Leak/Draining Loop - Requesting Help.

[AwesomePenguin]

Good Day! I am hoping to get some help (as this forum has helped me before with this build, and with success).

I'm in the middle of doing my first build ever (water cooling or not).

I'm trying to be as detailed as possible, as I know in this sort of threads many questions are asked due to lack of data to aid in finding a solution. I apologize if it seems as if I'm rambling. I would be super thankful for advice/aid in finding a solution to my problem.

Last night I put the cooling into the loop, and notice there was a very small amount of water leaving the system ever so slowly because there was a small puddle of cooling water at the bottom of the case -- but wasn't able to determine where it was. All the fittings remained dry along with the tubing. The blocks were dry as well. This would be easy to tell since the fittings and blocks are black and the coolant is white.

I notice after a certain amount of very slow drainage, it seemed to stop. Since the leak (wherever it was or wasn't) had no risk of touching any hardware so I went to bed last night and left the loop on. I got up this morning and no water on the floor of the case. Though I did notice the water in the resovior (sp) was lower (ever so slightly). So I decided to fill it up once more (not much needed, a mere top off) and mark the water line with a blue dry erase marker. I finally found out it was a slight leak on a screw at the bottom of the pump. Its as if it's leaking from the screw itself. So I attempted to drain the loop, and...



1) I think the GPU dual thing and CPU block is blocking the loop from fully draining. (See image). Is there a way to fully drain this, safely?



2) Then it comes to the 'bottom left screw' of the pump which I'm 99.99% sure is the culprit in my leak. The thing is, I have no idea why this is leaking here..and how to fix it..suggestions (image below, leak source circled orange)? DDC 3.2 EK pump/res combo



Thanks a bunch!

 

[Dopa]

You can put the cap of the reservoir back and put a spare fitting( if you have one) on the top of the cap, put a piece of soft tubing as well (if you got some left as well) and simply blow through it with the drain valve open.. all the remaining fluid will leave the system through the drain port you got np.

EDIT: Did you check the back side of the 90° fitting you got down there on the drain port? It could as well leak from there and you might think it's the screw that's leaking (which cannot happen).

 

[AwesomePenguin]

You can put the cap of the reservoir back and put a spare fitting( if you have one) on the top of the cap, put a piece of soft tubing as well (if you got some left as well) and simply blow through it with the drain valve open.. all the remaining fluid will leave the system through the drain port you got np.

EDIT: Did you check the back side of the 90° fitting you got down there on the drain port? It could as well leak from there and you might think it's the screw that's leaking (which cannot happen).

I can probably get hold of another fitting and soft tubing to get it out that way, thanks a bunch.

I won't rule out the 90 fitting, but the res is screwed in place by those for bottom parts. I wonder if that one in particular is loose thus water goes through it as it's running.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Either a fitting is leaking or the pumps housing somehow is cracked. I would't say the screw is leaking because its coming from somewhere. You will have to go through the pain staking process of investigating what is going on cause this is the serious stuff when it comes to liquid cooling. I would fill the loop and run a 24 hr leak test. If nothing is found, I'd go another 24 hours and possibly run the pump at full bore. I would than inspect the gear in the leak area, meaning taking out the pump and inspecting the housing even to the point of running a small loop outside and letting it run if you haven't found the leaking source as of yet.

 

[caddi daddi]

pull the pump/res and rma it, don't take it apart yourself.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

pull the pump/res and rma it, don't take it apart yourself.

Or that if what I said ruins your warranty.

 

[AwesomePenguin]

First, thank you all.

With all your advice I was able to fully drain it. The leak happened to be a back port plug not fully screwed in on the back of the reservoir. I fixed that and ran it.

Then I had another issue....(I'm getting a bit discouraged here)....


After I filled it up, bleed the loop, check for leaks, things worked great. I watched some Netflix, surfed the web, none of it was a problem. Then, I decided to test it and boot up FFXIV.

Within five minutes (tops) of sitting idle in a video game the 1080 ti overheated and shut down. I was heart-broken, and also realized that the heat showed (expansion perhaps) a leak on my dual Terminal EK bridge thing.

One or two drops..but I decided to drain the whole system again (and a lot faster this time around thanks to the advice). I reapplied thermal paste to both graphics cards, double checked the thermal pads placements, and also verified that the "black rubber gaskets" where properly placed on the corresponding slots on the EK Dual Terminal (it wasn't the first time). Once again I did a leak test, got rid of all the bubbles, and ran FFXIV.

It over heated again, but no leaks this time - and in about the same amount of time - 5 minutes.
Both times the GPU over-heated the computer turned off. It's hitting 80-90c in that amount of time as well.

I really don't know what to do, I am at a complete lost. I'm trying to remain cool..because obviously my computer isn't. The CPU seems to be running at a cool 30-40c, and the fans running full power (as well as the pump it seems).

The only thing to note, is the bottom GPU seems to be the main one, and when I first drained everything..I notice there was a good amount of liquid in the 2nd (bottom) GPU, but hardly none in the first. (I'm not sure if that data helps any).

ANY suggestions would be fantastic, I'm getting bummed out, and slightly discouraged here....

What should be my next step?

Here is a picture of my (pretty but not fully functional PC). I'll be more than willing to answer any questions once so ever...

(Edit: I don't think this would be an issue, but I do have an M.2 Drive sitting right below the 2nd (lowest) GPU).

I'm ...help?

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Flat-6 beat me to it. Once that is reconfigured, you should be good to go.

 

[AwesomePenguin]

I'm embarrassed, but thank you for pointing out the directions. I do wish to keep how the bends are, so I suppose I'll head to Microcenter today and get the parallel terminal.

Doesn't open for sometime so I'll think ahead and drain it so I'm ready for the install...again.

Hopefully this fixes the temp issue and help the draining issue as well.

I'll report back (success or failure) when I have everything back up and running.

Again, huge thanks..I jumped into the deep in on this custom pc thing and this place has been very kind and helpful.

 

[Nebulous]

That's why we're here. Keep us posted!

 

[Flat-6]

Looks like I accidently deleted my post above which highlighted theOP's issue - That will teach me in trying to edit my post on my mobile...


For future reference here is the EK diagram again which shows the correct tube routing/connection configurations depending on whether you use the Dual Serial or Dual Parallel GPU bridge blocks.

 

[AwesomePenguin]

So, I went and picked up a Parallel Terminal. I did the switch, turned it on...leaked test, bleed, etc.

Booted up the system everything good.
I think I wondered around in game for a good 30 minutes once or twice and my temps were (think) good.

My two 1080 ti's never exceeded 45c
My processor maxed out at 52c.

A friend of mine stated the i7700k was running slightly hot, but I'm told 30c-80c is healthy for the processor.

If idle, or doing simple intrawebs, GPUS and CPU keeps itself in the very low 30's c

That seems decent to me, I mean it's not over heating that's for sure.
I'm keeping the panel off and watching it for the next day or so before I close everything but everything looks great and fully operational.

I do want to say thanks though, very much. I can't believe I didn't read the directions (well I did, but when I saw the pictures, I was like 'oh I have these two options') and didn't bother noticing it's an option for each sort of terminal.

Anyways, thanks again.

(Edit) Are there any suggestions in stress testing the machine, were I can (at best) safely assume my computer won't freak out on me on long/intense gaming/processing sessions?

 

[||Console||]

I run adia64 stress test + Valley bench in loop for a few hours to really overstress my system.

Your temps look good now . Happy you stuck with it as the gains are worth the effort.