Water Cooling Life Expectancy

[prepper2010]

Hi,
I'm one of those rare people who had very good luck with an Aquagate S1. For years my CPU usually sat around 31-33 C and ever exceeded 45C. It ran great at fan idle speed since the day I bought it 3 years ago -I just added some of their funky blue coolant every 6 months and went back to gaming, burning DVDs or whatever mindless sort of nonsense I was up to.

Yesterday - in the midst of killing an NPC - my pc shutdown. I rebooted, checked the temp via BIOS and discovered it was through the roof. My temp monitoring software (Thank you Core Temp) had detected the problem and shut it down.

So I have some heat issues.

Watching it this morning I noticed I had a TON of air in the line. I'd topped the fluid a few months ago - NP since.
I topped it again this morning.
Did the usual bumps, taps, tipping my case, restarts etc. to bleed the lines.
I don't have as much air as I did yesterday, but in the past I have had NO air in the line!
And there is still a lot of air in there that just will not go away.

So.
Is this thing coming to the end of it's life?
Anything I've missed?
It's self contained so I don't see how I can clean much.
I've gone over the lines looking for pinhole leak - zip (besides the fluid fluoresces and I've lighting in the case which shows it when I drip some during a refill).
Ditto the clamps are perfect.
Is this just the pump failing and frothing bubbles into it (cavitation)?

I used to work on cars and understand how to bleed things like brake-lines etc and this looks to be the same.
But I can NOT find a leak anywhere.

Dreading having to rip out my mobo to pull those long heat-sink bolts out from the back.
If anyone knows of a practical way to remove this thing without doing that, feel free to chime in.
If this is where we part ways, I'll probably go back to air-cooling.
This was just sort of a fun experiment, but the hoses kinda get in my way when I want to tinker.


(Please Note: I understand that I didn't spend 6 bills to cool my system. If you did, my hat's off to you. Sincerely, I'm glad you have the extra loot to put into your system. Unfortunately I've read more than a few posts on Tom's lately that are less about being helpful and more about telling the person about A.) Their shoddy hardware selection B.) What an amazing rig THEY have. If you feel the urge to post that, keep in mind this forum is about helping people. )

 

[prepper2010]

..And while I'm thinking of it.
Anyone know if Coolmaster makes an Air cooling system that will let me just use those long pain in the butt bolts to attach it? I really don't want to strip out my mobo.

 

[ouch1]

Well it sounds to me like air in the system (duh to me). It could be trapped in either in the radiator or in the res (if it even has one). One thing you can try is burping the system (just like a car radiator) by rotating the radiator vertically and see if any bubble come out.

But I seriously recommend upgrading to a much better cooling system as the Aquagate is severly limited in its cooling efficiency with a small ran and low power pump. You can get a pretty good kit made by Swiftech that will serve your needs fairly well. Here is the link: Swiftech H20-220-APEX ULTIMA CPU Liquid Cooling Kit w/ Apogee XT
It will cost you $239.95 plus tax and shipping. Which is not too bad considering.

-ouch1

 

[prepper2010]

Thank you. I'll try that and let you know what happens. : )

 

[Conumdrum]

I'm happy it lasted for so long.

You might look at the H50 for another basic entry level CPU watercooling setup.

Done right a teeny bit better than a top air cooled heatsink.

But real WC really costs a lot more. The one linked above by ouch, TOP CPU block, pump etc is really good stuff. Still entry for real watercooling.

And if you don't want to remove the mobo to deal with a screw well..... Don't want to do the hobby thing as enjoyment maybe an Apple PC would be better for you.

Just get the H50, you DO have to remove the Mobo to install it.

It's a hobby, not a Best buy experiance when you get into it.

Here is a real WC rig rebuild. Days. A screw behind the mobo? Childs play. It's fun. An adventure.
http://www.overclockers.com/annual-water-cooling-cleaning-rebuild-journal/

 

[prepper2010]

Hi Conumdrum, <chuckle> I totally get the hobby thing. Been building since I put together my first PC-AT. Back in those days things like SATA were a wet dream for us. I never thought it'd be as easy as it us to just pop things in and out of my case (dropped in a new SATA DVD burner yesterday in like 5 min...don't even need a screwdriver anymore.)

I was just looking for a quick way to avoid what seemed like an over-engineered task. I mean why reinvent the wheel right? Maybe someone else had thought of a better way or maybe there was another cooling system that could make use of the screws already there? I dunno. S'why I've been hanging out on tech boards in the BBS days...so I can make new and exciting mistakes of my own and share them (as opposed to making the same ones everyone else has made - lol)

I'll check out the H50 and see what she's got. Thanks.

As for the rest. I've got an Apple too and I love it for what it is - an appliance (like a toaster) that takes very little care and does the job it says it will. But unlike the PCS littering my house, I can't recycle/upgrade it and it's now become a repository for photos. Which is fine. (and don't get me going on Best Buy..GAH).

 

[prepper2010]

Best answer selected by prepper2010.