Cooling TD03 Leaked. Has anyone had an AIO liquid cooler break?

So I'm assembling my new rig yesterday evening and I'm screwing a silverstone tundra, which came in the mail that very morning, to the front of a coolermaster 342 and I started feeling patches of wet. Took off the fans, examined it can't seem to find anything wrong. Its getting late so I put it aside and go to bed. This morning, I examine the td03 and I notice millemeter tear/gash between the ribs of the neoprene tube, near the radiator.

Gonna have to get in contact with the seller and ask for a refund/replacement.

So how likely does crap like this occur in AIOs from other companies. Did I just get super unlucky? I know the td03 is a relatively new product. I did a cursory google search for "td03" and "leak",not much came up.

 

Alienware Andy had one.

That said, I've owned a few, and know loads of others that have too, and these are still the only two incidents I've heard about.

 

I've had 2 h50's h100 and h100i and had no problems

 

It does happen. Corsair are the only company I have seen to put things right when it happens though so I would only use theirs now.

 

By put things right what do you mean? Replace the cooler or sort the damage caused too?

Just curious really

 

Happened to me a few years ago with a Crossair H70 (the model before H80) sadly I never thought to contact Crossair for a replacement almost shot my CPU too but Asus motherboard saved the system with auto shutdown.

 

Luckily I caught the leak as I was installing so no collateral damage. I've heard good things about AIOs so I decided to grab one for this build. Thanks to regional price discrimination the tundra worked out to be the equivalant of 60gbp (I'm currently in Asia BTW). It was factory sealed had a unblemished paintjob and was very hefty and well built, so I don't suspcect monkey buisness on the part of the merchant.

It wasnt leaking when it came out of the box, and I keep wondering if the tubing didn't accidentaly snag on the case and I didn't notice. But the tubing feels very sturdy and components shouldn't be that fragile to begin with

Guess I'll chalk it up as bad luck. Its just a pain the ass to get a refund overhere.

 

Just realised it was a td03, and not a td02, edit original post. Also here's a picture. What do you guys think?

 

I would say you're very unlucky, I've had a couple without any issues, and I've not known anyone personally who have ever had any issues with them.

I wouldn't let this experience put you off them

 

Got in touch with the seller; he's offering either a refund or replacement. Not really sure which one to take. Maybe he has a bad batch, I tried really hard to flex the cables on the DOA unit. I got them to kink but not leak. Is it worth a round two, with this particular brand?

 

Get a good air cooler. They are as good or better and only potential problem is a fan failing.

 

I wouldn't give up on them. While I cannot speak for the silverstone AIO units, the corsair ones I have owned (2h50s, h70, h100 and h80i) have all been fantastic. There is a reason that AIO's are so popular.

I think you just got really unlucky with that particular unit.

 

up to you, many people have had good experiences with closed loop coolers

 

This.

Had H50 when it came out, not really better than TRUE I had before it. Sold it after its warranty is up and went to D14, never looked back.

Closed loop coolers have too many failure points: pump, pipes, radiator, air getting in. Only point of failure for a good air cooler is the fan, if you run passive, it'll never fail and have zero noise.

 

Been using my H50 since a few months after it was launched. No issues, and it's been in about four different systems.

 

Certainly the very best air coolers can be better than single rad AIOs but pale into insignificance compared to double rad coolers like the H100i etc. That plus they're easier to work around when installed (if removing power cables etc), don't block RAM slots like some of the biggest air coolers do and put a lot less stress on the cpu socket. Put it this way - I'd rather hang a kilo of metal off the roof of my case than off the motherboard The main thing I like about my H100i is the noise - with the addition of quiet edition fans it cools better than my old air cooler and at a much lower noise level.

 

Both mate. All you need to do is chuck up rough on their forums and they'll see you right.

Edit. Yeah I agree with the guys incidents of leaking are very rare.

On the FX series of CPUs there are hardly any air coolers worth using as the contact plate simply isn't big enough to dissipate the heat evenly as the cores are in each corner. The H80 and H100 have lovely big contact plates on the block...

I've used a few now. H50 back in the day on my Core 2 Duo (then Phenom 2 940) a Coolit Eco (cool**** leako) and a H100.

If they're going to leak it's usually pretty much straight away. Once you've had them running a while they usually stay working OK.

For me what got on my tits with a air cooler (a good one) was the size. Fans getting in the way of ram modules, hard to clean... An AIO leaves so much room around the ram and heatsinks for the motherboard.

Don't get me wrong I absolutely adored my NH-D14 but it was a serious PITA to clean and so on.

 

I had a prolimatech Armageddon in my last rig. The thing was so huge it blocked the first pcie slot forcing me to mount it horizontally. I think that screwed up how the convex base meshed with the concave CPU and it got good but not great temps. I eventually lapped and pressure modded it, which I think helped. I had to move 4 times with that rig and it made me uncomfortable that I had a 1.1 kg slab of plastic and metal hanging off the mobo by virtue of 4 screws and a backplate. Anyways the tundra is on its way back to the merchant who says he'll inspect the damage before deciding whether he'll issue a refund or replacement.

By the way I have a somewhat farfetched theory: nght time temps drops to -8 where I live. Is it possible the coolant froze during the night in an unheated storeroom, expanded then weakened the tubing or the tubing itself became brittle from the cold?

 

I suppose it's possible - I don't know if the coolant in these things has anything added to it in to prevent that kind of thing. I can't find anything online but I presume that somewhere there would be information about the operating temperatures of AIO coolers (min and max)

 

I had my first H100 do this. Sent it back to Corsair and got an instant replacement!