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Ok, writing this here so that others can learn from my mistake(s). Ok, I've had a watercooled rig for about a year and a half now. Its seen two dif vid cards, two mobo's, and two cpu's go through it. Well, time came that I wanted to improve on it. Now, here is what it looked like before:
I know, wiring is a mess. However, the rad I wanted moved. Got tired of trying to force in cool air with that lil 80mm fan next to it. So, break out the dremel, get some new hoses, a couple of elbow's and a new 5.25" bay rad from DangerDen. Now Im ready. Ready for what? To make a few mistakes.
Mistake 0ne:
Before testing my fittings and connections, I had all my hardware back in my case(was hiding wires and needed everything in there to place stuff, was to lazy to take it all out again). So, what happens right when I start to poor my coolant into my system? A leak forms right above my vid card. Ok, had my socket driver right there, tightend the hose clamp I had forgotten to tighten, no more leak(or so I thought, later on this). So I wiped up the coolant off my vid card, proceeded to fill my system. Once it was filled I turned on my pump to bleed the air out and test for leaks*HA!*. An hour later I go back, do not see any leaks yet. So, bring my system in, fire it up. Works great, for about 20 minutes. Was afk for a bit, helping my son with some homework, and came back in. Monitor was in sleep mode, flick my mouse, nothing. Restarted my pc. Well, if you have digital cable or DirecTv, and have seen the signal go in and out, you know what pixalizing looks like. That was what I was greated with. So I shut the system back down, pull out my vid card. Nothing out of the obvious. PUt it back in, same thing. So I take it out, pull the hsf off and put some ASIII on it, put it back together and put it back it, same thing. Ok, thinking I had hosed my vid card I was pulling off the ramsinks I put on it in prep to throw it the way of the dodo. What do my eye's see? A bit of coolant under the ramsink on the outside edge. So I wipe it up and clean off the ram chip with some alcohol. When I break out the compressed air to blow it of, out comes all this coolant from under two of the ram chips. Well shit. So I clean it out, blow it out, and basically dry up all the coolant. Put it back in the system, now its working fine...... now for mistake number 2.
Mistake Two:
Ok, remember how I said no leaks found? WRONG! Well after checking my system out and getting ready to play some CoD, I notice a bit of fluid on the bottom of my case. Ok, now what. So I shut off my pc, disco all the wires, and take off the pc platform next to my desk. Underneath it was some good size puddles. Well shit, now I have to deal with another leak. So, back out to the garage, drain the system, pull out all the hardware, put the tubes, pump, block, etc back in and run it again. So far an hour and a half later no more puddles. I must have had a leak around the teflon tape on the intake nipple on the pump, but do not know for sure. What I do know is that sob is gonna run without the hardware over night to make sure. I came damn close to losing my vid card, but once a mistake is made, its learned from.
So remember kiddies, when doing a watercooled rig....
ALWAYS RUN IT FOR 24 HOURS WITH NO HARDWARE IN THE CASE!
edit Gawd, I must be tired, reading back through this I spotted so many spelling errors. Can ya tell I'm tired and a bit frustrated. Anyway, update, after running for 3 hours solid, no leaks yet. Shutting of the pump til morning, dont want any suprises to great me in the garage in the morning. This will also give the coolant a chance to settle and see if my teflon tape holds up.
I know, wiring is a mess. However, the rad I wanted moved. Got tired of trying to force in cool air with that lil 80mm fan next to it. So, break out the dremel, get some new hoses, a couple of elbow's and a new 5.25" bay rad from DangerDen. Now Im ready. Ready for what? To make a few mistakes.
Mistake 0ne:
Before testing my fittings and connections, I had all my hardware back in my case(was hiding wires and needed everything in there to place stuff, was to lazy to take it all out again). So, what happens right when I start to poor my coolant into my system? A leak forms right above my vid card. Ok, had my socket driver right there, tightend the hose clamp I had forgotten to tighten, no more leak(or so I thought, later on this). So I wiped up the coolant off my vid card, proceeded to fill my system. Once it was filled I turned on my pump to bleed the air out and test for leaks*HA!*. An hour later I go back, do not see any leaks yet. So, bring my system in, fire it up. Works great, for about 20 minutes. Was afk for a bit, helping my son with some homework, and came back in. Monitor was in sleep mode, flick my mouse, nothing. Restarted my pc. Well, if you have digital cable or DirecTv, and have seen the signal go in and out, you know what pixalizing looks like. That was what I was greated with. So I shut the system back down, pull out my vid card. Nothing out of the obvious. PUt it back in, same thing. So I take it out, pull the hsf off and put some ASIII on it, put it back together and put it back it, same thing. Ok, thinking I had hosed my vid card I was pulling off the ramsinks I put on it in prep to throw it the way of the dodo. What do my eye's see? A bit of coolant under the ramsink on the outside edge. So I wipe it up and clean off the ram chip with some alcohol. When I break out the compressed air to blow it of, out comes all this coolant from under two of the ram chips. Well shit. So I clean it out, blow it out, and basically dry up all the coolant. Put it back in the system, now its working fine...... now for mistake number 2.
Mistake Two:
Ok, remember how I said no leaks found? WRONG! Well after checking my system out and getting ready to play some CoD, I notice a bit of fluid on the bottom of my case. Ok, now what. So I shut off my pc, disco all the wires, and take off the pc platform next to my desk. Underneath it was some good size puddles. Well shit, now I have to deal with another leak. So, back out to the garage, drain the system, pull out all the hardware, put the tubes, pump, block, etc back in and run it again. So far an hour and a half later no more puddles. I must have had a leak around the teflon tape on the intake nipple on the pump, but do not know for sure. What I do know is that sob is gonna run without the hardware over night to make sure. I came damn close to losing my vid card, but once a mistake is made, its learned from.
So remember kiddies, when doing a watercooled rig....
ALWAYS RUN IT FOR 24 HOURS WITH NO HARDWARE IN THE CASE!
edit Gawd, I must be tired, reading back through this I spotted so many spelling errors. Can ya tell I'm tired and a bit frustrated. Anyway, update, after running for 3 hours solid, no leaks yet. Shutting of the pump til morning, dont want any suprises to great me in the garage in the morning. This will also give the coolant a chance to settle and see if my teflon tape holds up.
