A couple on months ago my H60 seemed to cooling my CPU, whilst still apparenlty functioning. It was a month past the 5 year warranty period, which was a bit of a bummer. The pump still seemed to be working, but not cooling was occuring. Could it be that after 5 years it just needs a good clean and a refill? It's the 2013 version which has a drainage/refill port. Is it worth trying to bring it back from the dead? I imagine it'll cool better than the 212 that I've got running now.
So all AIOs suffer from fluid permeation, a very slow 'leaking' of the fluid over time which evaporates leaving air in the loop. If the pump is functioning, you could try refilling the loop. If you've got one, throw a small reservoir into the loop. Easier to bleed and adds extra fluid for a couple of degrees improvement.
I assume I'm better off emptying the loop and refilling with new fluid if I'm to try it? I'm not fussed about sticking a resevoir in.
The closed loops can be tricky to refill without introducing air into the loop when you seal it up, if you don't use a mini-res. It's not impossible, just really bloody hard! If you don't want to use a res, you could change the tubing to some aftermarket stuff and add a fill port with a t-piece. Its a quick way of ensuring the loop is completely full of fluid. Any air and you're soon to be back where you are now.
After 5 years the pump is likely to be wearing so I'd consider it's at/close to the end of its useful life. Bear in mid if the pump fails there's a chance the fluid could get hot enough to blow the seal especially if the tubing has been removed and refitted.
The water would have to boil for that to happen. Water stops expanding significantly at around 4c, if my memory serves me right, when thawing from a frozen state. After that, the next significant change in volume occurs at boiling point, which isn't going to happen in an AIO, even if the pump dies. As long as you fit the tubes properly, you're fine.
AIOs must be different from normal watercooling setups then. When my pump failed on a system the water got extremely hot very quickly on the block and tubing came off a fitting. Mind you it's worth risking it to save a few quid.
Water does expand as it gets hotter, but not at the rate it does between 0-4c and certainly not enough to blow a fitting. You might have popped a fitting because the tubing or fitting expanded with heat rather than pressure buildup. You will hit thermal throttling or shutdown long before your loop gets to boiling point anyway as the cpu would have to be way WAY over 100c to get a loop to boil.
I've had leaking due to pressure. My AC bay res had a crusted pile of red powder on it (XSPC EC6 coolant). You can get pressure release fittings too, IIRC. Thankfully it hadn't gone anywhere else and wiped off with a cloth easily enough (was definitely historic because it was dry like chalk).
That's more likely down to deterioration then mate. Chances are tubing has lost its elasticity through age or heat cycles and allowed seepage which has dried and let the dye crust up, which then leaks even more.
I don't think I can be bothered with the hassle tbh. I think I'll give it away for cost of postage in the marketplace.
No this was outside of the loop. I had two 5.25 single bay res running on top of each other and the top one had powder all over the top of it. Level, sort of thing. It was leaking from the cap, but the cap had been done up tight and had a new O ring on. It was forced out. Maybe I over filled the loop a little (I probably did, it's really hard with a res like that) and that caused it. I would imagine it slowly pooled up on top of the res, then when enough had come out it stopped and then dried into a powder.
