Hardline custom loop leaked twice in a week... HELP

[Call_Me_Daddy]

Hi everyone !

 

A little while ago (2 months), I built my 1st ever hardline custom waterloop.

 

1 week ago, I had to move my PC from one room to the other one and the same day after 2hrs of gaming it started leaking. After investigation, it occurred that the end of the tube section was not perfectly round which I assume was the cause. 

 

I bent the tube again with a precision which I'm quite proud of and tonight, 5 days later and again after 2hrs of gaming, it started leaking again, plus in the same spot.

 

The only obvious reason that comes to me is the pressure, as the tubes were very hot but is that a thing in water-cooling loops ? How should I handle it ?

 

FYI, when reinitialising the loop, I let it run 2hrs with fill port open then closed it. 

 

Honestly I have strong doubt that my tubes could be wrong again which is why I'm coming to you : what reasons could cause my loop to leak for no obvious reason ? 

 

I'll be glad to provide any helpful info, I'm feeling a bit desperate. 

 

Thanks a lot

Vincent

 

[Enderman]

A proper watercooling loop can be pressurized and have no leaks.

Buy some better quality fittings and tubing, thermaltake is like the cheapest crap you could buy.

Also if you're making that many complex bends in a hardline loop you should just get soft tubing or use angled fittings to have straighter runs.

[LeapFrogMasterRace]

Maybe the tube had a sharp edge and damaged the o-ring? 

[Firewrath9]

check the fitting.

[Call_Me_Daddy]

12 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

check the fitting.

How should I proceed ?

[Call_Me_Daddy]

19 minutes ago, LeapFrogMasterRace said:

Maybe the tube had a sharp edge and damaged the o-ring? 

Possibly ! I’m going to check if I still have spare ones

[Call_Me_Daddy]

22 minutes ago, Enderman said:

A proper watercooling loop can be pressurized and have no leaks.

Buy some better quality fittings and tubing, thermaltake is like the cheapest crap you could buy.

Also if you're making that many complex bends in a hardline loop you should just get soft tubing or use angled fittings to have straighter runs.

I’ve read both good and bad things about TT fittings but never any objective review demonstrating how bad they are. Are they that bad ? I mean 4-5 o rings per fitting, they look clean and are not that cheap (price speaking)

 

i have no experience with other brands.

[Enderman]

12 minutes ago, 20Cent Hardware said:

I’ve read both good and bad things about TT fittings but never any objective review demonstrating how bad they are. Are they that bad ? I mean 4-5 o rings per fitting, they look clean and are not that cheap (price speaking)

 

i have no experience with other brands.

Bitspower fittings are the best.

 

More orings doesn't mean better.

[Firewrath9]

5 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Bitspower fittings are the best.

 

More orings doesn't mean better.

aren't bitspower just rebranded barrow? I heard that somewhere

I'm looking at swiftech as they are only 4$ ea.

[Enderman]

9 minutes ago, Firewrath9 said:

aren't bitspower just rebranded barrow? I heard that somewhere

I'm looking at swiftech as they are only 4$ ea.

No.

They look the same.

Barrow is made in a completely different factory.

Also Bitspower is tried and true, thousands of high end system builders use that, and a large sample size is how you know that the failure rates are extremely small.

[keskparane]

Also I would say that as nice as your bends are the lengths and angles aren't quite right. I don't know how precise you need to be with hard tubing but I can tell you that if the tube doesn't enter the fitting perfectly straight then you are essentially sticking an oval tube into a round hole. Could it be this?

 

Also water won't expand much with heat but air will. If you have lots of air trapped in your system you will get higher pressures which might promote a leak in an otherwise ok connection.

[Call_Me_Daddy]

Additional info ;

 

i dismounted all the loop and I noticed this : all of the tubes, even the ones entering te fittings in a perfect straight line like the one on the picture, have  partially or totally retracted like compressed or overheated. I guess this is a possible cause.

is that common in hardline loops ? What’s the cause ? 

 

I thought it could help with diagnosing.

[For Science!]

Looks like overheated fluid to me. Do you have any idea how hot your liquid is? Bends like that are not the problem, I have far more complicated bends in my systems with no problem.

 

Looks like a lot of heat generating component for a 240 (?) Mm radiator. In my opinion 120 mm per component is a dead rule.

[Call_Me_Daddy]

17 minutes ago, For Science! said:

Looks like overheated fluid to me. Do you have any idea how hot your liquid is? Bends like that are not the problem, I have far more complicated bends in my systems with no problem.

 

Looks like a lot of heat generating component for a 240 (?) Mm radiator. In my opinion 120 mm per component is a dead rule.

 

 

This loops cools a i7-9700k cpu and a rtx 2080 ti 

the cpu is at factory clock and as far as I remember the gpu as well (I may have overclocked it slightly using aorus software, but it’s a very short amount of OC.

 

The rad is an Ek240mm (max for this case) with 2 Corsair ml120 pro fans. 

 

Fans pull air inside the case so temps temps inside must be high while running. Case fans exhaust on back & top.

 

I checked after my last gaming session and temps were quite cool : 50C max for the GPU and 45C Max for the cpu after 2hrs of apex legends.

 

Tubing is from alphacool but I’m not sure if mentionning matters

 

 

i checked and even the tubes I added last week have the same problems. Is it necessarily overheating ? Could it be too tight fittings or bad quality tubes ? 

 

I’m so pissed of those problems that I’m considering switching with soft tubing. Does this happen with soft tubing ?

[For Science!]

7 minutes ago, 20Cent Hardware said:

 

 

This 

I always try to match fittings and tubing from the same company. Personally i avoid TT due to personal bias.

 

Having said that your tubes remind me of the distortions in the hardlined node 202 case that was also overheating.

 

Soft tubing may help, but personally i'd try mounting the radiator on top exhaust (or front exhaust) so you dont reheat case internals. A more aggresive fan curve may also help

 

Generally a well set up GPU = fluid temperatures in my experience and so your fluid is probably 50 degrees during light gaming which is quite hot. You are approaching temperatures that are not healthy for your pump so regardless of whether you change the tubing, your fluid temperature needs to be addressed.

[Tristerin]

needs moar radiator

[Call_Me_Daddy]

1 hour ago, Tristerin said:

needs moar radiator

I think that you sum up what has been said earlier.

 

i have another rad & fans (280mm)

 

im going to have to find a case that allows me to use both my rads together for better heat dissipation and it’s probably going to solve this mess.

 

 

thank you all !

[Call_Me_Daddy]

Update  :

 

I ordered a Lian li o11 dynamic case, in which you can use up to 36 360mm rads (tricky but still).

I'll start using it with my 240 & 280mm rads, which should solve my temps problem, then (money needed) add a 360mm rad in order to lower them even more.

 

Will be swapping cases this weekend

[For Science!]

2 hours ago, 20Cent Hardware said:

 

I ordered a Lian li o11 dynamic case, in which you can use up to 36 360mm rads (tricky but still).

Getting 36 rads is indeed quite tricky. 35 may be fine though (although probably quite challenging nonetheless).

[ch3w2oy]

Some times when you heat a tube near the end, the perfect roundness of the end, can bend and form into an oval shape or something.. Making it not a perfect circle.. This happened to one of my bends and I had a leak because of it.. Fixed it by heating up tube and shoving something round into the end to reshape it.. 

[Call_Me_Daddy]

On 5/9/2019 at 5:58 PM, For Science! said:

Getting 36 rads is indeed quite tricky. 35 may be fine though (although probably quite challenging nonetheless).

Haha I’m pretty sure someone already gave it a try.

[Call_Me_Daddy]

11 hours ago, ch3w2oy said:

Some times when you heat a tube near the end, the perfect roundness of the end, can bend and form into an oval shape or something.. Making it not a perfect circle.. This happened to one of my bends and I had a leak because of it.. Fixed it by heating up tube and shoving something round into the end to reshape it.. 

Yeah that’s totally what has happened here because of the fitting copper warming up too high. 

 

However, as this has happened twice in a week with no overload it was obviously going to happen again Except if Increasing the heat extraction power. 

 

I just assembled the PC back in its new home with both the 240 and 280 rads that I own. Next step is tubing and hopefully temps are going to lower enough

[Call_Me_Daddy]

All tubed, loop initialized !

not perfect tubing but it’s going to be fine for now. 

 

All i have to do is fire up a game and cross fingers !

[Call_Me_Daddy]

Update after 2 days :

 

 

Temps are much lower. Nor the CPU or the 2080 ti will exceed 45C while playing Apex Legends at full specs 2K 144Hz for 2 hrs. Opened the case afterwards, feels way cooler inside than the previous case. Fittings temps are decent.

 

To sum up, the initial configuration had many flaws.

1- a lone 240mm rad for both a last gen i7 and an OC 2080 ti.

2- The rad was blowing hot air directly to the reservoir, crossing the case and was exhausted on top & read.

 

Now, the 3 right side fans are bringing fresh air which extracts part of the reservoir heat (there's heat sinks on its back) and most of the heat is extracted directly to the outside by the 280mm radiator. Only the 240mm rad will pull some heat inside the case but it will not stay here for long.

We will see how it goes in the next weeks and myplans for the future are adding a 360mm rad to the right side and eventually someday swapping the 240mm at the bottom with a 360mm for even less noise

[MaratM]

18 hours ago, 20Cent Hardware said:

We will see how it goes in the next weeks and myplans for the future are adding a 360mm rad to the right side and eventually someday swapping the 240mm at the bottom with a 360mm for even less noise

Do you research before buying 360 rad for the side. it might be very tricky to have it installed and not many rads fit without any problems there. Hint: you 360 ad MUST be no more than 122mm in width, otherwise some custom mods with the case must be done in order to install the rad. A water temp sensor is a good idea also, this way you can control the fan speed by water temp.