Water cooling dumbassery

[MattyIce1711]

Hey guys, so I did something really dumb. Put together my first pc so good on me. But I went to put on my closed water cooling kit and I had to change the bracket to AMD from Intel on the cooler. It didn’t come off easily which it obviously shouldn’t. But me being an idiot and nervous about breaking it looked on the bottom and saw there were screws there. So naturally I thought, oh, those screws must be holding the brace on too. So unscrewed them and took off the brace but the copper plate fell off and a bit of the coolant came out. Put everything back together and it’s working but already talked to Corsair and they obviously won’t help. So just wondering if putting another coolant in there with what’s already there would mess up the system or not

[SkyHound0202]

Closed water cooling kits are not designed to be opened. A loss of coolant will affect cooling performance in the long term, depending on the amount lost.

 

If the screw is not properly screwed in, a leak could destroy your system entirely.

 

Since you made an obvious improper operation, I reckon Corsair will void your warranty.

 

Personally, I would not trust a close loop kit that has experienced disassembly.

 

 

[Bombastinator]

24 minutes ago, MattyIce1711 said:

Hey guys, so I did something really dumb. Put together my first pc so good on me. But I went to put on my closed water cooling kit and I had to change the bracket to AMD from Intel on the cooler. It didn’t come off easily which it obviously shouldn’t. But me being an idiot and nervous about breaking it looked on the bottom and saw there were screws there. So naturally I thought, oh, those screws must be holding the brace on too. So unscrewed them and took off the brace but the copper plate fell off and a bit of the coolant came out. Put everything back together and it’s working but already talked to Corsair and they obviously won’t help. So just wondering if putting another coolant in there with what’s already there would mess up the system or not

I am in agreement with @SkyHound0202.  This one is in “big oof” territory.

[Owen Chief]

I'd say you now have an expensive door stop sadly  

 

I wouldn't risk filing a closed loop back up manually, I'd say you will never get close to the same performance that it would offer. However should you want to risk it, you could try and fill it back up as best you can, seal it on tightly, tilt and shake it around to get the air bubbles gone.. open it back up and top off coolant, rince and repeat a few times until you're fairly confident there is little to no air pockets left.  It's not a typical reservoir where the air pockets will rise so any air bubbles left in that thing will be circling around the loop ultimately impacting performance.

 

Note that I don't recommend the latter but push comes to shove you could try it and monitor temps while running stress tests. I've had my fair share of expensive hits in my 20 odd years as a pc enthusiast, voided some warranty's and had to take the rough with the smooth and no matter how many years go past, its a bitter pill to swallow at the time

 

[AngryBeaver]

I saw a project a while back where someone drilled and tapped with g1/4 threads in a top corner of an AIO to make a fill port.

 

Something like that should theoretically work, but again it isn't advisable. I think this is going to be a lesson learned.

[LyondellBasell]

On 3/1/2020 at 10:11 PM, MattyIce1711 said:

So just wondering if putting another coolant in there with what’s already there would mess up the system or not

Nah, you're good. As long as the mechanical operation of the pump hasn't been affected and you can seal it back up properly, it's gonna be okay. Fill it back up to the max with water and carefully reassemble. You won't be able to use the warranty but you haven't bricked it.

[Beerzerker]

I agree with the above - The warranty is screwed but you can refill it.

Top it off while getting as much air out as you can, run it a few minutes, recheck the level - Top off again and repeat this process until as much air is out as you can possibly get rid of.

Just know it probrably won't be as watertight/airtight as it was before so occasional checks of the fluid level and leaks may be required.