So, my watercooling loop literally exploded...

[frogonastring]

TL;DR - My pump failed in a dramatic way and caused the res to explode. Pics below.
 

About five/six years ago, I won a PC in a competition from the UK's PC Gamer magazine. It was state of the art for its time, with an overclocked i7 860, 8GB of RAM, HD 5870, and XSPC water cooling. Up until Saturday, it's been going very strong ever since - I very rarely feel the need to upgrade, as it's been powerful enough for me not to notice.

However.

About a month ago, I noticed that the pump in the reservoir start buzzing - shown in this video.http://bit.ly/watercoolboom1

I didn't think much of it, thinking it was just trapped bubbles or something. At the time, I contacted XPSC who suggested topping the loop up. So I did, and gave it a shake and some time to work the bubbles out, and it got quieter again. Great! I thought I'd solved it. But, I was nervous - so I set temperature alarms on Speedfan, with an indicator LED and auto-shutdown on certain thresholds in case the pump totally failed.
 

Skip ahead to Saturday when things took a turn for the worst. It turns out the temperature alarms weren't needed, because fifteen minutes after booting, the front of the reservoir exploded off and flew across the room.http://bit.ly/watercoolboom2
 

It turns out that the pump had seized, or gotten stuck, or something - caught fire, generated huge amounts of pressure, and vented through the first available weakness - the front of the reservoir.

Cue about a litre of coolant draining onto the carpet over the front of the case.
 

I was out and came in just after it happened - my wife was using the computer. Luckily I was able to disconnect everything, and grab out all the hard drives and stuff before anything else got wet - only the optical drives and one case fan got innundated, and because of where the break was, the water just flowed over the front and didn't ingress in. I think I'm in the clear in terms of actual component damage (other than the pump and reservoir, obviously)
 

I took the res apart with a hammer - amazed at home much effort it took to crack the perspex, even whilst damaged - but didn't learn much other than the pump was totally seized - and that burnt out pumps smell bad.
 

Link to gallery of a handful of pictures: https://goo.gl/photos/bQ2zHnZ46yetZYCL9
 

Things I have learnt.
1. If your pump starts buzzing in an unfamiliar way, take precautions and make plans to replace it as soon as possible.
2. Distilled water mixed with burnt-out motor parts, smoke and burnt plastic smells really bad.
3. Don't sit directly in front of your reservoir.
4. Watercooling is occasionally way more exciting than it has any right to be.
5. Deciding what to do next is tricky.
 

Phew.
 

Now, do I replace the cooling with an air cooler to tide me over till my next upgrade, or do I go with an AIO system, or do I replace the loop entirely with new components? Is there any benefit to replacing the radiator and CPU block as well (XPSC Delta) - other than getting a brand new, corrosion-free one? My system is in need of an update, but it's hard to know how much money to spend now.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Whoa, I've never seen that happen before. Looks like it got shot by a.... Sniper!

 

[ShadowCaptain]

Thats insane, wtf, i mean leaking yes, actually exploding is another thing

 

Honestly while watercooling loops are cool in my opinion they are just pointless hassle

and an air cooler or an AIO would do the job with less risk and fucking around

[blu4]

Wtf? I have never ever heard about a pump exploding in such a way!! I'd email XSPC with pictures- they might show a soft heart. Anyway, next pump you get should be the MCP655.

[Moonzy]

8 minutes ago, frogonastring said:

TL;DR - My pump failed in a dramatic way and caused the res to explode. Pics below.
 

About five/six years ago, I won a PC in a competition from the UK's PC Gamer magazine. It was state of the art for its time, with an overclocked i7 860, 8GB of RAM, HD 5870, and XSPC water cooling. Up until Saturday, it's been going very strong ever since - I very rarely feel the need to upgrade, as it's been powerful enough for me not to notice.

However.

About a month ago, I noticed that the pump in the reservoir start buzzing - shown in this video.http://bit.ly/watercoolboom1

I didn't think much of it, thinking it was just trapped bubbles or something. At the time, I contacted XPSC who suggested topping the loop up. So I did, and gave it a shake and some time to work the bubbles out, and it got quieter again. Great! I thought I'd solved it. But, I was nervous - so I set temperature alarms on Speedfan, with an indicator LED and auto-shutdown on certain thresholds in case the pump totally failed.
 

Skip ahead to Saturday when things took a turn for the worst. It turns out the temperature alarms weren't needed, because fifteen minutes after booting, the front of the reservoir exploded off and flew across the room.http://bit.ly/watercoolboom2
 

It turns out that the pump had seized, or gotten stuck, or something - caught fire, generated huge amounts of pressure, and vented through the first available weakness - the front of the reservoir.

Cue about a litre of coolant draining onto the carpet over the front of the case.
 

I was out and came in just after it happened - my wife was using the computer. Luckily I was able to disconnect everything, and grab out all the hard drives and stuff before anything else got wet - only the optical drives and one case fan got innundated, and because of where the break was, the water just flowed over the front and didn't ingress in. I think I'm in the clear in terms of actual component damage (other than the pump and reservoir, obviously)
 

I took the res apart with a hammer - amazed at home much effort it took to crack the perspex, even whilst damaged - but didn't learn much other than the pump was totally seized - and that burnt out pumps smell bad.
 

Link to gallery of a handful of pictures: https://goo.gl/photos/bQ2zHnZ46yetZYCL9
 

Things I have learnt.
1. If your pump starts buzzing in an unfamiliar way, take precautions and make plans to replace it as soon as possible.
2. Distilled water mixed with burnt-out motor parts, smoke and burnt plastic smells really bad.
3. Don't sit directly in front of your reservoir.
4. Watercooling is occasionally way more exciting than it has any right to be.
5. Deciding what to do next is tricky.
 

Phew.
 

Now, do I replace the cooling with an air cooler to tide me over till my next upgrade, or do I go with an AIO system, or do I replace the loop entirely with new components? Is there any benefit to replacing the radiator and CPU block as well (XPSC Delta) - other than getting a brand new, corrosion-free one? My system is in need of an update, but it's hard to know how much money to spend now.

cant... read... on dark theme...

[frogonastring]

Haha, yes - in researching options for a new bay reservoir (and toying with the idea of swapping the radiator and CPU block too) I keep coming up against the "but this is a huge faff" wall - the Noctua DH-N15 looks great, huge, but great. It's tempting to go with the simplest option. It happens to be a lot cheaper, too. 

Maybe I should save watercooling for when I upgrade the rest of the components?

[Seri]

what the f......i can't even comprehend the kind of preasure the Pump was able to create.

 

When i first few lines i thought your pump failed and your CPU caused the water in the loop to boil .. and then boom...but this....

[Oshino Shinobu]

2 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

Thats insane, wtf, i mean leaking yes, actually exploding is another thing

 

Honestly while watercooling loops are cool in my opinion they are just pointless hassle

and an air cooler or an AIO would do the job with less risk and fucking around

It depends if you enjoy the process or not. From a performance standpoint, they're really not cost, time or effort efficient, but they can be fun to put together. I really enjoyed building mine. Driving it 250 miles to a new house is very nerve-racking though. 

[frogonastring]

1 minute ago, Moonzy said:

cant... read... on dark theme...

Any better? 

I must confess to cross-posting this from elsewhere, must have been that the font colour was set wrong! I've set it to automatic now.

[ShadowCaptain]

Just now, Oshino Shinobu said:

It depends if you enjoy the process or not. From a performance standpoint, they're really not cost, time or effort efficient, but they can be fun to put together. I really enjoyed building mine. Driving it 250 miles to a new house is very nerve-racking though. 

 

Yeah thats understandable, its all about the aesthetics, and the fun of building and setting one up

but if OP doesnt care about that, then I say dont bother

[frogonastring]

1 minute ago, Seri said:

what the f......i can't even comprehend the kind of preasure the Pump was able to create.

 

When i first few lines i thought your pump failed and your CPU caused the water in the loop to boil .. and then boom...but this....

That's just it - apparently it happened not long after boot (I was out) and there were no noises to indicate something was amiss. The loop was still cool, no temperature alarms had gone off, my temperature LED light was still off - first thing that my wife knew of it was when the front of the reservoir blew off, followed by water and smoke.

[Oshino Shinobu]

3 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

cant... read... on dark theme...

*cough* 

*cough*

[Seri]

3 minutes ago, frogonastring said:

That's just it - apparently it happened not long after boot (I was out) and there were no noises to indicate something was amiss. The loop was still cool, no temperature alarms had gone off, my temperature LED light was still off - first thing that my wife knew of it was when the front of the reservoir blew off, followed by water and smoke.

maybe i am overthinking this but...you saw bubbles a few times before combined with buzzing? Hmm...12 Volt are theoretically enough to split water into hydrogen/oxygen and then well..boom. That would explain the massive blowout. I somehow really doubt that the pump is able to create this kind of preasure that would blow out the front instead of just some cracking.

[Moonzy]

5 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

Watercooling is occasionally way more exciting than it has any right to be.

lmao this won the internet

[frogonastring]

2 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

 

Yeah thats understandable, its all about the aesthetics, and the fun of building and setting one up

but if OP doesnt care about that, then I say dont bother

It's an older generation (Nehalem) Core i7 that's been overclocked a bit (2.8 to 3.2) so perhaps may run a bit hot on air cooling - although to be fair I've never tested it. 

When I did maintenance a few years back and replaced all the tubes, flushed and replaced fluid, I did enjoy the process although watercooling is quite nerve-wracking and complicated - at least, it felt it to me, being a big noob! So I sort of do care about the aesthetics, the fun, and the process...but saying that what I really value the most is that my PC just gets on with working reliably and efficiently. 

It may be that water cooling isn't the best solution here.

[Moonzy]

5 minutes ago, frogonastring said:

Any better? 

I must confess to cross-posting this from elsewhere, must have been that the font colour was set wrong! I've set it to automatic now.

its fine, ill read it from my quote

when you paste, there's a popup-ish thing below that ask you if you want to remove formatting, click yes

it'll remove the ability to click links too though

and other things `-` but it'll make the font better

4 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

*cough* 

*cough*

how do i do this `-`

[frogonastring]

1 minute ago, Seri said:

maybe i am overthinking this but...you saw bubbles a few times before combined with buzzing? Hmm...12 Volt are theoretically enough to split water into hydrogen/oxygen and then well..boom. That would explain the massive blowout.

Wow, I hadn't considered that as an option! Fascinating...I wonder if that's what it was?

I've been pondering this, trying to work out why it would vent in this way. Or indeed, what could create pressure sufficient to crack the perspex. I'd used barbs and cable ties in the system to attach the pipes; I almost can't believe that they were attached strongly enough that the pressure vented elsewhere rather than just popping a tube. 

I'd just guessed that the motor had faulted, siezed and shorted and caused the internals to catch fire - heat, smoke and expanding gasses in a confined space can build up a lot of pressure, but I was surprised how much. I hadn't considered the splitting aspect, depending on how badly it shorted out internally.

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, frogonastring said:

rather than just popping a tube. 

be glad this didnt happen, it would take out your gpu and possibly cpu too if it popped off at the motherboard lol

[frogonastring]

Just now, Moonzy said:

be glad this didnt happen, it would take out your gpu and possibly cpu too if it popped off at the motherboard lol

True! I am so thankful that all of the water came out the front! 

I dismantled the optical drives to make sure, but they too were dry inside - even the fan seems to have weathered the worst of it, as the water rolled off the blades and down the dust filter rather than internally. 

Given the violence of the fault, it's incredible that nothing else got broken. My wife pulled the power as soon as she realised something was wrong - probably a very sensible move.

[ImBleu]

Wow XSPC needs an email with this. 

[Oshino Shinobu]

4 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

its fine, ill read it from my quote

when you paste, there's a popup-ish thing below that ask you if you want to remove formatting, click yes

it'll remove the ability to click links too though

and other things `-` but it'll make the font better

how do i do this `-`

You can just set the text colour to automatic rather than removing formatting. It doesn't mess up the rest of the post that way. 

 

Install Tampermonkey (if using Chrome), download the script, install it with Tampermonkey. Done. 

 

That being said, I can't load the code download page, but that may be due to my college's internet. 

 

 

[Seri]

5 minutes ago, frogonastring said:

- - 

congrats...you converted you cooling loop into an internal combustion engine (at least for a very short time).

[Moonzy]

Just now, Oshino Shinobu said:

download the script

but the link to the script doesnt work `-`

[frogonastring]

2 minutes ago, ThatCoolBlueKidd said:

Wow XSPC needs an email with this. 

I'd contacted them via Facebook but not heard anything; I'm just sending them an email now. To be honest, the system is five years old so I'm not expecting anything - but I'm curious to hear what they'll have to say about it!

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, Moonzy said:

but the link to the script doesnt work `-`

Ah, well you may have to ask  @colonel_mortis about that. I can't load the page, so the code may need re-uploading.