EK 680 DC2 Waterblock MASSIVE Galvanic Corrosion in 24 hours from new! Pics inside...

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Ok, so the other day I got a brand new Asus 680 DirectCUII card and a shiny new EK 680 DC2 waterblock to go with it.

So I installed it yesterday, everything went perfectly, and I was up and running in no time.

Left the PC on over night, and then morning, upon inspecting the back of my PC I notice the water has suddenly gone a harrowing copper/orange colour, as if something has spontaneously corroded! My PC has been totally clean for months on end, water is a pure mix of de-ionsied and anti-freeze. So it had to be the new EK waterblock.

Sure enough I take off the silver 'bling' plate and immediately see the following...















So yeah, I think those pictures pretty much speak for themselves. The last two however, are after I cleaned up the stupidly 'why-the-fuck-EK ALUMINIUM bling plate'. You can see the 1-2mm holes of devouration peppering the inlet/outlet first contact points opposite the Nickel waterblock.

I dunno if this is a bad block that slipped past QC, or if that reaction is coming from my copper CPU block and/or copper radiator. Both of which were totally clean and corrosion free after all this. All the damage seems to be blatantly highly concentrated precisely at the first contact point between the Nickel waterblock base and Aluminium bling plate.

I can't be bothered to write any more having spen the last 7 hours cleaning all this shit out of my whole PC. Did my Laing DDC plexi pump top right in. :rolleyes:


Well I would send it back but I wanna use my PC now dammit, so being the pragmatist I simply cut an appropriately shaped piece of overhead projector film and put it between the bling plate and where it would contact the water. Problem solved. Well, we'll see tomorrow morning I guess...
 
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That seems quick even for an EK block... Seems like it was a bad block that has something very weird about it...normal corrosion i've seen isn't normally this bad or this fast...

You should write to them to find out exactly how it was "your fault", and ask them why they put those weird circles all over it. :D
 
That seems quick even for an EK block... Seems like it was a bad block that has something very weird about it...normal corrosion i've seen isn't normally this bad or this fast...

You should write to them to find out exactly how it was "your fault", and ask them why they put those weird circles all over it. :D

Yes, it was exactly his fault for buying the EK on a WB after all the shit that's happened to people in the past 2 years... :D see and learn son. Stay away from EK at any cost. Period.
 
i'm confused, why was there aluminium anywhere near the loop?

it's been known in WC community for years that you shouldn't have alu in copper/nickel/brass loops.
even with EK's shitful track record, i can't believe they'd make such a rookie mistake.

the corrosion really happened in a 24hr period... crazy.

i've got several EK parts in my loop, 2 waterblocks & 655/D5 pump-top so i'm always interested in threads such as these. not worried about my pump-top but my EN nickel plated blocks (full cover GPU & chipset blocks) i'm fearful of flaking.

as i've got mixed metals in my loop (copper, brass, nickel, silver), i make sure to include Liquid Utopia with distilled water.

i hope EK cough-up the cash for at least the GPU block tho they should really cover the cost to replace pump too.
 
i hope EK cough-up the cash for at least the GPU block tho they should really cover the cost to replace pump too.

I really really used to love EK for their price/performance, but, seeing from threads like these:

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1229439&mpage=1

It comes as if EK isn't giving a shit anymore. They act like they're completely irresponsible and careless, yet people keep on going "OH ZE NOES my EHEYKAY BHLOCKZ STILLZ CORRODEZ!!111!" or "EK block oxidated yet again! 2 GPU's DEAD! PUSSY SHIT OUT! FUCK THIS SHIT.". :p :D
 
i'm confused, why was there aluminium anywhere near the loop?

it's been known in WC community for years that you shouldn't have alu in copper/nickel/brass loops.
even with EK's shitful track record, i can't believe they'd make such a rookie mistake.

the corrosion really happened in a 24hr period... crazy.

i've got several EK parts in my loop, 2 waterblocks & 655/D5 pump-top so i'm always interested in threads such as these. not worried about my pump-top but my EN nickel plated blocks (full cover GPU & chipset blocks) i'm fearful of flaking.

as i've got mixed metals in my loop (copper, brass, nickel, silver), i make sure to include Liquid Utopia with distilled water.

i hope EK cough-up the cash for at least the GPU block tho they should really cover the cost to replace pump too.

I know right, it's insane to put aluminium near any modern PC waterloop! The back of that plate looked handed lapped, which you can see in the photoes, so I'm guessing/assuming I got some odd dodgy one. Ironic that there were two little custom EK 'QC passed' stickers attached to both pieces of the nickel side. :rolleyes:

But yeah, 24 hours for all that corrosion and damage blew my mind. I'm Sure it was all done in that period too as all the gunk was fresh when I found it, and there were absolutely no bits floating around just after I installed it. So yeah, that's how quickly galvanic corrosion can happen when the two metal pieces are millimetres apart in the same waterblock!

Amateur EK!

Well anyway, it's been another day, and since I did my OHP film mod, my water is clear still, so looks good for now.
 
Why didn't you just throw the air cooler back on and get rid of that piece of crap? This has been happening for years with EK, nothing new.
 
This isn't the first or even the tenth time we've seen this. Honestly, I'll never buy an EK product again. Sorry for your loss OP, hopefully you're granted some kind of compensation.
 
You should post this over at RealRedRaider. They'll have a ball with it.

Joke of a forum made by a bunch of giant bags of douche all of which managed to get themselves banned from XS... sad really. They act like they're 10 yrs. old the entire time. It's only good for reading up on some WC shit or shit that happened across the net, nothing else. None at all.
 
Joke of a forum made by a bunch of giant bags of douche all of which managed to get themselves banned from XS... sad really. They act like they're 10 yrs. old the entire time. It's only good for reading up on some WC shit or shit that happened across the net, nothing else. None at all.

Didn't say I frequent the place. I just said they'd have fun with it. Prolly make acouple new animated gifs and bash eddy some more. It's an amusing show really.
 
Didn't say I frequent the place. I just said they'd have fun with it. Prolly make acouple new animated gifs and bash eddy some more. It's an amusing show really.

Yeah, and if he posted it on JGuru, they'd all, like grown ass, intellectual men, try to help him out...
 
sweet merciful crap... it looks like you were running some kind of industrial lube for coolant. :eek: :eek:

PS: I ran DD copper blocks (tdx + two maze4's) with a koolance alum rad for quite a long while with distilled + pentosin and never saw corrosion...
 
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That seems quick even for an EK block... Seems like it was a bad block that has something very weird about it...normal corrosion i've seen isn't normally this bad or this fast...

You should write to them to find out exactly how it was "your fault", and ask them why they put those weird circles all over it. :D

All of this.
 

You have issues just as the RRR folks if you honestly DO NOT see anything wrong with MAKING OF SOMEONE.

sweet merciful crap... it looks like you were running some kind of industrial lube for coolant. :eek: :eek:

PS: I can DD copper blocks (tdx + two maze4's) with a koolance alum rad for quite a long while with distilled + pentosin and never saw corrosion...

Yeah, ya know, more lube = more performance. Always. :D

I've also mixed a TON of copper and aluminum blocks (knowingly) on my old Zalman Reserator. 10 pounds of aluminum garbage that's almost as high as me. It could take a fucking beating and keep on going. :D
 
Heatkiller, Koolance, XSPC, Swifttech, DD before they closed (still can get 680 blocks for good price) all make good products. It sucks though cause EK is the only company that makes the specialized blocks for the non reference boards so you are pretty much stuck if you buy a DUII or one of the other brands overclocking boards. And this is the reason I make sure I buy reference boards so I dont have to use an EK product.
 
Heatkiller, Koolance, XSPC, Swifttech, DD before they closed (still can get 680 blocks for good price) all make good products. It sucks though cause EK is the only company that makes the specialized blocks for the non reference boards so you are pretty much stuck if you buy a DUII or one of the other brands overclocking boards. And this is the reason I make sure I buy reference boards so I dont have to use an EK product.

All of those make GPU only blocks. It's not quite so elegant, but it works!
 
I've also mixed a TON of copper and aluminum blocks (knowingly) on my old Zalman Reserator. 10 pounds of aluminum garbage that's almost as high as me. It could take a fucking beating and keep on going. :D

Yeah, I'm guessing it's simply the proximity that was the problem. I too have had aluminium mixed with copper parts in a loop in the past, and whilst the aluminium kind of darkened over time, it didn't tear itself to shreds like that EK block. The Nickel and Aluminium are about 2mm apart in that block and all the corrosion was concentrated in that area only.

Well, it's been a few more days and so far so good. Volt modded the 680 now and got it at 1411mhz GPU, 8000mhz Mem!
 
I know right, it's insane to put aluminium near any modern PC waterloop! The back of that plate looked handed lapped, which you can see in the photoes, so I'm guessing/assuming I got some odd dodgy one. Ironic that there were two little custom EK 'QC passed' stickers attached to both pieces of the nickel side. :rolleyes:

But yeah, 24 hours for all that corrosion and damage blew my mind. I'm Sure it was all done in that period too as all the gunk was fresh when I found it, and there were absolutely no bits floating around just after I installed it. So yeah, that's how quickly galvanic corrosion can happen when the two metal pieces are millimetres apart in the same waterblock!

Amateur EK!

Well anyway, it's been another day, and since I did my OHP film mod, my water is clear still, so looks good for now.



....

Well, it's been a few more days and so far so good. Volt modded the 680 now and got it at 1411mhz GPU, 8000mhz Mem!

so you used 'overhead projector film' to insulate the aluminium plate?
decent quick and dirty mod tho you could have used the opportunity to use a custom copper sheet. wouldn't have been too difficult to trace out the old aluminium plate onto copper one.
 
so you used 'overhead projector film' to insulate the aluminium plate?
decent quick and dirty mod tho you could have used the opportunity to use a custom copper sheet. wouldn't have been too difficult to trace out the old aluminium plate onto copper one.

My mod took seconds to implement and is transparent (literally!). A copper plate would require sourcing a sheet of copper, cutting it to size, and then drilling holes in it.

Anyway, if I was gunna resolve it 'properly', I'd contact EK. Personally I'd rather just fix the problem myself quickly so I can use my PC this side of Sunday, and then shame them publicly. Not that they need much help in this department apparently....
 
I would email EK and tell them to send you new blocks or a new plate made outta copper or delrin to put in place of that aluminum piece. I find it hard to believe that EK would have made that out of aluminum even with their bad rep. That's just mind blowing after them being in business that long.
 
I'd recommend staying away from EK's nickel waterblocks. The quality in the last generation or two seems to have declined.

I'm not too sure about their copper versions though.
 
"water is a pure mix of de-ionsied and anti-freeze"

'nuff said.



That definitely sounds like a big part of the the problem.


I thought that top gpu to vrm bridge cover was made out of stainless steel not aluminum?
 
That definitely sounds like a big part of the the problem.


I thought that top gpu to vrm bridge cover was made out of stainless steel not aluminum?

How so? Moderns motors are a mix of aluminum/iron blocks ands heads with copper/aluminum radiators. Automotive coolant has additives to prevent/inhibit corrosion due to these metal mixing and matching.
 
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