Ever see a cooler defect like this? (no pun intended)

rastaban

Gawd
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Jul 30, 2011
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So I bought this BeQuiet! Shadow Rock Slim on eBay...the seller claimed it was new, and it appeared to be by the look of the box and film at the base. But wait!

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I got a refund as the seller was unaware and it didnt make sense to pay the shipping back (US back to Canada). I tried opening a case with BeQuiet! support but obviously that didn't work as I didn't buy through an "authorized dealer."

My question is, have you seen a cooler defect like this?
Do you think it's still usable? Maybe not for the rated 160W, but what about say for 80W class? I wonder if the liquid inside the heatpipes has leaked out...
I see that the fan is a nonstandard 136x136mm with nonstandard mounting points on the frame, what can I do with it?
 
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Never seen a failure like that. It's still completely useable, but not at it's full rating I agree. I would also make sure that that heat pipe is empty. Wouldn't want it getting hot and shooting goo all over your motherboard.

Motherboards dont like things getting hot and shooting goo on them. Motherboards are classy.
 
I've seen things like that. I saw a damaged MSI Windforce card that came back from RMA like that. It didn't seem to impact anything other than the looks.
 
My question is, have you seen a cooler defect like this?
Do you think it's still usable? Maybe not for the rated 160W, but what about say for 80W class? I wonder if the liquid inside the heatpipes has leaked out...
I see that the fan is a nonstandard 136x136mm with nonstandard mounting points on the frame, what can I do with it?

I have seen defects like this before. I have had it happen a few times (for reference, I have built a lot of different kinds of systems, the percentage of it happening is very low in my personal experience). I have had it happen from poor handling, bad QA, and the part failing (warping under heat and breaking). I almost always ditch the part and get a replacement. I don't like trusting systems to unknown problems especially when there is a chance for it having more issues down the road. I wouldn't recommend using it unless it is for a very low power, low heat system and you absolutely don't have anything else or the time/money to replace it.

For shits and giggles I built some systems once with some defective parts and ran them to see how much they could take, most of them failed. But I was specifically their limits to see how much the part could actually take. Losing a heat pipe isn't as simple as losing 1/8th or 1/4 of its heat dissipation capacity. You are also losing a lot of the parity and balance of the heat dissipation which could cause other problems in the unit.
 
What NoOther said. Cooler should have 4 working heatpipes and has only 3, so it's cooling ability will be at least 25% below what it should be .. possibly 30-35% below spec .. it is highly unlikely that a broken heatpipe still has it's vacuum seal so highly unlikely that pipe works at all. Also keep in mind it's a lower end 4x heatpipe cooler, not a big 6x or 8x heatpipe cooler so the loss of one heatpipe effects it even more.

Thanks for posting! Always nice to see strange things like this.
 
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