Water cooling... do I need to use teflon tape on the connector threads?

[earwicker7]

Well, I FINALLY got all a replacement for the EK chipset cooling block for my PC, and I just finished building a really ghetto external enclosure for my fans (it's mostly plywood, and looks like an eight-grade shop class project, but it works). So I'm ready to do the last few steps, but a question came up.

All of my tubing connections are in; I was doing a little final research, and on one page I saw someone suggesting that you use teflon tape on all of the threads for your connections. I hadn't seen this suggested before; isn't this unneccesary if there are O-rings on the connectors? It would seem like a good idea if there weren't O-rings, but it seems a bit redundant if there are. If necessary, I'll take out all my connectors and do this, but that would be a lot of work if it isn't necessary.

 

[Slaymate]

It maybe redundant but I would of used Teflon tape with the o-rings. A water leak is the big danger with water-cooling, a little redundancy is a good thing.

Do you have to use Teflon tape? No, you do not have to use it. But I would test the cooling system for leaks before I powered up the actual computer. Just apply power to the pump and let it run a few hours. If you find any leaks fix them and dry the affected areas before you apply power to the mobo.

 

[patonb]

Actually, if the loop is like standard piping, some types of ends shouldn't be taped as it will cause issues with the actual seal... i.e. the fitting won't seat fully causing leaks.

If you've only seen 1 mention of taping the fittings, I think thats a good indication it may not be what you want.

 

[earwicker7]

Well, I'm ready for a dry run, and so far, I'm drawing blanks...

This seems like a dumb question, but how do you only apply power to the pumps? I unplugged everything from my power supply, except the molex cable leading to the pumps. Then I plugged in the power supply, and nothing happened. This makes sense, as the power switch on the computer now has no way of communicating with the power supply. How do I only run power to the pumps? I think I remember reading something somewhere about shorting the motherboard somehow... is this what I'm missing?

 

[patonb]

You need to jump the psu.
How To: Jump Start A Power Supply (PSU) / Test A Power Supply And Components - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

 

[earwicker7]

That's it! Now I just need to steal a paper clip from work tomorrow.

 

[earwicker7]

Now I need to think of as many curse words as possible. **** **** **** !!!

I fired everything up. I was keeping my fingers crossed, since one of the reservoir/pump/radiator combos had been dropped about three feet onto concrete (for some reason my friend, who helped me build the enclosure, thought it would be wise to place it on top of a trash can)... it left a fairly sizeable dent in the reservoir, but there were no leaks, so I thought things were fine. It ran fine for about three minutes, then a horrible screeching noise came from the pump.

My worst fear is that a piece of the impeller broke off and is now floating around my cpu and/or chipset block. Best case scenario seems to be that the pump is just broken. Obviously, I'm going to have to get a new unit (and just as obviously, it won't be covered by the warranty), which I can live with. However, I'm worried about the worst case scenarios....

Does anyone have some encouraging suggestions?

 

[mm_67]

You say reservoir/pump/radiator combos, does this mean you have a Swiftech MCR Drive ? If yes then that sound is probably just air in radiator.

 

[earwicker7]

You say reservoir/pump/radiator combos, does this mean you have a Swiftech MCR Drive ? If yes then that sound is probably just air in radiator.

It is a Swiftech.

I wondered about that myself, but I checked the water level in the reservoir, and it doesn't seem to have dropped (which I think it would do if it was filling with air). Should I keep running it? The only thing I'm worried about is shooting debris in to the cooling blocks... I don't care if I melt the pump, I'll just buy another one if I have to.

 

[mm_67]

I have my MCR Drive installed like this :

To get air out I had to tilt case so that pump was facing down. After running pump for couple of minutes like that all air was gone and I was able to turn case back.