There was a thread on this board recently concerning the Swiftech MCP300 so I thought I'd share my experiences.
I ordered a Swiftech kit a few months back. During the first week of running the kit I had a motherboard failure. I thought this was attributed to a water leak, but it turns out my MB just flipped out on me. I discovered that the MB still worked after purchasing and installing a new MB, but that's another story. Since then I've been running an air cooled system with the water cooling kit sitting on a shelf. Recently I ordered a bigger rad (chevy chevette heatercore), modded and painted an old steel case with the intention of getting back into water cooling. I JB Welded some barbs onto the heatercore, and hooked up the pump, the heatercore, and a resevoir to test that the JB Weld was water tight and would hold. I ran the pump for about 3 hours and shut it off. It was rather hot to the touch. A couple of hours later I check out the case and the pump has leaked! Examined all my fittings, picked up the pump and I can see that the leak is between the blue metal and the plastic pump housing. Damn! I've used this pump for roughly 1 week + 3 hours and it's failed. Now I need a new pump. Think I'm going to go with a Eheim 1048, even though it's a larger pump and will need some creative installation.
I've spent $250 on a Swiftech 8500 kit. I've replaced the radiator (wasn't happy with the cooling but maybe the pump was the cause of that), and am now replacing the pump. So what did my $250 buy me? Two water blocks. Nice blocks, but not what I had in mind. The moral of the story? Read these forums, follow the masses and purchase only tried and tested parts for your watercooling system.
I've rambled on but I wanted to share my experiences with the MCP300 since there was quite a bit of (unhealthy) debate recently.
-Losing Money and Patience in Atlanta
I ordered a Swiftech kit a few months back. During the first week of running the kit I had a motherboard failure. I thought this was attributed to a water leak, but it turns out my MB just flipped out on me. I discovered that the MB still worked after purchasing and installing a new MB, but that's another story. Since then I've been running an air cooled system with the water cooling kit sitting on a shelf. Recently I ordered a bigger rad (chevy chevette heatercore), modded and painted an old steel case with the intention of getting back into water cooling. I JB Welded some barbs onto the heatercore, and hooked up the pump, the heatercore, and a resevoir to test that the JB Weld was water tight and would hold. I ran the pump for about 3 hours and shut it off. It was rather hot to the touch. A couple of hours later I check out the case and the pump has leaked! Examined all my fittings, picked up the pump and I can see that the leak is between the blue metal and the plastic pump housing. Damn! I've used this pump for roughly 1 week + 3 hours and it's failed. Now I need a new pump. Think I'm going to go with a Eheim 1048, even though it's a larger pump and will need some creative installation.
I've spent $250 on a Swiftech 8500 kit. I've replaced the radiator (wasn't happy with the cooling but maybe the pump was the cause of that), and am now replacing the pump. So what did my $250 buy me? Two water blocks. Nice blocks, but not what I had in mind. The moral of the story? Read these forums, follow the masses and purchase only tried and tested parts for your watercooling system.
I've rambled on but I wanted to share my experiences with the MCP300 since there was quite a bit of (unhealthy) debate recently.
-Losing Money and Patience in Atlanta