What causes liquid coolers to burst?

[pedrom90]

Hi all
I have a dual Xeon rig here. I've had it for a few years now. It's now been twice in the last two years that I've narrowly avoided catastrophe with a burst liquid cooler. First it was a Corsair H(some high-ish number), which was then replaced with an Antec Kuhler H2o 620. Today, around a year later, it burst again. I wouldn't have been surprised if it was the other CPU cooler that came to the end of it's life, but it's over the same CPU as last time. Could this just be bad luck, or is there some other factor that I'm not aware of that could be causing my cooler to burst every year or so?

Thanks
Ped

 

[faalin]

The all in one coolers have a high pump failure rate since the pump sits right on top of the cpu it gets warmted up more then a regular pump placed inside a case. My guess is the cooler that keeps failing, that cpu does more work then the other one.

I would also look at your fail safe temps for the cpu, since you say that the cooler burst im guessing that its the tube right next to the block on the cpu pump. That is always caused by the pump failing and then the coolant just sits there warming up till it gets hot enough to overheat the tubing and blow it.

 

[makkem]

Hi
It may be that you have high pressure in the system.
You should check that there are no kinks in the hoses and no blockages in the radiator or cpu block.
Also that all the pipes and fittings are clear especially elbow fittings.

 

[pedrom90]

The all in one coolers have a high pump failure rate since the pump sits right on top of the cpu it gets warmted up more then a regular pump placed inside a case. My guess is the cooler that keeps failing, that cpu does more work then the other one.

I would also look at your fail safe temps for the cpu, since you say that the cooler burst im guessing that its the tube right next to the block on the cpu pump. That is always caused by the pump failing and then the coolant just sits there warming up till it gets hot enough to overheat the tubing and blow it.

Ah right, seems logical. Considering they came with a 3 year warranty, I would have expected it to last more than just 1/3 of that!
I'm not sure that one will be used more than the other, but now I think about it, it's always the one closest to the GPU and so probably getting hotter than the other. I didn't realise they were so prone to failure! It wasn't the actual tube that burst, it was the whole pump block case that separated and leaked.

Airflow is pretty good in the case. The machine is usually maxed out all night with rendering and worked on heavily in the day. CPU temps peak around 60-65'c. Will keep a closer eye out on them in future.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Karsten75]

I don't think that's happenstance or coincidence. Of all the AIO coolers I know of personally (not anecdotal) none have ever burts.

 

[pedrom90]

I don't think that's happenstance or coincidence. Of all the AIO coolers I know of personally (not anecdotal) none have ever burts.

Interesting. Have those ones only ever been on single socket though?
I wonder if it's due to the extra heat of the second CPU and overall power demand/high usage.