EK DDC Pump / Res Combo noise

[Charlie_2510]

I had a bit of a panic after rebuilding my Corsair Air 240. I've taken apart my power supply and painted it and relocated my pump/res combo to on top of it... Ever since there has been a weird crackling / ticking noise coming from the psu. Or at least that's what i thought. After trouble shooting and disconnecting every component to see if something was shorting I decided to unplug the water cooling system for a few seconds and run it... silence. So the DDC pump sounds like it's crackling, intermittently. It was sat empty for a good few weeks whilst i was rebuilding, and i've used some pretty old fluid. Before I drain the loop again , is there a service kit or something for the DDC pumps? Will stripping it and cleaning it cause any more damage? Not sure I can fit the heatsink upgrade where it's currently located.. Ideas?

 

[xTrixieHD]

I think you should clean it before you jump to conclusions, shouldn't harm anything.

[EK Luc]

The pump gets hot while running and I see that it's directly sitting on the PSU sticker.  Could it be a heat transfer that makes the sticker crackle?

[watercoolingscrub]

My best guess is that something solid in the loop is hitting the pump propeller/motor while its in operation since that's the only moving part. If I were you, I would drain the loop immediately to prevent further damage to the propeller and remove any junk there. 

 

My second guess is that hardened glue near the magnetic coils or the pcb are loose and hitting things, but this shouldnt make a loud crackling noise. 

[OddsCrazyStuff]

Since you are using soft tubing, just move the pump out and away from the PSU, then turn the system on.

If the noise is still there, its something wrong with the pump and if the sound goes away, the pump most likely dont like sitting on top of the PSU (for some reason, like heat or vibration).

 

If you need to move the pump-reservoir combo, put it where the fan controller is, and mount the fan controller in the roof or something instead. You might be able to do to it without taking the loop apart, depending on the length of the tubes.

[Charlie_2510]

As I'm only running a cheap Skylake Pentium Dual Core G4500  at the moment I may just put a stock cooler on it and give the whole loop a proper clean down, maybe even swap for a D5 before rebuilding it properly. It's definitely the pump, outside the case on the bench it still crackles and ticks. I remember it having a bit of build up in it after re assembling it, but didn't have enough distilled water to clean and flush it.