Kitz Forum
Computers & Hardware => PC Hardware => Topic started by: Bowdon on February 09, 2017, 11:42:13 AM
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This water cooled PC as been the worse for needing repairing. It's a good job the place I bought it from, overclockers uk, are good at taking it back and repairing it.
For the 2 time the water block near the graphic card seems to have cracked underneath. The first time this happened it was an EK water block, which they replaced with a XSPC version that as also cracked.
People on their forum are saying I'm unlucky. But I can say this will be the last water cooling PC I have. I might attempt build my own computer again next time.
How many of you guys have water cooled pc's? and if you do, have you had any issues with it?
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I built my first water cooled PC around Christmas 2015, I used good quality parts and acrylic tubing, so far it's been ok.There's a picture in the post below.
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,19193.msg340900.html#msg340900
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That looks cool Ronski :)
I was a bit nervous of doing the water cooling thing but wanted to try it so I opt'ed to get someone to build it. That's the frustrating part too because my lack of knowledge stops me from fixing it myself.
How heavy is your computer to pick up? This case is the heaviest i've had.
Apparently I'm unlucky to have had 2 cracked water blocks :(
I was thinking last night, the only real part now that generates any significant heat is the graphic cards as people are moving to ssd's. I wonder if we'll ever see ssd type technology for a graphics card in the future?
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M2 pci ssd's generate a lot of heat when under load https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/129939-m2-ssd-heat
One of these might come in handy:)
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My PC isn't too heavy, I think it's lighter than my old PC which is in a P180 Antec case. The new PC doesn't have any 3.5" HDDs, it has 1 2.5" HDD, 1 2.5" SSD and an M2 SDD so that saves quite a bit of weight, it's also a mATX case so much smaller than the Antec.
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....and got the PC back and yet more water cooling issue.
I got it back from Overclockers and immediately on opening the case to take the inside packaging out I discover the water reservoir leaking at the bottom. I'm not sure if this was caused by removing the packaging or not. But either way I tightened the water reservoir and monitored the water levels.
There were a few air bubbles, most of them worked looked to have worked their way out. Except it seems 1 big air bubble in one of the pipes. Meanwhile the water level is dropping. I can't see a visual leak from outside the case. I'm going to look and feel around tomorrow morning before I turn the system on.
When it came back from repair last time they fixed a slack joint, and then had to replace the 2 980ti graphics cards with 2 1070 ones, and also upgraded the cpu too.
They have been good at diagnoising the problems. But it seems 'in my experience' they are incapable of setting up and shipping a water cooling system. I'm sure it doesnt help that they have the systems delivered on pallets in big lorries.
So I'm in a dilemma whether I should try and get another repair or start thinking of demanding a refund. I paid £3,312.00 for this computer at the end of January 2016, though I didnt actually get it until March. I remember it was a few months after I'd ordered it.
This is the system I have, a review from bit-tech: https://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2015/03/06/overclockers-uk-infin8-nebula-gaming-pc-rev/1 (https://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2015/03/06/overclockers-uk-infin8-nebula-gaming-pc-rev/1)
So yea, at the moment I'm not a happy bunny >:(
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3k is a lot to spend ouch i can understand you not been happy, i have always found air cooling good enough for the job and it is less complex to maintain
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@Bowdon I am sorry you are having trouble, for the money you paid you deserve a reliable PC but I guess that might be the consequence of being on the bleeding edge of performance .... ?
I have used Corsair H80 and H100 (http://www.corsair.com/en/hydro-series-h80-high-performance-liquid-cpu-cooler) closed loop water coolers on three of my PC's in the recent past and they have performed reliably but are really in a totally different (lower) class. At the time they seemed like a good compromise between the advantages of water cooling and the risk of piping joints and compression fittings as they are a sealed system and supplied with the water loop fully assembled as I am sure you know. Of course they also mean you can't add cooling blocks for your GPU's / memory / bridges / whatever.
I had thought it would be a good stepping stone to assembling a custom water cooling system but as I no longer bother overclocking anything any more I have reverted to air coolers and am more interested in how quiet they are these days. I also stopped using dual Graphics cards as I ended up having some driver issues with some games 4 or 5 years ago with SLI. This is what happens when you get old, I just knock the detail levels down a bit on my games :oldman:
Your systems (@Bowdon and @Ronski) are obviously WAY more powerful than any of mine and both look pretty awesome, I am guessing you have to be gamers - what else would use all that power?
Personally, I am now patiently waiting for 4K gaming power to be in my budget ...... with an air cooled, non-overclocked, single graphics card mid-priced system. Not quite there yet but getting close :)
Chunks
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Hi Bowdon, sorry to hear you're still having problems.
I'm going to try and put my thoughts down and hopefully they'll make sense. I work for a transport company (workshop manager), and I would say that delivering it on a pallet is probably the best method - I've never seen a courier throw a pallet where we all know normal parcels get chucked around. However it's still going to get a lot of bumps in transit, and this is a very big problem with computers, especially ones which have heavy GPUs, heat sinks and the like, they are likely to move. Water cooling will only further add to the issues, hence why there is internal packaging. Safest method would be to deliver and collect it yourself, which probably isn't practical.
I've read the main parts of the review and looked at the pictures. They seem to have used good quality components, although I'm not familiar with them it's generally a good brand. When I built my system I researched what I used, I had a lot of problems with an Alphacool rad - it was very badly made, so that went back (twice) and in the end I got Hardware Labs rad. The reservoir I had to get from America, and it uses a compression seal on the tube. A lot of tube reservoirs cut a thread onto the tube I believe and that is not as reliable.
A couple of things I noticed, in my opinion and Bit-Tech mentioned it the wiring behind the motherboard is terrible, but as Bit-Tech says it doesn't really matter and it's not seen - I'm a bit OCD when it comes to tidy wiring, and I often think why do I go to such trouble when it wont be seen! The other thing is and this is relevant to your problem, the pipes look like they may be putting stress on the fittings, couple that to a bumpy journey in a truck and that could well cause problems. The reservoir also looks pulled to a slight angle, bear in mind that this is a PC built and sent in for review so more care may well have been taken than when they built you're PC.
Given the repeated faults you've had it could either be that the fittings have been over tightened or the pipes are putting too much stress on the components - this is why I prefer to do most things myself.
When I built my system to get the air out I had to run the pump at full speed (using a separate 12v power supply) and physically lift the case at different angles to persuade the air to move - it will always collect in the highest point in the section of the loop it's in, large air bubbles will not flow downwards. If you're water is dropping, but there is no leaks it must just be air finding it's way back to the reservoir.
I can't see that Overclockers will refund you in full, they might, but if not it might be worth asking them to remove the water cooling, and use an all in one for the CPU and reverting to decent air cooling on the GPU's, modern GPU's are generally very quiet, sometimes even when being pushed hard.
As Chrysalis says water cooling can be high maintenance, when I built mine I didn't want that, and I thought if all in one's could be sealed for life then why not mine. Normal flexible tubing is porous and will allow water out and air in over time. Acrylic doesn't have this problem IIRC. Also water cooling is prone to getting algae growing in it, I used pure distilled water (£17 delivered for 3ltrs) and some silver kill coils, there are no lights in the case, and athough it has side window it doesn't get much light under the desk. A year on and I've had no problems, and the water is still crystal clear. Long may it last :fingers:
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Your systems (@Bowdon and @Ronski) are obviously WAY more powerful than any of mine and both look pretty awesome, I am guessing you have to be gamers - what else would use all that power?
I used to game, not a massive amount, mainly Far Cry and Crysis, but I simply don't find the time lately - I spend quite a bit of time in the cinema room watching films at the weekends. I also used to game late at night into the wee small hours, but that's far too tiring these days! Hence why I haven't purchased an up to date graphics card.
Main reason I built a powerful water cooled PC is because it's something I've always wanted to do and I like things to be quiet. I also transcode all my Blu Rays onto my server so it speeds that up a lot. My last PC which I still use for distributed encoding was updated in 2010, the case being purchased in 2007. So my PC's last me a long time. My current system can be upgraded to a 10 core/20 thread (http://www.ebuyer.com/747248-intel-core-i7-6950x-extreme-edition-3ghz-socket-lga-2011-v3-25mb-cache-retail-bx80671i76950x) CPU should they ever drop to an acceptable price. That said this system is so powerful (http://valid.x86.fr/2sr74l) I shouldn't need to, apart from the GPU.
With this PC running at 4.5Ghz and my old PC at 3.5Ghz I can transcode a Blu Ray to H265 in around 2hrs, some take longer, some are quicker. When I first started it used to be an overnight thing, and that was H264.
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Chunkers my air cooled haswell is clocked at 4.3ghz and stays below 60C under extreme load, under 50C when gaming. It idles below 40C in summer and below 30C in winter.
My GPU gtx 1070 clocks to 2088mhz, and is using stock palit air cooler.
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Thanks for the replies guys.
I accept the pallet transportation is probably the best. I suspect it might be the packaging inside the machine that they pack it very tight. I was delicate in pulling it out. As I pulled it out, thats when the water res seemed to unscrew and liquid began dripping out of the bottom. I quickly managed to screw it back and it 'appeared' to stop the dripping. I'm surprised that it seemed to easily come unscrewed.
The big bubble still appears between the CPU block and the water res, only when the computer is turned on.
When I've reported faults before (this will be the 3rd, all connected to water cooling) they have me upload pictures to imgur website. I set the albums to public: http://bowdonuk.imgur.com (http://bowdonuk.imgur.com)
The early albums were when the computer kept blue screening and the tech guy said it was an unstable overclock. He had me take pictures of the bios screen and reduced the overclock. Eventually I had to send it back because of water levels dropping, and in the report it said that the water loop wasnt connected correctly and was losing water, so the faulty loop wasnt enough to cool the overclock.
I'm going to write up a webnote to them today about the situation. I don't mind how much I get refunded as long as the machine works. It would be interesting to remove the watercooling and move to aircooling. Not sure how much overclock they would do on that. I can imagine it might be a bit humiliating for them that they can't test, package and transport a computer waterloop in a working state.
I like the shop and they have been so far good customer service. But at the end of the day the computer as never been reliable. From blue screens to now the 3rd water loop fault. I've never had to send a previous computer back in my life, going back to the C64 days!
I would be surprised if I'm the only one who has these problems. I've noticed on their forum there isnt many people who have bought a pre-made system commenting on there. It seems to be people who have made their own and asking for advice. I'm not sure if thats an indication of they all work, or they push those threads in to the private sections of the forum.
I do game, though not a heavy gamer as in big name titles. But I was going to dip my toe in that direction with this machine. At the moment my trusty PS4 as still been my main gaming machine because of this.
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You've got to appreciate the complexities of water cooling and over clocking, it's not simple and takes a lot of time to fine tune. When it's shipped it's probably laid flat which means the air will move, to move those air bubbles you need to move/tilt/twist the case with ideally just the pump running.
I once built an expensive rig for a friend, it was a pre-overclocked motherboard/cpu/cooler bundle from Scan, and I was appalled to see they had just jacked the voltage right up to make it stable, of course this causes heat and will shorten the life of the CPU. I spent ages lowering the voltage and trying to get it stable.
If you're not capable of maintaining it I would get the GPU's air cooled and a decent AIO twin fan CPU cooler.
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I was nervous to go in to water cooling and was assured by people on their forum that all I'd have to do is top the water level up after 9 to 12 months (depending on the water level), then every so often drain the system and refill it. I was willing to pay OC to do that bit.
These faults seem to be physical, which I didnt anticipate.
But you are right that I didnt realise there needed to be so much maintenance.
To be honest reading their water cooling forum it does seem to be more of a specialist hobby for most of them. As in they like water cooling as a speciality. Which I can appreciate. But for a company pushing overclocking and water cooling on a mass sales scale, I'd have thought they would have been more appreciative of the "complexities".
I can see in a way it would be easier to build your own water loop as you know everything about it and can individually push your system to its limits. I know I experimented with overclocking the last PC (air cooled) I made. It does give you extra confidence and knowledge when tweaking your own system.
But this water cooling is an area I know nothing about (which is frustrating). So only after reassuring did I opt to have one pre-built. But I didnt appreciate the delicate nature. If I had known I might have built my own again maybe with a closed loop. One of the mistakes I made on my last system was buying a cheap case. I guess this is an expensive lesson for me in the other way.
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We all live and learn, Overclockers should really be selling these water cooled system with a big warning. If all goes well then what they said on the forums is correct, but as you have found it doesn't always go well. I'm sure the problems are related to hoses putting tension on the unions, or over tightening along with the difficulties of shipping a fully assembled water cooled PC.
I was apprehensive with mine, it could potentially spring a leak and fry everything, and the other annoying thing is I can't update the BIOS without losing all the over clock settings, so I'd have make a note of them all and re-enter them, then stress test again to make sure it was OK. So I decided there was no need to update the BIOS.
You could fit air cooling stuff yourself, as long as you've a fairly steady hand and are careful it's pretty straight forward, and keep discharging any static safely. I usually keep the power cable plugged in, BUT both the power switch on the PSU and plug socket switched off, that way the case is earthed.
Something like these could be used, although you'd need to check space if keeping 2 x 1070 in SLI which is really total overkill.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/best-cpu-coolers,review-33267.html Double rad arrangement not single or possibly a really good air cooler.
https://www.arctic.ac/uk_en/accelero-xtreme-iv.html
PS. You say it's frustrating not knowing about water cooling, I didn't either I just learnt as I went along, although I do have skills (plumbing/mechanics/diy/electrics) which greatly helped.
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Bowden was the unstable overclock their preconfigured overclock or what you did?
If they preconfigured it then they should have done stability tests.
I think AIO coolers are ok for a CPU but I have never liked the idea of a water loop setup myself.
Also all pascal GPUs dont really need water cooling, they are very TDP efficient.
This is the GPU I got and it never goes over 60C when gaming which is amazing.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/palit-geforce-gtx-1070-gamerock-premium-edition-8192mb-gddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-03h-pl.html
It is a 3 slot card, the heatsink is really beefy. :)
Good air coolers are evo hyper 212 or noctus dh15 https://www.amazon.co.uk/noctua-NH-D15-Noctua/dp/B00L7UZMAK
the hyper 212 is very well priced, the latter is competitive with water cooling units.
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Chrysalis, that's the card I've been lusting after recently, but just can't justify buying one - my 680 runs Crysis 3 perfectly and last time I played was over Christmas.
Noctua's were always very good coolers :thumbs:
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Bowden was the unstable overclock their preconfigured overclock or what you did?
It was their preconfigured overclock. But I think it was something to do with the water cooling they did that was faulty. I took it back when it was leaking. They create a fault report.
This is the report of the first time I took it in;
SYSTEM REPAIR: Leaking, Component Failure, System returned for a leaking issue. two fittings were suspected of having faulty seals but after draining and examining the system the fault was found to be with the gfx parallel flow block. The block was replaced and a badly kinked tube was replaced and a new 45 degree fitting add to prevent any future kinks in the pipe. System tested and Overclocked tuned as system was showing signs of instability during testing. System and gtx cards benchmarked and performed as expected.
This was the report of the last time I took it in;
SYSTEM REPAIR: Leaking, Component Failure, System returned for a leaking issue. Leak attributed to a slack fitting. Fittings tightened and system placed on test. During testing faults were found with GFX cards. Cards removed from system and changed to 1070 GFX cards. Cards rebuilt with new GFX water blocks. System retested and was now found to be unstable. BIOS flashed and CPU upgraded to i7-7700k System reclocked to 4.7GHz and placed on test. System completed testing with no issues or instability found. System packaged ready for return to customer.
It was the same guy who made both repairs.
They are good at diagnosing problems. But I'm sure these amount of issues shouldnt be happening.
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so its at 4.7 now? what was the unstable clock speed they set to?
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The original CPU was a Intel Core i7 6700K and overclocked that to 4.7GHz too. It was unstable at that. But I think it was like that because of the water cooling setup. They ended up reducing me to 4.5 until the last repair when he re-overclocked it to 4.7
I seem to have been extremely unlucky with this computer with them. These arent miner faults, and they are quick to point out if you start going inside the computer then its shakey ground on if they will accept it to repair it.
I've attached a picture of the bottom of the water res. The pipe that goes in to the bottom of the water res is the one with the bubble. I wonder if one of those connectors aren't tightened that well, as the whole water res seems to be pressing against the board its attached to. It even tilts a little bit, which it didnt do before.
The only good thing is the warranty is for 3 years.
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type of cooling wont affect overclock stability. what affects that is silicon lottery voltage and ram clocks so e.g. faster ram will stress the on cpu ram controller more and will reduce maximum stable cpu clock. successful overclocking is a fine art requires careful balance and tuning of multiple parameters. 4.7 was overly optimistic for a 6700k only the top 10% of chips are stable at that speed
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Not strictly true, better cooling will generally allow a higher overclock.
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We talking about stability.
Now days overclock's are not usually limited by temperatures, but even if a max temperature is reached the cpu simply throttles itself, it wouldnt cause a blue screen.
Of course a stock cpu cooler wont be very good, but if we comparing reputable air coolers with water coolers, then a high end air cooler is good enough and what is the vast majority of overclockers use.
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I got a reply from a manager at overclockers and he said that he had ordered the pump to be replaced and it wasn't. He thinks the bubbles have probably come from the radiator and if I can't see an actual leak then it is probably the air that was trapped being released.
He said he'll look to upgrade something else when it comes in if he can.
So I guess we wait :cool:
I'm going to try and get it home a more gentle way though, even if I have to sit in the car and hold it myself lol.
This is the dilemma with overclockers, the system has faults but their customer service as been very good. I believe a company (Casings?) bought them out 2 years ago and since then the customer support improved a lot. The horror stories in the past.. I'm thankful I wasn't buying in 2015
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Just got the technicians report back on the computer. It's due to be returned soon.
SYSTEM REPAIR: Cooler failed, Component Failure, Pump fault causing airlocking. Replaced pump and re-done tube layout. Cleaned out CPU waterblock. Tested again. Passes correctly as should.
So it looks like they spotted the issue.
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fingers crossed it works properly this time. :)
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Got the computer back home. So far so good. I'll just have to check the water level tonight/tomorrow to see how much/if it drops significantly. I noticed they changed the layout of the water cooling network.
I was watching a video last night about how to setup watercooling and the guy did make it look fairly easy. So I'm surprised myself at how many problems I'm having with this one. Ill start up gta and hope it doesnt blue screen after 5 minutes. It used to do that when that unstable overclock was present.
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the good news is 7700k's overclock better than 6700k's due to modifications intel made, that may be why ocuk swapped out the cpu.