I had one leak. Water was running from CPU block-hose connection. It costs life of my gf3 (I gave it to warranty (one week before its ends) and they gave me Leadtek A310TD) - one mofset burned. I saw water just before going to school. All riva was wet, but it's still working.

now I'm running on alu cooler waiting for new blocks from www.overcooled.com

My first watercooling setup consisted of a DIY copper cap waterblock, a 200ghp tetra aquarium pump, and a big rubbermade storage bin.

After hours of using my setup my temps weren't looking to great,
so I got the idea of adding huge buckets of ice into the res because I knew that would fix my problem.

A copper cap waterblock has alot of surface area, the perfect designed for enhancing the condensaion experience.

My new geforce 4 440mx got soaked, also my motherboard agp slot was wet.

After drying my parts off with a hair dryer everthing worked fine.

This happened almost 2 years ago.

Problem 1- crappy lucite tops crack when barbs screwed on too tight or with too much teflon tape- very VERY slow leak around barb resulting in me trashing the stupid cheapo block.

Problem 2- Bayres leaked very slowly, in fact, so slowly that I only caught it 2 weeks after it started (at least I think 2 weeks judging based on how much it was leaking and how much had leaked already). The water and antifreeze leaked down the IDE cables into the two HDDs, corroding and eventually bridging some of the pins. I was wondering why one of my hdd's stopped working, then the other one stopped a day later. Took the plugs off, scrapped the crappy bay res, made a nice PVC res, cleaned the pins and cables with baking soda and water, 'puter putters along flawlessly.:rolleyes:

The tube on the pump outlet had been slowly moving off over a matter of days. I hear a slight rumble and then the tube got pushed off. THe pump points straight up, so a column of water about a foot high or so from a 3/4 in outlet erupted underneath my desk. Fortunately, no damage except a soaked carpet, thanks to an external case.

A more dangerous incident involving a leaking tube to cpu block was caught before the water trickled onto the motherboard. THat is because my 100% diy blocks use copper pipe, no barbs.

While I was on campus studying for one of my exams, the outlet hose on my pump came off. Blew water all over my desk, A/V receiver, and of course, my case. Luckily, distilled water saved the day, and not a damn thing was dead after drying it out. Needless to say, all my hose clamps have been replaced with what I hope are better ones...

What are you using? My experience is that there are three ways of doing a hose clamp that I trust...

1. Stainless worm clamps - big, a bit clumsy, but will hold better than anything else. About the only failure modes are either not tightening them enough to hold, or over tightening them to the point where they cut the hose.
This works well on either barbs or smooth pipe ends.

The following I would use ONLY on fittings with barbs or at least a bulge on the end of the fitting to catch the hose on. IMHO they aren't as foolproof as the worm clamps, but they are a bit neater.

2. Stainless steel safety wire - put 2-3 wraps around the hose, pull tight, and twist the ends together (works best with safety-wire pliers!) This looks neat, and is actually FAA approved for use on aircraft hose applications, which says how good it is...

3. A heavy duty nylon zip tie pulled really tight.

I don't trust those nylon 'pinch together' type clamps at all.

Gooserider

On my first install of a MCW5000A I neglected to tighten one of the worm clamps enough, it didn't leak untill I put it into my system. I turned on the pump, neglected to check for leaks, turned on the computer, and for two weeks my computer was down. :( The victim was either my Barton 2500+ (that ran at 2253MHz on air with normal voltage) or my Abit NF7-S, I couldn't tell.

By the grace of a certain Diety, (God) after two weeks of trying to start the computer (three times a day, all ending in failure) the computer started fine, and still works now. :D

The situation could have been used as the base for a geek sitcom. The geek breaks his computer, his real life friends see this and he says the problem is the CPU failed, not wanting the truth to be known. He suspects the problem is the MB, but thinks that the warrenty has expired as he didn't read the small print. (he thinks it is a one month warrenty when it is a one year warrenty) The CPU goes out to be RMAed, but comes back with a note saying "no problem found." geek tries to start his computer, but it fails. His real life friends come over and say, "Start the computer, we want to do some computing and CPUing." The geek proceeds to make a big show of inserting the CPU and installing the cooler, presses the power button, and the computer starts normally.

------

But I learned from my mistake, and I plan on reinstalling the WC sometime within a week.

I had crappy "pinch type" ones, and am now using zip ties. I might try your "wire" trick though, when I get back to school. If it's good enough for aircraft, it's damn well good enough for a simple water cooling system!

hm. Accidently knocking on a GPU hose would be the worst I think for me. The pump was on and the water/dye went in my case a little... but went on my white carpet :rolleyes:

Several years of building water cooled PCs. All with Swiftech blocks. The Swiftech blocks with John Guest Speedfit fittings had push-in-to-barb adapters. All with thick wall silicone tubing. All with various Eheim pumps (1046, 1048, HPPS). All but two with Innovatek agb-o-matic push-on reservoirs (and those with simple 'T' lines). Some Black Ice radiators (pros - for low noise), the rest heater cores. All Panaflo fans (mostly L1A) except for my current desktop machine which has a motorized impeller in it. All distilled water + ~5% Zerex Racing Coolant.
No failures - still pretty cautious, though.

I had the hose barbs on my black ice micro II radiator both loosened and wiggled free. Luckly, the system was turned off right before it gushed. Nothing damaged, but all was very wet.

.
 

The only problem ive had was with a ready-to-go watercooling package i bought when i first tried out watercooling. It was filled with water and connected prior to delivery. Unfortunatly there was a leak where the tube connected to the CPU block, causing water to drip onto my gfx card and down onto the CPU socket.
Fortunately both survived(though the gfx card had to dry off for a week ;).

After that i made my own watercooling system, and too avoid problems like these, i made a piece of tube that stuck up into the air, so that the water could expand and contract without causing any pressure changes in the system. After that ive never had any problems at all.

the only problem ive had is a total system failure when i hooked up my water cooling, but the irony of it all is that the water coling had absolutely no failure and is in pristine leak free working condition. But the system doesnt turn on...

I happen to just have an almost disaster. I turned my WC system on a week or so ago in the morning and went to take a shower. When i came back my computer was off. I looked inside and saw water dripping from my cpu block barb. Apparently the clamps came loose over time, i swear i tightened them before i came back to college here.

Anyway, my Radeon 9800 pro was shot and my mobo was covered in water. I skipped all my classes that day and found that the agp slot and a shitload of water underneath it, i blew that out with compressed air. I let that dry for a day with a fan along with my radeon. I wiped everythign off with alcohol and cleaned off the white hard stuff from the drying of the water. Then when it was all put together it was not working....and i was pissed.

but yesturday when i was about to return the radeon (found out that was broke) i tryed it again and it worked. After some tests i found its perfectly fine. so apparently it needed to dry out more.

so i am happy :cool: . just gotta recommend that even if u have tightened ur clamps recently check them again, especially after doing some work inside ur case cause u may have moved the hoses around and loosened the clamps.

...now i just gotta get a replacement for my crappy amd athlon mobile 2600+ that cant get past 2ghz for some reason.

Well, i am one of those awesome people who lost a system for good in his very first attempt at WC. The real problem is that I was new to it and I was rushing to complete the system. Before I put it all togeather, I stupidly didnt use any hoseclamps (sysfx said you didnt have to on thier block, but damnit, just use hoseclaps no matter what) on the waterblock. Naturally while installing the mobo one of the tubes came off and spilled water all over my mobo and processor. So **** I say, and let it dry overnight. Well, after getting it all togeather, I turned it on after a leaktest. The system came on, but there was some wierdness in the display, then after a while it happened - system shut off. No matter what amount of drying it never worked again. later on i confirmed the cpu was toast in another board, and the mobo was fried as well from using known good components to test it. Needless to say, that wasnt a very good week. A good lesson in not getting too much over your head in these things.

The next thing is a near disaster. I basically scrounged a system togeather a few months after my first disaster, and eventually I got the itch to try liquid again. Amazingly i got it running without a problem, using most of my origional gear. But one fateful day, I had my bay res slid a little ways out because I was filling it a little more earlier, but didnt bolt it back down yet. I went out with my friends thinking "that will be fine for now". Well, I stepped into the room and what do I see - the bayres was hanging out of the bay with the inlet and outlet completly cut off, and a BSOD on the screen. First thing that comes to my mind is OH ****, I shut it down without a moment to spare. I notice that the tubes surrounding the processor (just a cheap duron 1.3) were hot. So i put the res back in its position and fire it up, everything cools down immediatly and begins to boot. Whew. Unfortunatly the biggest penalty was the pump, as it was sitting there pumping nothing for an hour the impeller shaft was somewhat damaged and had a rattle ever since, looking at it you can see where it is scuffed up.

Lessons learned, this stuff is deffinatly not for the faint of heart.

Cracked my poly-top D-Tek LRWW.

Guess I tightened it too much.

Slow drip-drip onto my volt-modded (and VERY nice clocking) 9700 non pro :cry:

Sold the whole rig in despair.

That must have been MONTHS ago and not even built a new rig yet.

Needless to say, the blocks are ALL metal this time round!

First time, I was trying to mount a DangerDen waterblock (piece of crap) and got mad and jammed it on there and evidently killed the CPU. You can't get to the hose clamps on that model. I use Swiftech only now, and forever. My hoses were too stiff also, now I use only latex like tubing on water block connections.
Then, while still mad I removed that water block by disconnecting the tubes at the block (wrong) and lifting the block out. Spilled water on the memory and killed the memory slots, memory was still good though. I tried everything to dry it but ended up just buying a new board, it was easier.
:D

Galvanic corrosion. My first koolance system was dead in about three months. Haven't screwed with aluminum since (with the exception of two swiftech blocks, though the have been fine). I caught it before it ruined my system, though it could have. There was severe pitting and discoloration on the barbs of an old NB block where the gold plating hadn't taken. Only safe to assume it was happening elswhere.

Block was leaking water(very slowly). CPU almost lost one of its capacitors because of corrosion. Barton 2500+. After repair everything works again...

lost the block
 

New MCW-6000 started spewing from its bottom, soaked the motherboard, and puddled the carpet. Only using one MCP350, so I figure I got a flawed block. I'll give the board a few days to dry out and then we'll see if she POSTs. <expletive>. Karma can be mean. At least I have another block to use while I wait on the RMA (was building multiple systems).

edge

You have the power ma man, yes indeed, you have the power...

been running my system for a few months 4 or 5 maybe. its totally silent, completely passively cooled. not one fan in the system. psu, mosfets, cpu, northbridge, hdds, gfx all watercooled, passive radiator, everything home made.
xp1800+ average old system, voodoo3. for internet/office/music/movies use.
im paranoid about the pump failing, i hear it should last longer if i keep it running...?
ive got mbm running set to shut down if the temps go too high.

I forgot to turn the pump in my external box on once and the wb heated up to the point where it melted the cheapy tygon (NOT r3603, got some other crap for some reason) where it was touching the barbs and made a pinhole leak that wet the CPU and Mobo. Gave it an alcohol bath and should see this week if its dead or not =\

I've yet to have a show-stopper type problem. You know, the kind that actually ruins HW. My video card got spritzed once, but after I cleaned it up it's worked fine. ;)

I was playing a game and noticed my temps were getting alot higher than ever before. My pump was running, no leaks, Rez. was still full, but no turbulance?? back to pump.. yep.. Still running. WTF?? then I noticed a small white rectangle sitting in the rez. The blades in the pump had all broken off and though the shaft was spinning it was not moving any coolant. I found all 3 blades in the coolant when I replaced the pump internals.

had a MAG 2 that ran fine till i took the system to a LAN party
started a slow drip leak out of the front of the pump but as it was in a rad box it wasn't a probelm

while rebuilding the cooling system a while later, i replaced the o-ring with RTV sealant and it was leak free again for a while

recently started leaking again so i just replaced it with a Eheim 1250
knocked about 15 deg F off my temps

I've had about 3 setups and some switching of WC system

Knocked off vid card resistor chip with hard nylon washer when tighten the block down. Lets just say there wasn't enough clearance and had washers on top of two resistor.
I glued one resistor back on and card worked!!! I ditched the mount on that side.

Then a second resistor got crushed slowly with time and the card failed.
Only way I could see that block working is with a huge rubber washer over nylon washer.

Had a mcw5000 not properly mounted on my athlon xp and had a huge gap. THe cpu shutdown was on so i was okay till I fgured out the problem.

Another time had a L30 shaft break on me. Noticed high CPU temps and I had to shake pump to get it started.

Was in the process of putting my system together in a huge rush. I couldn't find a funnel so I couldn't fill the system through the t-line. This morning, I remembered I had a syringe (no, not that kind.. it's without a needle for my guitar humidifier). I filled up the system, turned it on to get the pump going and the water flowing, and then I did the proverbial "OH SH**AKE" as I saw a decent-sized puddle at the bottom of my case. Had no idea where it was coming from, but felt water on the top of the 6800. Found one leak springing from the CPU block. Not sure if it'll still leak so I need to take it out, but the clamps weren't as tight as possible. Not sure if video card is screwed up. If I plug the monitor into it, the monitor knows it's plugged in but shows nothing. I don't see how the motherboard could have gotten screwed up, but I have a long day ahead, maybe even week as I give these components some drying time. I'll be kicking myself for a while after this...

Pump Leak/Block Crack the latter doesn't really count as a disaster

It was within 6 months of its completion, when after the W/C loop became infected with some sort of nasty, the impeller housing on my MAG 3 broke (along one of the lines where the plastic injection molding stuff came together) and leaked water onto the unpainted inner surface of my MDF box *which promptly puffed and warped :,(* it could be fixed *and has been fixed*

however when I was leak testing it... the poly to to my cascade cracked and leaked antifreeze and water EVERYWHERE... luckly I was leak testing... (current setup was leak tested for about 72 hours *I was waiting to get a RMA'd MoBo*)

no problems.

Eheim pump going over 4 years strong.

Motherboard and chip was won during the first year of the AMD extreme performance giveaway tour and is also going strong.