Apogee XT halting flow of loop

I put together a two-loop system and I was doing my first leak tests last night. The loops are:

D5 Pump > Res > 120.4 Rad > GPU > GPU > D5 Pump
D5 Pump > Res > 120.3 Rad > Apogee XT > D5 Pump

The issue that I am having right now is that the CPU loop is barely giving me any flow at all. I'm using 1/2" ID tubing on both loops, the barbs are all identical and the reservoirs are set up the same way. They are cylindric reservoirs with the inlet on the bottom and the out on the side, with a half plate in the middle. You can visibly see the flow on the GPU loop.

So what I noticed was that the tube running from the outlet of the Apogee into the Pump was just barely pushing any water. I changed pumps, same deal. I changed to the 120.4 radiator, same deal. So this leads me to believe that the Apogee XT is doing something that is halting the flow of the loop.

I've seen plenty of other people using the 1/2" ID tubing with this block, so I don't think that is the issue. If anyone has any methods I can do to trouble shoot, that would be huge. I'd like to try to get this ready to do a 24 hr leak test.

well, first off, you need your res before your pump, you're starving the pump for water. That's the only rule of loop order. secondly: you need to give what gpu blocks you have for any sort of legitimate comparison between the two. Thirdly: did you clean everything when you set it up? The xt is an impingement block, so it has lots of itty bitty pins in there and just about anything can clog them, reducing flow lower than it is already with that highly restrictive blocks.

I cleaned the parts following the sticky, but I did not take apart the Apogee to clean it, as I'm not all that familiar with it, I just ran distilled water through it.

Danger Den 5970 blocks are my GPU blocks. I'll change the order of the parts and wee what I can do.

Advent said:

I cleaned the parts following the sticky, but I did not take apart the Apogee to clean it, as I'm not all that familiar with it, I just ran distilled water through it.

Danger Den 5970 blocks are my GPU blocks. I'll change the order of the parts and wee what I can do.

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when you drain to change the loop order, open up the XT, it should be relatively simple (con may even detail it in his annual teardown article as he uses an XT) and it'll at least eliminiate that possibility. The DD gpu blocks are relatively low restriction if they're like the 480 DD blocks and the XT is pretty high restriction. You won't have the same flow in each loop, but I can't tell from your post what the disparity is.

m0r7if3r said:

when you drain to change the loop order, open up the XT, it should be relatively simple (con may even detail it in his annual teardown article as he uses an XT) and it'll at least eliminiate that possibility. The DD gpu blocks are relatively low restriction if they're like the 480 DD blocks and the XT is pretty high restriction. You won't have the same flow in each loop, but I can't tell from your post what the disparity is.

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The GPU loop, the tube is essentially full, pushing water quickly through the loop.

The CPU loop, the tube after the Apogee XT is essentially a slow drip or stream, never comes close to filling the tube.

I've taken the Apogee apart and realized that I don't have a clean toothbrush. It does look somewhat grimy though.

I'm going to step away from the project for a day, and go back at it again tomorrow evening.

you are a very wise man.

I haven't ever taken apart a cpu block was there anything to watch for, and is there anything needed to put it back together?

nah, just put some ketchup in there and scrub it with a toothbrush. Make sure you check both halves though, get the inlets and outlets clean...be as meticulous as you would be with anything else...should just need what you used to take it apart to put it back together, dont' lose the o-ring.

Cool I have just never messed with it. I thought I had read some where that some of the apogee blocks have some kind of a sticky pad, and I thought it might have to be replaced.

just make sure u dont inverse Oring, happened me once on my dtek fusion v1 . and i got a majure leak. (killed a mobo but I rma'ed it!)

I will be sure to keep note of that when I am working on it.

So I changed the order of my parts - pump > rad > apogee > res > pump

I also cleaned out the apogee.
I let the system run overnight and it cleaned out all of the air bubbles and now the tubes are completely filled and water is being pushed through the system.

so, it's flowing better then?

m0r7if3r said:

so, it's flowing better then?

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Yeah it really is. It's still not the same flow rate of the danger den cards, but that is expected. The apogee xt is known for its slow rate of flow, but great overall thermal performance.

So did you buy the block used, or was is just really dirty from the factory?

Sounds like you already figured this out but just to make it clear, the Apogee XT is a high efficiency (low-flow) block.