Another water cooling mishap. And all I can say is THANK GOD I was home when this happened. I stepped out of the room to make me a sandwich, came back a few minutes later and I could hear the water pump sputtering, I could smell the humidity and heat in the room. I looked at the front bay water reservoir and saw it had lowered a noticeable amount. I immediately unplugged the computer.

Opened up the case and I could see water leaking between my Crossfire connection between the two video cards. Water was puddled up on the power supply under it. *sigh*

Water cooling Crossfire cards has been such a massive pain in the ass. And this is the second time I've had a leak between the Crossfire tunnel between the cards. And definitely the worse leak I've ever had with this water cooling upset.

I took everything apart. Neither video card suffered any water damage. And I opened the power supply and I could see a nice layer of dust all along the inside, absolutely no hint that water came inside. I got extremely lucky. Again.

But everything was so freaking hot, you could smell it. And the water I drain was scalding hot. Before I yanked the power, I saw the computer was still running and looked okay. So I'm hoped the heat hadn't damaged anything. I reinstalled my stock air cooling parts and the CPU, power supply, and both video cards appear fine (though one of the stock video card heatsinks won't seat correctly).

Appears everything is fine. But I am definitely throwing in the towel on all this hassle. Had I been away much longer, I suspect there would have been the potential of a fire from either all that heat or water getting into the power supply.

Hopefully I can get some money off ebay for some of these parts.

PS. Just running one 6950 at the moment. Due to an issue with the other heatsink. Oddly Rift actually is running better at the moment on one video card. Cool.

The 6950 is probably one of the better high end cards for performance/watt too. But yeah between the microstutter, the heat, the issues with drivers and games crossfire/sli just aren't worth it.

Stop wasting your time with this junk.

First ATI cards, then Water Cooling.

I thought you knew better Ravyn

 

-----signature-----

It just got too complicated. Two radiators, three water blocks, reservoir, and pump. 14 tube connections, 14 potential points of failure.

Despite several leaks, I feel pretty lucky I only damaged one video card (my first 4870 X2 died from water damage).

water cooling never struck me as a good idea. way too much potential death. and honestly if i wanted to go that route, i'd get a fish tank full of mineral oil case.

 

-----signature-----

Thought about it. But when you upgrade, you can't sell or hand those parts down to another computer, because mineral oil never comes off.

I miss using it, but I dont miss the 'never quite trusting it' feeling. Wish it could be made more failsafe.

Otara

Rubbing alcohol should remove mineral oil I would think. Not sure how safe it would be to dunk a graphics card in it though.

 

-----signature-----

Having my first water cooler break and spew foul stuff all around the inside of the machine was enough for me - thankfully it was under warranty so the various affected components were replaced for me, but it was a nuisance nonetheless and I don't plan on having another one. The very principle of putting water in a computer is just wrong, I can't think what I was doing opting for it in the first place! Incidentally, the computer was switched off when it went, although still plugged in, but fortunately I was in the same room and heard it go.