The only thing I'll add is this poll here isn't the be all and end all, it would need to be far larger to even hint at that. Generally from topics I have seen in the community that indicate some form of water-cooling disaster pointing to the pump, when you read through it it's really the user, not turning it that is the error. A lot of the time people getaway with it because they are using the system and it either crashes when the CPU gets hot or shuts down at a certain temp.
If the pump actually fails because you skimped on cost and bought a cheap and nasty one, that is 100% user error imo, and you would also deserve a slap
, (a pump is the Heart of any water-cooling system). If you bought a known quality, (expensive), one and it fails, then you at least did the right thing and man made things sometimes do go wrong, however good they are. A pump relay is quite a simple thing to do & it should be on every water-coolers list of must do's. I do not personally favour 24/7 pump operation, for the same reason I don't favour 24/7 PC operation.
Apart from the possible fire risk leaving a PC unattended for long periods, (especially when sleeping), my opinion is when it doesn't need to be on TURN IT OFF!. If everybody worldwide left their PC and Pumps on all the time think how many more unnecessary polluting power stations we would need in the world. Parts of the US are struggling to cope with record electricity demands atm anyway.
