afford much as all my savings went on this.

It's good advice for the future and for anyone else reading.

Do you know how to strip down your loop, clean all the blocks and radiators, re-tube it all, re-fill and bleed it? That's a requirement of owning a watercooled pc because you need to maintain it. This is why I say people shouldn't buy pcs with watercooling because 99% of the time they will not be knowledgeable about what they're doing.

Is 91c your cpu temp? that may be too hot depending on the volts it's on. If that's your gpu temps you have a MASSIVE issue.

As for your issues:

1:
I don't know what you mean. In terms of graphics horsepower the 6950 x 2 will require you to turn settings down in eyefinity. @ 3 x 1080p.
In terms of cooling capactity you may benefit from a bit more radiator space but you don't need dual loops.

2:
yes, external hdd caddies have a pcb inside that will convert sata to usb/firewire/esata etc, I have a couple of akasa ones at work.

3:
No opinion - depends what you want

4:
create a documents folder on the drive and then add it to the windows library for documents, then remove the default C:/user/my documents (or w/e it's called) from the library to make your new folder the default save location for documents

5:
Not sure I've only used nvidia surround

6:
not sure I use LED strips.

Going by 'HDD' not found and sudden shutdown I would hazard a guess that your agility 3 boot drive has died.

 

[chownsy]

Yes, my old system was water cooled.
I'm a trained mechanic so know how to maintain watercooled systems.

1. It used to cope for on 1080p but when it blacked 2 screens out instead of eyefinity it would come up saying about memory usage too high but the ram was only like 30% too.

2. Thank you for that help

3. I will have to ask about HDD later when it's working

4. Thank you, I will do that when all up and running.

5. Okay thanks will ask again when I am up and running too

6. It's got 2 cathodes and 2 led strips. I think the cathodes don't work

When you say the SSD drive is dead you mean it will need replacing?

 

[Deejeta]

120GB OCZ Agility Drive >>> this is one problem
replace this with a reliable ssd - intel, samsung, crucial

that rad for 2 gpus and oc'd 2011 chip. not the best idea.

old ek waterblocks - probably have flaked and clogged up the loop somewhere - restricting flow = high temps.

i hope you didnt pay good money for this machine pal. old gpus and shity ssd paired with an amazing cpu and great motherboard. all seems a little odd.

 

[chownsy]

It's got 2 x 2 fan rads. So a quad rad system

I need the data off the drive arghh i hope it's not completely ruined.

I paid a lot about a year and half ago. I need some leverage on the company to sort it out as I really think I was ripped off with it.

 

[Deejeta]

big $$$ to recover dead ssd data > involves taking the nand off and placing onto another controller. thats the best case scenario - ocz nand isnt worth the silicon its printed on tbh.

quad rad isnt enough for oc'd 2011, & 2gpus.

either way they have to rma the ssd for you. no doubt their rma bin is always filled with ocz drives anyway.

as for your loop. flush the whole thing out and look for little flakes. not sure if the blocks on your gpu's are before or after ek sorted out the flaking issue.

also in your bios it would pay to check what volts have been put on the cpu. if its just left on 'auto' the company who sold the pc should be shot.

 

[chownsy]

The bios seemed to fail when the drive failed too as its back to standard and lost the whole over locking profile.

The company needs to sort this out then it seems.

Would you say this is not fit for the purpose I asked them for it to do then?? If its not fit for purpose then I may be able to take action against them if they refuse to help me out.

 

[Deejeta]

Everything should still be under warranty so take the pc back to their store(just copy everything you want to keep on that on the mechanical hdd onto something else) and time it when there is a heap of customers in the showroom.
If they installed the watercooling system and its shit and led to something overheating - their fault.
They should have designed a better system.
I feel bad for ya champ. This happens all too often as well.
If they wont play ball take em to a small claims court. Or call them every day until they sort it out for you.

 

[chownsy]

It's about 500 days since purchase so I'm covered for a refund with credit card company if they won't play ball. Found the email and they said were having probs with temps but when delivered told all was okay with it.

 

[Greenback]

if the bios reset to default then possibly the boot drive isn't the drive that is first on the list try unplugging all your hdd's besides the ssd boot drive, or if you know how to set the ssd as first boot. sorry if that sounds a bit patronising

 

[chownsy]

Done that, the bios is back to standard I think, can't find a boot drive and windows recovery won't work either.