Troubleshooting strange project

[Lomppu]

I got a coolermaster ML240 AIO for free with my new motherboard. At the same time I bought a 1080ti on Ebay, and to my surprise it came with an EK waterblock pre-installed. I took it as a sign and went to the hardware store to get some 9mm tube, fittings, and distilled water. I sliced up the AIO with a kitchen knife and built a loop. The water flows from the pump to the GPU, then to the radiator and finally back to the pump.

It worked fine, but not quite as well as I expected. I'm Idling around 25c in Finland, where it's 0c outside and 18c inside my house. I can play light games in 4k and never break 50 celcius, but cranking everything up in Sekiro or Dark Souls 3 results in a slow creep into 84 celcius. I'm talking about an hour of play time before hitting 80c.

At first I thought it might be the pump not working, so I turned it off. As soon as I loaded up my file in Sekiro the GPU jumped up to 80 so I quickly mashed alt+f4 and turned my pump back on. So the pump is fine.

 

I've been turning the system around like a tumbleweed to see if there are air bubbles in the loop, but I'm pretty sure there are none. I got Noctua fans from a friend, but running them at 100% had no result other than being super quiet.

 

Could it be that I need a bigger radiator? Or is the pump too slow? I'm using hardware store fittings that I believe are meant for pressurised air, but that cannot be a problem, right? Also should I get a reservoir? I don't know what those do.

 

Thank you for your help.

 

[LOLZR]

IMO Idling at 25 is ~okay~ for the temperatures that you listed in your house. My house is closer to 20 C and most of the time I idle around 25-28. But my max GPU temperature is about 45-50C.

 

I think that the pump is likely not meant for what you're doing. Also, how did you fill this loop without a reservoir? That is one of the main purposes for a reservoir, is ease of filling (I guess it also makes for having more volume of liquid, which makes it so that it takes longer to reach top temperatures of the loop?).  There is likely more air than water in this loop due to filling issues.

 

Also, another consideration is that AIOs generally use aluminum radiators. And the block on your GPU will likely be copper (or nickel plated copper) which will eventually lead galvanic corrosion. I am not sure what the fittings you got will be made of from the hardware store, but they could potentially add to the corrosion problems. Your tubing is likely not designed for this, and can possibly leach into your water, which will be another problem.

 

How to fix (likely not cheap): get a copper radiator, pump, reservoir, tubing and fitting from aliexpress/tao bao/other that is designed for water cooling to assure that you won't have any problems. Or do your research on what you're buying to assure that you won't run into any corrosion.

 

@Lomppu

[Lomppu]

On 1/15/2020 at 4:32 PM, LOLZR said:

IMO Idling at 25 is ~okay~ for the temperatures that you listed in your house. My house is closer to 20 C and most of the time I idle around 25-28. But my max GPU temperature is about 45-50C.

 

I think that the pump is likely not meant for what you're doing. Also, how did you fill this loop without a reservoir? That is one of the main purposes for a reservoir, is ease of filling (I guess it also makes for having more volume of liquid, which makes it so that it takes longer to reach top temperatures of the loop?).  There is likely more air than water in this loop due to filling issues.

 

Also, another consideration is that AIOs generally use aluminum radiators. And the block on your GPU will likely be copper (or nickel plated copper) which will eventually lead galvanic corrosion. I am not sure what the fittings you got will be made of from the hardware store, but they could potentially add to the corrosion problems. Your tubing is likely not designed for this, and can possibly leach into your water, which will be another problem.

 

How to fix (likely not cheap): get a copper radiator, pump, reservoir, tubing and fitting from aliexpress/tao bao/other that is designed for water cooling to assure that you won't have any problems. Or do your research on what you're buying to assure that you won't run into any corrosion.

 

@Lomppu

Thank you so much for answering! I guess this was doomed to end like this. After all, everybody would cool their pc like this if it was this cheap.

 

I filled the loop with two of my friends holding the components at different elevations and poured water from the top until the tubes were full to the brim.

I was aware of corrosion problems, but since I got all the watercooling parts practically for free I thought I'd try it out. If I invest in actual water cooling I might get ek fittings though, these ones are propably zinc covered steel.

 

I wonder if I damaged my card by doing this? I've experienced some random green static on the screen occasionally. I read somewhere that it is not safe to run a loop at 80c :/

 

Would 240mm radiator be enough for my card? Thank you!

[LOLZR]

JayzTwoCents says that 120mm per component is usually enough if you're not overclocking. So yes, 240mm would be pretty good.  IMO (not an expert) 80 would be pretty hot to run long term for GPU. CPU, different story.