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Water cooling emergency!!! Please HELP!!!!

D

Dijonase

Gawd
Joined
Jun 4, 2004
Messages
946
OK, I got all of my watercooling gear setup this evening and plugged the pump in for a test run. Everything looked fine. Then I took a look at my res, the DangerDen dual bay res, and noticed that there's a small leak at the bottom edge.

It's already in there and I can't think of an easy way to drain it, pull it out, patch it up, and put it all back in. Is it possible for me to patch the leak in some way with the water still in it or do I need to take it out and drain it first? Please help!!! :eek:
 
nahyah said:
you should drain first
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know I probably should, but is there a viable way around it? Since it's a bay res it's going to be a bitch to get out of there. I didn't see the leak when I leak tested it and I didn't sling it around when installing it, so I really don't know how it even happened.
 
Quick Epoxy. Homedepot, etc has it... you mix it with your finger and shove it just like you would plaster gum somewhere :p Works quite well.
 
ewww, not your finger unless you want your fingers stuck together. Use a pop sicle stick or somthing.
 
Right now I have the reservoir sticking out the front of the case slightly. That way if it does leak it won't drip into the computer. The thing is, I wiped away the small droplet of water that was on the bottom edge of the res and it didn't leak again. I let the pump run while I was getting ready for work and it didn't leak then either. If I get home and it's not leaking I'll go ahead and try to put some epoxy on it without draining.

I wonder why it would leak one minute but not the next? :confused:
 
are you sure it didn't just sweat when you put cold water in the system to begin with
 
Or accidently spill some water while you were filling and it ran down the sides and appeared to be leaking? I got scared when this happened to me my first time, but it was just overflow that came down the sides and eventually went away. See if thats the case.
 
OneMadPoptart said:
Or accidently spill some water while you were filling and it ran down the sides and appeared to be leaking? I got scared when this happened to me my first time, but it was just overflow that came down the sides and eventually went away. See if thats the case.
Click to expand...

There's still a good inch to the top of the res. I thought about that. The only problem is that there looks like there might be a crack, so it may well be a leak. I would dab at it with a tissue and another droplet would slowly form.

Then again, at one moment it was forming a droplet at the bottom left corner, then it would form a droplet an inch or so to the right of the corner. I'm going to get home this evening and put some epoxy on it regardless, but I really don't know whether it's leaking, sweating, or what :confused:
 
SportyGuy220 said:
ewww, not your finger unless you want your fingers stuck together. Use a pop sicle stick or somthing.
Click to expand...


Ahahahah... no... the quickepoxy is not typical epoxy. The correct one for this would be "AquaMend". They have ones for aluminum, copper, etc. I use it whenever I don't feel like patching up the job with major soldering, torching, cleaning, etc.
 
OK, I'm having a new issue. I got home from work and the res wasn't leaking. I fired up the system and everything looked good. I went ahead and added the water wetter, but it just sat there in the res. It didn't flow through the rest of the system.

I then realized that I don't have the cap on the res. Do I need the res to be sealed to maintain the system's pressure? Does it need to be a closed and sealed system to achieve proper flow? Logic says yes, but I just can't figure if that's right or not.

Oh, and to add insult to injury I can't find the cap. It's around here somewhere, I'm just not sure where. :(
 
Cap's only needed to prevent water splashing out. Your water wetter isn't moving? Is your pump on?
 
HeThatKnows said:
Cap's only needed to prevent water splashing out. Your water wetter isn't moving? Is your pump on?
Click to expand...

Pump is on. The water just doesn't seem to be flowing. I can't figure out what's going on here. Here's what I've got:

Hydor L30
Super Cube Radiator
Maze4 CPU block
DangerDen dual bay res

The water wetter looks like it's just sitting in the res. I figured the flow was fine until I added water wetter. The res water turned nice and pink, but the water in the tubes stayes perfectly clear.

EDIT: Oh, and when the pump is on the water visually looks to be flowing just fine. There's a nice ripple in the water in the res, so I figured everything was fine.
 
Wow, that's really bizarre. I'd expect the water in the res to mix fairly quickly. :confused: I wonder what kind of flow rates you're getting?
 
HeThatKnows said:
Wow, that's really bizarre. I'd expect the water in the res to mix fairly quickly. :confused: I wonder what kind of flow rates you're getting?
Click to expand...

It's sitting there now with the pump off. The res is pink and the water in the tubes is nice and clear. Wouldn't you expect the water wetter to diffuse through the system regardless of whether it was running or not? I don't mean all the way, but at least a little. The water even just outside the res is clear and shows no sign of water wetter.

EDIT: The inlet and outlet of the res both look perfectly clear, so I have no idea what might be restricting the water wetter (or any of the water in the res for that matter).
 
It won't diffuse very far or very fast with the pump off, but it ought get mixed in pretty quick with the pump on.

BTW, that Super Cube is a flow killer. 6+ feet of tubing and 14 180° turns...
 
HeThatKnows said:
It won't diffuse very far or very fast with the pump off, but it ought get mixed in pretty quick with the pump on.

BTW, that Super Cube is a flow killer. 6+ feet of tubing and 14 180° turns...
Click to expand...

Still though, I didn't see the water wetter moving at all through the system with the pump on. It does look like a flow killer. I might have to try to sell it and get something a bit less so.

But isn't the L30 powerful enough to at least move the water wetter around?
 
Yeah, the L30 should be able to. Makes me wonder about the design of the res, is there something about it that discourages good mixing? I'm as :confused: as you.
 
HeThatKnows said:
Yeah, the L30 should be able to. Makes me wonder about the design of the res, is there something about it that discourages good mixing? I'm as :confused: as you.
Click to expand...

The res looks fine to me. Take a look here (it's the dual 5 1/4):
http://www.dangerden.com/mall/Misc_Hardware/ddbay.asp

Would you think that it would be worth ditching the supercube to improve my flow? If so what would you recommend. I'd rather not spend too much, but it does look like this supercube is illing my flow.
 
A heatercore would be an improvement. Less flow resistance, and probably better air flow (man them cubes is thick). Maze4 will respond well to increased flow.

Only thing I can think of with the lack of mixing: if the water wetter has a lower density than the water, it could sort of float on the top of the water. Maybe stick something through the fill hole and stir while the pump circulates?
 
It could be he just cant see the water wetter. The tubes are a lot narrower than the res. Perhaps it just doesnt show up?
 
While I don't have water wetter (I have zerex), I can very clearly see it in my tubing and res (a lightish purpleish color). And it mixed right away into the tubing on my sig rig right when I put it in the res. (I have a frozencpu single 5 1/4" bay res.) And I'm only running at about a 10% ratio (it's hard to tell, because of the leak I had. I still had about 1/2 the fluid in the system still when I refilled it, so my ratio is probably all wack now. I just tried to make the color near the same as before ;) ).

Maybe the watter wetter doesn't show up well in the tubing because there isn't as much fluid in there.

One thing I read in the chemistry analysis of the different types of water cooling additives is that water wetter has a nasty nack for making acrylic reseviors crack after a while. It's certainly not causing your current problem, but it's something to watch out for. (That's why I got the zerex. It doesn't cause acrylic deterioration.)
 
Its probably an optical illusion. the light that comes through your res is going through alot more distance of colored water and taking that color, the light coming through the tubes just doesn't pick up enough color to be visible. I'd say it's mixed in fine but you just can't see it.
 
TwEaKd said:
Its probably an optical illusion. the light that comes through your res is going through alot more distance of colored water and taking that color, the light coming through the tubes just doesn't pick up enough color to be visible. I'd say it's mixed in fine but you just can't see it.
Click to expand...

Well, it's possible, but that doesn't appear to be the case. There is one thing I forgot to mention. My temps when I powered on were 30C for the CPU. They were about 40C with air, so I was happy. I let it sit idle, walked away for maybe 10 minutes, and came back, and the temps had jumped to 36C. I don't know if this is to be expected, but on air the idle temps stayed at 39C to 40C, no matter how long I left it idle. That was when I first thought there might be a problem.

EDIT: How about that heatercore? Would it be a good upgrade from my supercube? Would you recommend something else? Keep the cube?
 
Well, regardless of whether it's causing me problems or not I think I'm going to get a heatercore from dangerden. If I do so how important is the fan shroud? Also, is the shroud for an 80mm or a 120mm fan? Seriously, for as good as their products are dangerden's site really sucks. How hard is it to put up a product description every now and then?
 
Their heatercore shrouds are for 120mm fans.

Fan shroud make a big difference. Besides the obvious "make sure all the air goes through the rad" property, having some distance between the fan and the rad is good. This allow for more even air flow, decreasinging the dead spots beneath the fan motor and outside the fan's diameter.

You can easily make your own. Cardboard looks fine with some black paint on it, fiberglass patch (from the boat or auto store) makes for slick results, or the classics, sheet metal and acrylic.

The DD heatercores are (I think) from the '71 Caprice and the '77 Bonneville. If you don't mind putting barbs on yourself, you can probably buy locally and save some money and shipping time.
 
HeThatKnows said:
Their heatercore shrouds are for 120mm fans.

Fan shroud make a big difference. Besides the obvious "make sure all the air goes through the rad" property, having some distance between the fan and the rad is good. This allow for more even air flow, decreasinging the dead spots beneath the fan motor and outside the fan's diameter.

You can easily make your own. Cardboard looks fine with some black paint on it, fiberglass patch (from the boat or auto store) makes for slick results, or the classics, sheet metal and acrylic.

The DD heatercores are (I think) from the '71 Caprice and the '77 Bonneville. If you don't mind putting barbs on yourself, you can probably buy locally and save some money and shipping time.
Click to expand...

Well, I've had so many little problems along the way that I think I'd just as soon buy the heatercore w/ shroud rather than make my own shroud. My res is leaking again. It looked fine and I'm not sure why it would leak, stop leaking, and then start again, but it has. I allowed myself to hope that I had just spilled some water when I was filling and it ran around the edge, but it's truly a leak.

OK, so regarding the heatercore: how flow restrictive is it? It appears that my Supercube and Maze4 are working to KILL my flow. Considering how big the Supercube is and how many 180 degree turns the tubing in it has I guess that's to be expected. I can only assume that the heatercore is much less restrictive. Can anyone second that?
 
There's a reason the super cube was discontinued - it destroys flow.

Get a Black Ice Xtreme or a heater core. Throw away the super cube. It's trash.
 
mwarps said:
There's a reason the super cube was discontinued - it destroys flow.

Get a Black Ice Xtreme or a heater core. Throw away the super cube. It's trash.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've figured that much out the hard way. I bought it used on the forums not realizing it would murder my flow.

I've pretty much decided on a heatercore from dangerden. I'd rather go for the single since I only have a power connection for one 120mm fan and I'd also rather not tax my 350W PSU any more than it already is. My question is now this: how big a difference will I see between the single and double heatercores in terms of both temps and flow?
 
Well, I bit the bullet and got a heatercore from dangerden. I'd have gotten the dual but I really don't want to put another 120mm fan in my setup. I'll just run the beast of a supercube until I get the new rad I guess.

I hadn't mentioned it yet, but it turns out that I do have a leak in my res, but it seems to slow and then stop completely when the pump is off. If it's stopped leaking when I get home this afternoon then I'm going to try to throw some epoxy on it without draining the whole system. One question: how much epoxy is too much? ;)
 
Too much epoxy is when it drips onto your computer...:) Be sure to clean the area with isopropanol before you put on your epoxy. Water wetter residue will prevent a good bond.

As for heatercore vs supercube, your water temperatures will stay about the same (the cube does okay as a rad), your case temps could drop a bit (better air flow through the heatcore), CPU temps should drop at keast a couple degrees and probably more.

Don't trash your Super Cube, sell it. Some eople like to use them as condensers when making a compact phase-change system.
 
HeThatKnows said:
Too much epoxy is when it drips onto your computer...:) Be sure to clean the area with isopropanol before you put on your epoxy. Water wetter residue will prevent a good bond.

As for heatercore vs supercube, your water temperatures will stay about the same (the cube does okay as a rad), your case temps could drop a bit (better air flow through the heatcore), CPU temps should drop at keast a couple degrees and probably more.

Don't trash your Super Cube, sell it. Some eople like to use them as condensers when making a compact phase-change system.
Click to expand...

Oh, trust me, I'll sell it through these forums. I'll try at least. I've already got a thread out there for a MAZE2 block. I'll just add it to that.

Concerning the temp difference between the supercube and the heatercore, I'd actually expect the difference to be pretty large. While sitting idle for 5 or 10 minutes tho CPU rose in temps from 30C to 36C I believe. You really just don't know how TERRIBLE my flow actually was. If I can actually get some flow I expect a big difference. I may be wrong, but I don't think so.
 
Well, that rise in temps over the first 5 or 10 minute the computer is on is more a function of the water heating up from ambient to its steady state temperature, not so much due to the cube suckage. The water temperature once everything is up and running is function of the rad, though.

If have a thermometer handy, drop it in your res. See how warm the water gets after the computer runs at full load for a while. Then you'll have something useful for before/after comparisons.
 
HeThatKnows said:
Well, that rise in temps over the first 5 or 10 minute the computer is on is more a function of the water heating up from ambient to its steady state temperature, not so much due to the cube suckage. The water temperature once everything is up and running is function of the rad, though.

If have a thermometer handy, drop it in your res. See how warm the water gets after the computer runs at full load for a while. Then you'll have something useful for before/after comparisons.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that does make sense. I just hope that the new rad gives drops my temps a few degrees though. Right now it was only 4C or 5C or so cooler than my past air cooled setup. Then again, I also have to wait for the Arctic Silver 5 to set in, so that could shave off a couple degrees.
 
Oh, it'll definitely improve things. Your waterblock hates the low flow you have now.

It's tough to estimate flow rates and, therefore, the improvement you'll see. I'd rather guess low and have you pleasantly surprised....
 
HeThatKnows said:
Oh, it'll definitely improve things. Your waterblock hates the low flow you have now.

It's tough to estimate flow rates and, therefore, the improvement you'll see. I'd rather guess low and have you pleasantly surprised....
Click to expand...

This is true. I have no expectations really. I just like the fact that it's quieter than my old setup. Even if it's only slightly more efficient I'll be happy. And hey, the water cooling setup is basically a hobby in and of itself. I've had fun just playing with it.
 
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