My Loop Won’t Fill. Help Please!

[Blake31]

Hello all! Thank you in advance for any help you’re able to give me. 
 

I am somewhat experienced in building computers, and decided that it was time to try my hand at a custom loop. I’m using a mix of EKWB and Corsair parts and I’m doing a hardline loop with both my gpu, cpu, and a 360mm radiator. Everything was going smoothly until it was time to fill my loop. I filled the reservoir and turned on the pump. Coolant was being pumped through perfectly fine until it reached the radiator. At that point, there was a small leak on one of the fittings that I didn’t quite tighten down enough, so I turned off the pump, drained the loop completely, fixed the fitting, and tried again. The next time I tried to fill the loop, coolant moved through everything fine again until it reached the radiator where it just stopped and would barely move anymore. And this time there was no leak. There are a decent amount of air bubbles, but I have an opening at the top of the res so it should be able to escape. Does anyone have a possible way that I could fix this? I’ve been searching around for hours and can’t find any help. Thanks again! 

[Lobstar]

First, I'm not super experienced but it's been 5 hours and no one has responded.  I'm guessing you're fighting gravity and an air bubble.  Fill your reservoir as much as possible, cap it, make sure all your fittings are tight, and rotate your case so the pump/res are above your radiator inlet/outlet.  Help the pump to move that air through the radiator since it curves around through a snake-like pipe.  You may need to do this several times depending on your pump strength and how much air your loop has stuck in it. Try different positions.  Think like the pipe.  Which way is the air moving inside the radiator? Which way should I turn it next?  The most important part of this is make sure to not starve your pump of fluid.  If the level goes down enough in the reservoir but you STILL don't see anything, check for leaks, refill the reservoir, and do it again.  

 

Don't over-think this, you got it

[Lobstar]

Oh, one more thing:  did you pre-rinse your radiators?  Did you check for the little rubber bungs that some manufacturers put in the G1/4 opening if they don't come with actual plugs?  I almost screwed one of those in when I was test fitting an adapter!

[NotSoEpicMods]

To add to what @Lobstar said. I would just take the radiator out and make sure water can freely flow through it since that seems to be the source of your problems. 

[Mick Naughty]

Pump speed should be on max.

[Bitter]

To echo others, I've had a little experience with water cooling, and you absolutely need to tilt the case around all kinds of angles to purge the air from the radiator if it's flat across the top of the case. Tilt it up, down, left, right, diagnonally, all the directions and multiple times, sometimes once every few hours for a few days. You'll never purge ALL the air but you don't want to, some air makes room for the liquid to expand but typically that should be in your reservoir not in the radiator. You may need to lay the case down on the side and run the pump to purge most of it to start with, put it back up, refill the res, then go back on the side and maybe multiple times. You might needs to rotate it through a specific arc to 'walk' the air bubbles out of the radiator, lines, and cpu block even!

[Tristerin]

Ive found that when filling my loop I lay my case on its side, and rotate the reservoir pointing to the ceiling and fill that way, I can move the case in diff directions to remove air bubbles and filling at the same time - easiest way for me and have yet to have an issue with filling a loop (multiple radiator setups) - also its even easier if you use a second PSU to power the pump to switch on and off to help fill