Bump.

I'm increasingly worried that this pump won't last, because it'd be pushed pretty hard, and because it might be noisy.

Again, does anyone have any experience with the bigger Rio pumps?

i do. not in a computer but, in a fish tank. I have a 2100 and an 1100 running right now and they have been for 3 1/2 years. They work well. Only problem is that he will never be able to fit the 2100 in a res, unless its big. That pump is like 6" x 4"

Thanks Ambient, that's good to hear.

How is it for noise?

its not to bad, but it is louder than my danner 500 gph.

I might be a bit late, but I gotta get my opinion in about these pumps. I'm not saying anything bad about those Rio's, but I have the ViaAqua 1300 mentioned earlier, and I'm quite happy with it. I wouldn't throw it out of the running just yet.

I have a rio 1400. It pumps more than enough water to keep even a vmoded chip cool. It runs quiet as well, but you need to do a impeller glue trick to keep it from rattling. I got the pump in December, and well, its still working. It keeps my duron 1k at 36 load and 29 idle (via smbus diode reader).

Eheim 1048 or 1250 as a pump. Spend the extra dough. It's worth the piece of mind.

i have had a rio 180, rio 1100, eheim 1250, and the viaAqua 1300.

the eheim is the biggest, but emits the least emi, and is the quietest

the rio 180 was weak, but quiet

the rio 1100 was fairly quiet, but emited a decent ammount of emi

and the viaAqua 1300 seemed alot like the rio 1100, but i never had them at the same time to compare flow rates.

The Via Aqua 1300 does NOT have 1/2" fittings, they are 3/4" (I bought one of the POS's). I ended up buying another pump and I have that Via collecting dust. Also, depending on the size/layout of your machine, that pump may not get the results you need. The specs are highly overrated on the box/ad on becooling. As someone who bought one and hated it, go with the eheim 1250. You'll thank yourself in the end. God knows I wish I went that way.

I'm currently running a nursery pro NPU500 that is extremely overrated for the job (probably adding a bit of heat to the mix, but I know it'll never go down) that cost me $80 (on sale). One thing that the damn manufacturers don't tell you is that for EVERY bend in the system (block, elbows, res, rad, bong, etc ... ) you LOSE pressure rapidly. The specs on the boxes (head/GPH) list what they will do with NO RESISTANCE. For every bend you can subtract a goodly amount from that. I'm running a pump that should get 500-600 GPH at 10 ft of head, and I'm getting 80 GPH at 3ft.

Just some food for thought. Go with what people have already had success with: in this case it is the Eheim 1250. I've heard nothing but good reviews.

In Una's article, he does not say that a higher pump might hinder performance.

In all our experiences, a bigger/better pump always helps.

I sure would like to know where you read that lapping can be harmful. I'm preparing to start a new thread (tmo?) on the subject.

I don't know what could be causing the problems in all honesty. When I first got into water cooling I wa running a maze1 3/8 barbs, big momma radiator with 3/8 barbs, and an ehiem 1046(80gph). I was running a duron at 1.1gig at 1.85 volts. My temps never went over 35c.

My guess:
a combination of: poor lapping, a jammed/dirty rad, and a weak pump.

Your pump (Eheim 1046) probably had a better head than that Rio 180. Your block is definitely properly lapped, and you had a new rad (right?).

The ViaAqua 1300 doesn't have much of any fittings at all - just some crappy smooth plastic openings, and you're probably right that those are 3/4", I've never measured them. But my ViaAqua has 1/2" brass fittings on it, and it was shipped to me that way when I bought it from CPU-Watercool (who's www-page seems to no-longer work). Judging from the looks of the pump, those fittings screwed right into the plastic openings with little or no modifications to the pump (they probably tapped the holes, there are no rough edges from cut plastic though - and then screwed them in with a bit of epoxy on the threads)

My Via Aqua came with 3/4" barbs installed in 1/2" NPT openings. NPT thread sizes are for the inner diameter - if you measure the threads, they will be closer to 3/4".

My 1300 came with barbs, and all kinds of adapters in the box (all of which may be useful for aquarium use, but useless for WC). I substituted the 3/4" barbs with 5/8" OD, 1/2" NPT barbs with some thread sealant - works great.