A fire in my computer!! Running a water cooled rig that needed testing and I had run out of PF5080 fluid I used distilled water for a few days. All was well at first and yes i was leak checking it for hours, thought nothing more of it and went to work. A phone call was put through to my office from the wife saying she has evacuated the house as there is a strong smell of smoke and she had called the fire services. I rushed home to find the rig in the back garden and it was the cause of the smoke / fire. Removing the side cover I noticed that the PCI slot was burned and the g/card was wrecked. Then I saw the cause, the water cooling block just above was leaking. Not from where I expected (where the pipe goes in) but from the thread that come pre-assembled from the supplier. Total damage done = K8T Neo, 9800XT, 1gb Ocz Platinum ram, 3400 = Over £1000 !! I guess the moral is check the threads are tight as after all was stripped down I got about half a turn out of some and about a whole turn out of some others.
You should be able to get the company that built the waterblocks to pay for the damage caused, unless it says in the instructions somewhere "check that the threads have been tightened properly" in which case, read the instructions next time(just like we all do!!)
Wont give the name of the company out in a forum but it begins with an A and used 10mm pipes !!! They claim that all blocks are pressure tested before leaving the factory and advise no manual adjustments to the water blocks. Have spoken to my vendor and got told I was pis@#ng in the wind with going after them for some support.
That really sucks. I would definitly fight them over this. One of the reasons that I do not water cool just yet...
Ouch i'd hate to lose all that gear especially when it wasn't specifically my fault. Try and get some compensation as that really is a lot of expensive gear out the window. Note to self: Watercooling can be dangerous
O man that sucks!! Kinda scaring me away from wanting to build a water cooled. What is vapor cooled? Does it cool as good?
Howzit guys, That sucks man, i'd know i'd be very pissed off!, and would defintly try to claim on it!. Yes, vapo cools ALOT better then water, you get -0c temps with it, it's basicly cold gass i think, Rob,
man, you must be heartbroken for this one. sure, i've broken some stuff in the computer sometime. but never at this cost hope you get thoose *******s who built that block.
Ouch! That musta hurt. Bad luck dude. Can't see the pics, very out of focus but that's okay, I don't really want to see them, it'd scare me away from water cooling for ever. Are there any non-conductive fluids? I know some oils are non-conductive, but they won't absorb heat nearly as quickly as water. Mercedes Benz put their petrol pumps inside the petrol tank and they don't short so petrol isn't conductive. After reading a thread on mobo painting I thought about spraying clear laquer over the board & cards to protect them from shorting. Just a thought...use it...don't use it.
You are correct, distilled water is non-conductive but when it falls on a board it will come in contact with dirt and acids which will create +ve & -ve ions in it and become conductive. Ask your science teacher.
I did a similar thing with my duallie board. Water leakage 0wned my AGP slot. I managed to take the plastic covering off the AGP slot and bend the pins back into place.. seemed to (just about) work with AGP after that!
blah ive been watercooling for about 6 months. this has scared me now. lol. im going to revert back to air cooling for awhile till i can test fluid xp +. then i may go back.
All I can say is "that sucks man." Personally I go overboard with caution on my Watercooling rig: The whole circuit comes OUT of my PC before I do anything-fill, drain, clean, change tubing, etc. Then I bench leak test for 2 days at least, I am paranoid. A Floppy bayres I bought leaked at the front seam once, and I'm glad I have strong UV dye to show up, becuase it was a capillary leak that wasn't very visible in normal light! BTW, most shops in US claim "no warranty or returns on watercooling gear" even if they do pressure test it (some of them couldn't, since there is no way that bayres would have held the 85psi claimed on their website). Again, bad luck, hope you can get some compensation from the shop. Good luck in that and in the future.
ASStek! Sorry for your loss buddy. You probably won't be in the mood for me taking the pish, but I think (after looking at your photos) you should have a read of this thread Again, dude.. that whole burnt out computer thing is totally not cool, much sympathy for ya. You should be able to claim on home contents, no? Accidental damage? "Hi, yeh, OOPS I set fire to my computer, money please".
