Water leaking over gpus.. please help

davidm71

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 11, 2004
Messages
1,568
Hi,

First time water cooling my gpu's and had a water leak issue last night. My loop consists of three rads, res, pump, cpu block, and two gpu blocks linked with an EK FC terminal block. Never had a problem with leaks before but noticed water dripping off of my second gpu during leak testing with distilled h2o. I think the source of the leak is the FC terminal block as to my eyes the rubber inserts look a little too flat compared to the ones in the actual headers that were on the block, plus not a fan of using a dummy blank terminal in the middle. Any how was able to get the leaking to slow down by tightening the heck out of the screws thats why I think the source was the terminal block but can't say for certain as the top gpu was dry. Anyhow I completely drained my loop and about to start over with just manually linking the two gpus with tube and compression fittings. The two gpu's are 980 ti KPE with Classy KPE EK blocks. Worried about if the gpu is ruined or not as well. Anyone with more experience with EK products can please advise??

Thank you

Edit: Also whats the best way to manually run tube between two gpu blocks? Do both outlets need to be tubed between both cards or can I only run length of cored between the two cards for serial cooling?

Thanks
 
Last edited:
Hi,

First time water cooling my gpu's and had a water leak issue last night. My loop consists of three rads, res, pump, cpu block, and two gpu blocks linked with an EK FC terminal block. Never had a problem with leaks before but noticed water dripping off of my second gpu during leak testing with distilled h2o. I think the source of the leak is the FC terminal block as to my eyes the rubber inserts look a little too flat compared to the ones in the actual headers that were on the block, plus not a fan of using a dummy blank terminal in the middle. Any how was able to get the leaking to slow down by tightening the heck out of the screws thats why I think the source was the terminal block but can't say for certain as the top gpu was dry. Anyhow I completely drained my loop and about to start over with just manually linking the two gpus with tube and compression fittings. The two gpu's are 980 ti KPE with Classy KPE EK blocks. Worried about if the gpu is ruined or not as well. Anyone with more experience with EK products can please advise??

Thank you

Edit: Also whats the best way to manually run tube between two gpu blocks? Do both outlets need to be tubed between both cards or can I only run length of cored between the two cards for serial cooling?

Thanks

I've never had a leak in any of my EK blocks. Onlymplace I've ever had a leak develop was in my XSPC swivel bends.

Any manufacturer can have a one off error though.

One thing that stands out as a little concerning is that you say you tightened the heck out of it . It is possible to over-tighten and cram these things, especially the ones with the plastic mounts.

This is a brand new build right?

I'd reach out to EK and see what they say. It might be an RMA.

Also, if the distilled water is fresh, a leak is rarely damaging as distilled water is not conductive. It is the salts and ions in water that make it conductive, and the destillation removes those. (If the fluid is old it can start to conduct though as it picks up ions from your loop. This is why it is a good idea to change fluid annually)

Just give the parts that got wet plenty of time to dry out before powering them up to be on the safe side, and you are probably OK.
 
Its an acetal nickel type water block. The fact is I'm not sure about the source of the leak. After work I'm going to try to re-tube it manually not using the FC triple bridge as I just don't and never did trust it.

Thanks
 
So I did the tubing over around the gpu blocks this time manually serially connecting them with tube and compression fittings and its NO LONGER LEAKING!!! Obviously the EK Terminal bridge was at fault. I blame the rubber linings inside the bridge as being faulty. Compared to the original terminals that came with the EK Classy block they looked a lot flatter. The originals were a lot thicker. Heres a photo of what the bridge looks like:

Photo%20Jan%2014%2C%2011%2001%2041%20PM.jpg


The rubber liners look almost indented inside the grooves. No way they can make contact with the block. I advise anyone considering using these bridges use them with caution!

Any how here is the finished loop. Took me two whole days. Best I could do considering I had the flu. Forgot to insert the decorative EK plastic piece in the resevoir which came out slightly crooked. Got a little more work to do cleaning up the wiring but its just about done:

Photo%20Jan%2014%2C%2010%2040%2040%20PM.jpg



Not the latest and greatest considering its an X99 paired with two 980 Ti KPE cards but didn't feal like risking expensive bran new hardware at the time few years back. Anyhow my temps are great. My 6850K hottest core is only 55 degrees with Prime95 at 4.2 Ghz 1.32 volts and the GPUs load up at like 35/38 degrees while 3DMark Stress Testing so got a lot over clock head room.

Now I can finally clean up and rest.

Thanks
 
sheesh! glad to see everything is running right now. the o rings definitely look indented from that pic. ive got a pair of 980tis in my x99 rig and thats exactly how i had to do my bridge lol. a short section of tubing with compression fittings, works a charm!
thats a very respectable rig man. those kingpins in sli will out perform a 1080ti! im also running a 6850 in mine and i can say with confidence it will run pretty much anything i throw at it without breaking a sweat. my 6850 is a hot bitch like most. i can hit max stable 4.7 with it but temps are just to high to get anything more. enjoy your rig man!
 
I never really overclocked my gpus all that much beyond a few mhz but those temps are amazing. Its like half of what it use to be with those heavy copper heatsinks they use to have. Anyhow going to replace those g1/4 caps with metal bitspower caps and leave it tge way it is with compression fittings. Don't think replacing orings on that bridge would help as now I just dont trust it anymore.


Only thing about overclocking the 6850k is that I'm limited by voltage despite low temps. I mean 4.4 ghz took like 1.365 volts! Considering they say stay below 1.350 volts to avoid cpu degradation those low temps are wasted. And you say your at 4.7ghz? Whats your vcore?!

Thanks
 
yeah i dont oc my gpus anymore either. i had a bad experience. killed a $700 card that was out of warranty.
hell yes! eks fullcoverage blocks and overkill raddage is the shit! mine idle right at 30-32c and top out at around 43-45c when i run 3dmark or heaven on them. running a hwlabs 420 and xspc rx360.
bitspower caps will look sweet. that what ive got in my flow meter but still have the fugly ek chrome plugs on my gpus.

i believe it was 1.40-1.425, its been a long time since i tested for the max stable oc, its been a couple of years tbh. a bios flash erased all of my saved oc settings unfortunately and i have no idea where my notes are. ocing it bumped my benchmarks a little but not enough to justify running it 24/7 oced that high. in games the oc didnt help at all. i only ran it that high for a couple of days while i benched/tested it. its been running stock since then. im in the process of swapping it into a smaller case, installing a bitspower thor monoblock onto it and redoing the tubing to hardline in both it and my main rig. i dread doing it but ive been putting it off for far to long! im running a evga classified with it and 4x8gb of hyperx rgb ddr4 4000 thats running at 3200c14. my mb wont clock the memory any higher than that. im talking a hard wall. i cant even go up 100mhz without it hardlocking and forcing a reboot. tried sloppy timings and increased voltage but nothing. so i decided to move on to a 8086k and msi z370 gaming pro carbon. mostly to tide me over until the new ryzen chips come out. but ill be hangin on to my x99 rig for a good long time! its been a rock since day one and i cant see myself getting rid of it. ive got hoarding tendencies when it come to my computers lol!
 
Well I put off water cooling these gpus for like three years but I got the water bug I suppose. Now that they are under water I want to see what theyve got. The 6850k is a difficult beast to overclock. The temps are low but the volts are high. I wish they scaled better. Anyhow putting my EK Terminal bridge back in the draw. Thanks EK but its too risky. Thanks.
 
yeah i dont oc my gpus anymore either. i had a bad experience. killed a $700 card that was out of warranty.

How did that happen?

It's almost impossible to kill either a GPU or CPU these days with overclocking unless you severely overvolt them or they to do hardware/shunt mods.

With GPU's (at least Nvidia) the max voltage slider is typically limited to within a safe range, and just like with CPU's you can't even really overheat them too much because they just throttle...
 
it was a ati 9800pro bought brand spankin new from compusa for $699+tax. it only came with a one year warranty and shortly after the warranty ran out i decided to try my hand at ocing it(not knowing the warranty was gone). i had just started watercooling it with a koolance gpu block so i figured i would be golden. its been so long i honestly dont know what all i did to it but it started artifacting the next day. i tried to reset it to stock speeds. tried down clocking it but the artifacts just got worse and worse until finally it wouldnt allow the rig to boot anymore :(
im sure i wouldnt have any issues ocing a current gpu but i cant help but think back to that 9800pro i killed when i open afterburner...
 
Back
Top