Who's fault is it? - CoolerMaster Ml240L failure

[InsanelySecretD]

Hi everyone, 

 

A week ago I found some cheap SP120s online and decided that I need to upgrade the lightning in both my room and for my PC to avoid going crazy as the lockdown continues here in the UK. I decided to replace two exhaust fans at the back of my NZXT h510 and two radiator-mounted intake fans at the front with the SP120s that I just bought. After finishing the installation, my PC would turn off after couple of minutes / some times seconds of being on and in the course of troubleshooting, I noticed that the temperatures were rising to the point where they kept triggering the overheating protection n the CPU (84 degrees), so I kept playing around with the pump connection (originally CPU_FAN, then PUMP_FAN) and nothing helped. The PC kept turning off and I assumed that either the pump stopped working or I damaged the AIO as I was installing the new fans with the pump still being mounted on the CPU (I was really careful, though as I am not comfortable with manhandling the parts). Either way, after a day of researching my options for the replacement, my new AIO arrived yesterday, so it was time to take the old ML240L off the CPU and this is what I saw:  

 

 

 

Now, ML240L had been the first AIO that I've ever had and I am not quite sure if this failure would be from my poor skill at handling the replacement of the fans or whether this looks more like a manufacturer's error. My impression from what it looks and feels like is that, the pump has been leaking for quite some time. But I only experienced the temp protection issue on Monday. The CPU temps on that AIO have never been particularly great and I did not really monitor them regularly (beyond occasionally checking them out in Dragon Centra) - usually 45+ on idle. My workload over the past couple of months have not been that high either as I am currently writing my PhD and can't really spend that much time in AAA titles, so really hard for me to pinpoint when this could have happened. 

 

I guess the main questions for you guys are: 

 

• Can you see a clear  point of failure on these pictures? 
• Does this look like something that has been going on for some time or would you expect that copper piece to look like that after three days of being exposed to the coolant? 
• How is it possible that this 'gunk' didn't short my motherboard and destroy the CPU?

Just to confirm - the PC is now working fine, the new AIO is performing much better already but I wanted to know if this looks like something I've done or is it the manufacturer's fault. I would like to avoid potentially destroying another AIO by touching it inappropriately... 

[Sauron]

8 minutes ago, InsanelySecretD said:

• How is it possible that this 'gunk' didn't short my motherboard and destroy the CPU?

If it was a very small leak the water probably dried up before it could touch anything sensitive but over time it corroded the copper plate. AIOs also use distilled water afaik, which is not conductive (at least as long as it's clean) so small droplets every so often may not cause shorts. Looking at it, I think the leak probably came from right above the plate since it's corroded all along its border.

 

As for whose "fault" it is, if you mounted it properly (which you must have if it worked fine for a while) it was probably either defective or it just spontaneously broke, which can happen unfortunately. AIOs have more potential points of failure than air coolers.

[RAS_3885]

Looks like a failure of the gasket between the copper plate and the pump housing. It's highly unlikely you did anything to cause it when installing new fans.

 

How old it the AIO? If it's on the newer side it's likely a manufacturing defect and you may have some opportunity for warranty action with Coolermaster. If it's older then it could just be bad luck on the part failure, which happens.

 

Regardless, it looks like it a slow leak that has been ongoing for a while.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Cooling

***

 

The green stuff is either corrosion from water or just thermal paste reacting to water. No way just installing fans or moving rad around causes that. You would need to jank tubes/fittings with quite force to cause issues, and you should note the moist rather quickly.

 

But looking at tubes/fittings, there's no visible sign of damage. Did you lift board by just pump? That could cause this, but not really anything else.