Leak Testing....

This is my first time water cooling so I'm kinda learning as I go along. I've already found several things I'll do diffrently next time. Anyway, first what I have then onto the questions.

P5ND2-SLI Deluxe w/ P4 650 @ 3.4Ghz
Sapphire Radeon X850XT
2Gb Ballistix 5300
Audigy 2
Plextor PX-708A
4 x WD3200KS in raid
400w Antec Power Supply

What I'm planning to cool it with is

Swiftech Storm
10ft Primoflex Tubing
A one pass GM heater core (6"x9.25"x2")
2 Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F
FlowRite ~320gph pump
4" PVC pipe as a res

I'm planning to get a gpu block in the near future when I get the money and/or a chipset block. Anyway, everything is hooked up sitting in buckets running a leak test at the moment. I did a search and what I found said I should leak test for at least 24hrs. While I've never water cooled before I have messed around with pumps and hoses and such quite a bit. In my experience usually once you stop the intial leaks (if any) and run a pressure test for 5-10 mins without leaks you are good to go.

My questions are, how long do most people run a leak test for? And how often do you find a leak after say the first few hours?

Most do a min of 24 hours just to be safe. Some do it for less, but thats a gamble that they make. Some leaks can take several hours to become noticable so you should definately let it run for a while before hooking it up.

I recently built my first system, too. A small drop showed up between one of the barbs going into my rad, and the rad itself about 20 hours in. I found out that with components that use an o-ring seal, you don't need teflon tape, but with barbs that don't use an o-ring, use blue silicone RTV.

I leak tested for 72 hours just for the piece of mind O_O

I would guess that most leaks are going to be relatively slow (unless you have a giant hole) because there isnt a whole lot of pressure compared to say the 40psi water pipes in your home...

I don't leak test, I Submerge the rad in water use compressed air to cheak for leak if good then I move onto the Pump quick test no leaks good, then cheak waterblock if thats good then I put together the system, and fire it up. if you take the right precautions and know what your doing you won't have leaks.

Thanks for the replies. I ended up letting it run overnite and no leaks this morning.
But after letting it run for so long I've found that the pump noise is a little more than tolerable. It didn't make this much noise when I was testing it outside the res so I guess some of the padding has moved and the pump is rubbing on something. Guess I'll have to drain it and see if I can fix the problem before I install. That brings up another question.
If you drain your system and only mess with one or two hoses do you run another 24-72hr leak test?

Again thanks for the info.

Anytime you disconnect anything or move the setup, you need to leaktest again. That's why I install everything in the case at the beginning, just like it will be, and then leak test it. Water doesn't hurt computer components...water + electricity does. I just jump start an extra PSU with the pump attached and let it fly.