Ok, I’ve tried to keep my head about this. I complained to a few online fellows and have heard similar responses from other people delving into the water cooling arena.
I recently purchased a BE Cooling water block from 3DCooling. I originally wrote them and asked them to help me pick out what I needed as I was testing this, my first water cooling system on a few different systems, and wanted to make sure I got all the proper mounting hardware, brackets and such. Plus, I asked them why I should chose their product over say Overclockers Hideout. BE Cooling simply responded by saying something along the lines of “Ours is better, we will get you cooler”.
So even though the customer service was pretty much nonexistent, I thought I’d give them a try as our friends who run this board here use it quite often as a base reference to compare to other water blocks.
So I get this copper water block in a few days; I open it up to find this gouge in the EXACT spot the processor core would sit. Then, on further inspection, I see that one of the two brass 90 barbs was crooked and had been ground down a hair to compensate for the corner sticking at an odd angle and interfering with the socket.
Then, to top all that off, the “mounting hardware” that I paid an extra $8 for, which would have been part of the cost of the water block had I gotten it from overclockershideout, was nothing more than a piece of steel wire run through a copper tube that had been hammered flat and a thumbscrew driven through the middle. Oh, man, was I furious! I’m steaming right now just thinking about it!!
So, after 20 minutes of lapping on a professional power sander just to get the gouge out and another 10 minutes with my Dremel to round off the brass barbs corner that was protruding below the level of the copper due to its crappy assembly, I proceeded to mount this rig on my brand new T-bird 750 at 1100.
Originally this T-bird came from PC Nut with some HSF setup. But it was running at over 52C, which is just a bit too hot for me to be happy, plus too much heat for me to want in my box. I’m no longer dumping 7 fans in my systems to keep them cool. I’m damn tired of my computers sounding like Harrier Jets.
So after some elbow grease and skull sweat, I get this thing going. Temps drop down to 44 under full load and I am just happy that my home made water rig holds water!! Then, late last night I was testing LINUX on my third system when my Motherboard Monitor software starts tossing me some warning sounds. I run over and look to see my system rocketing past 50C again. Did the pump stop, are the fans spinning – OMG! Is it leaking?!
I peak into the system to see that this jury rig of a mounting bracket has bent from the pressure of the water tubing and the pressure of itself pushing on the socket/chip/block and has basically folded over.
Sorry, that’s the only way I can think to explain it. Basically the thumb screw is still at the position I left it, but the steel wire has twisted in the copper tube hammered flat and allowed the block to angle off the chip die. And when I went to remove this setup, I could hear some ceramic grinding.
I don’t think Overclockers.com would allow me to post what I honestly want to say about what happened to me and how I feel about this total setup, so I will leave it be that I am very unhappy.
The block functions OK now that I’ve polished it, but the “mounting hardware” is garbage. I will keep using this setup on this, or my secondary system, but with someone else’s proper mounting brackets, or one I will develop myself.
I am too broke to “test” other water cooling setups at this time, but I have been in contact with Super Cooling Methodologies, Tidal Pool, and Overclockers Hideout. I plan on purchasing or getting loaners to test not only the cooling abilities (which seem to be excellent, even with a shoddy product like the BE Cooler) but the quality of the mounting hardware and customer service.
If anybody wants to help me out with this article/testing I’m working on, and can provide me with the blocks/brackets to test, even on a temp basis (I will cover shipping even!) I would be greatly obliged.
I am providing Raven with a number of waterblocks to test out – Joe Citarella.
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