Help with leak testing - pump not coming on?

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NorCalAthlete

n00b
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Jul 6, 2017
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So I just finished routing everything for my first custom loop. Never done water cooling before. I have paper towels stuffed around key points, all lines are connected, hard drives and GPU power disconnected. I'm wondering if I have something wrong though - I plugged the PSU into the wall, and have a jumper that I plugged in. The pump is a Swiftech Apogee Drive II, which has 2 wires coming off it - one fan wire, one power. I plugged the fan wire into the CPU fan on the motherboard, and the power into the PSU connector. The 8 pin motherboard power cable is plugged into the PSU, and I have a jumper for the 24-pin. The 24-pin is plugged into the PSU but NOT the motherboard.

I THINK everything should be correct, but when I turn the PSU on and plug in the jumper, the PSU makes a clicking noise once and that's it. Pump doesn't come on.

Help?

PSU is a Corsair SF600.
Motherboard is ASRock Z270 Fatal1ty Gaming ITX
Pump is a Swiftech Apogee Drive II purchased directly from Swiftech, not a 3rd party seller.
Cables are OEM cables that came with the PSU.

Troubleshooting steps taken so far -
- checked connections to PSU (cables plugged in all the way). Everything is in as far as it'll go and the little clips are clicked locked so should be good
- tried other fan connections on motherboard (case fan, CPU fan, optional pump)
 
DO NOT CONNECT THE 8 PIN CONNECTOR!!!! YOU'RE SUPPLYING POWER TO THE CPU WITHOUT POWERING UP THE REST OF THE SYSTEM!!

The fan connection is simply for RPM reading. It does nothing as far as power is concerned, and you can leave it disconnected.

I would first disconnect the 8 pin power connector, and any other power connector you have. The only thing that should have power is the pump, nothing else. Do this first and then report back.
 
Have you tried a different PSU? It is sounding like your PSU is not turning on.
 
Don't have another PSU to try...bought everything new, first PC I've build in about 4 years. Only had my laptop since about 2012, 2013.
 
I can see its fan start to spin when it clicks, but it quickly stops. I figured it was just because when it's not under load the fan isn't supposed to come on anyway.
 
I would think that if the PSU is shot, you wouldn't even see the fan tic, but that's a guess on my part.

As others have said, the only thing you should be plugging in during a leak test is the pump itself. It looks like your Apogee Drive II uses a four-pin molex, so that should be all you have plugged in to your power supply.

Are the wires to the 24-pin plug on your power supply colored? If they are, can you verify that the jumper you're using is connecting the green wire (there should only be one) and one of the black wires?

Edit: for that matter, the fan spinning on your PSU may not be an indicator that it's running or not. Lots of modern PSUs have zero-rpm fan modes, and they don't even spin if there's no load. Lots of Corsair's have that feature.
 
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The 24-pin is not colored - just all black. Same with the jumper I'm using. All black. The Apogee Drive II is plugged into the PSU but while it has a 4-pin plug, there's actually only 2 wires going to it.

The Corsair SF600 does indeed have a zero RPM fan mode.

Heading to work, will check back in about 8 hours.
 
NorCalAthlete said:
The pump is a Swiftech Apogee Drive II, which has 2 wires coming off it - one fan wire, one power. I plugged the fan wire into the CPU fan on the motherboard, and the power into the PSU connector.
Click to expand...

That pump should have a 4pin PWM plug and a 2 pin molex for power. I dunno what you are doing or how but it reads like something is off.
 
Yes, it does. The 4 pin PWM plug people said not to plug in, so I unplugged it. The 2 pin molex has been plugged in the whole time. I've tried the 4 pin PWM plug in all 3 motherboard slots with the same null result. Similarly, tried another plug on the molex cable and got the same result.
 
Hmm. Do you have something you can hook up to your PSU's molex cable to verify that it's getting power? For instance, some case fans ship with little molex -> 3pin adapters in the box. Could you use one of those or an LED strip or anything that runs on molex to check?
 
Got it. Molex connector was the culprit - loose pin. Multimeter showed voltage just fine, found the loose pin, used tweezers to tease it out a bit more and then push it in for a solid connection.

Filled everything nicely although there's a couple very stubborn small bubbles that are stuck in a pocket of the GPU - I can see it through the GPU block. I estimate about 1.5L total fluid in the system, with the small reservoir I have on it. I put in 2 drops of PT nuke (it says to use 1 drop / L though).

Letting it run and cycle the PT nuke mix through the system before I pull the quick-disconnects and plug everything into the motherboard and button the system up. 0 leaks, nothing damp, used paper towels to check. I'm not especially happy with the way the cable management worked out, but it'll do. Maybe I'll re-do it all in 6 months or so when I swap out the fluid and check on the system.

Very happy with how quiet the pump is and look forward to getting it fully operational tomorrow. Thanks for the help all!
 
you can close it with the "thread tools + edit" at the top of this thread
 
NorCalAthlete said:
Mods can close thread.
Click to expand...

Hmm, so you are going to run it at full power without the PWM plug plugged in?

NorCalAthlete said:
Yes, it does. The 4 pin PWM plug people said not to plug in, so I unplugged it. The 2 pin molex has been plugged in the whole time. I've tried the 4 pin PWM plug in all 3 motherboard slots with the same null result. Similarly, tried another plug on the molex cable and got the same result.
Click to expand...

The pump gets power from the molex not the PWM plug and putting aside your wire problem with the molex.
 
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