Given the number of users who have reported noise/failure issues with the Zalman Reserator1 pumps, I've started this poll to gather as much information into one location as possible.

So if you own a Reserator, post your experiences here. Don't just limit this to people who've had trouble, if your Reserator is running perfect, let us know that too. The only rule is: Keep this to first person accounts only. be sure to include how long you've had the system in use.


I'll start off:

I had about 5 months of trouble-free Reserator usage. Then I swapped the stock pump for a pair of Sicca Micro's in series. I shipped my stock pump to acaurora, to replace his noisy pump. After a very short time in his system, it started becoming noisy.

Welps...

'tis the start of the Reserator revolution, I guess.

I am on my THIRD pump, which I recieved about... two, three months ago. And now it is beginning to clatter, which si the best way how I can describe the noise it is making. This third pump is directly from Zalman, which surprisingly arrived at my house only two days after filling out the form they emailed to me. I am using only distilled water, which I am guessing is why the pumps keep failing on me. I believe that the average lifetime of these pumps, from my usage, is about 3 months before it begins to make noise, and 6 before it gets UNBELIEVABLY NOISY, i.e., UNBEARABLE.

I have an EXOS Aluminum, which has been waiting impatiently to be installed, and I may just go do that. I would rather have a somewhat quiet system (I put in M1As), than to have a nearly silent system that will become unbearable after a few days.

Ed has informed me that it is because I use only distilled water is why the pumps keep failing on me. If that is the case, then Zalman should have included in their manual that they should use MIXTURES, rather than just distilled water (heck, they said REGULAR TAP WATER IS FINE?!!!!). Upon each time I replaced the pump, I do see some gunk lining the screws (rust), and some other organic stuff. Dunno what specifically it is, but usually washes right off.

In any event... yah hope this helps.

EDIT: Stuff done on system - gaming, watching anime, watching HDTV rips, doing HW, and this little thing called folding.

I've had the reserator for ... I would guess to be almost 9 months now. So one new pump every 3 months. Heh. Lovely.

Well...at this point I'm more inclined to believe that it goes beyond additives or lack thereof.

But still, it's better to be safe than sorry, no?

And yeah I've suffered first hand the problem of biogrowth and--get this--it was while using Fluid XP of all coolants! Nowdays I use a special mixture I learned of from someone at ProCooling's ProForums and have had no biogrowth problems whatsoever.

-Ed

Well I guess it may be time to break out the ol' EXOS Al. I paid an extra like... $20 for the BLUE LED mod, and now KOOLANCE MAKES THEM STANDARD. -.-...

Got the GPU cooler too... so the EXOS will be cooling my entire system. Perhaps if I feel risky enough, I may swap in L1As instead of M1As... ;P anywho not to get off topic...


Yah... about them 'serators....


.... Yeah...

I cant say if its got any noisier.. It´s like a constant humming. No funny noises, its a bit louder than my case wich has only one nexus 120mm at 950rpm but the noise is more annoying than the noise from the case. What i will do is remove the pump from the reserator, and use it externally enclosed in a heavy and tight box. I have ordered the adapter to use the pump as push/pull and not submerged. As a conclusion, i have to guess it has got noisier over the past couple of months ive had it, it sounds noisier but my case has also got a lot quieter since i purchased the reserator so it´s hard to tell

I'll chip in with the maximum horror story. I only just bought my Reserator, and the damn pump failed completely after two minutes of operation. This might be anomalous, but it does suggest that corrosion isn't the only force at work. If Zalman are going to charge £160+ for the whole system, it wouldn't be too much to ask that they spend more than £8 on the pump - which is arguably the most complex part of the system, and inherently the most failure-prone. How much could it cost to get Eheim to do a run of pumps built with less corrosion-prone metals, and checked to a higher quality standard?

Apart from the pump, the Reserator is a high-quality product. Zalman are letting themselves and their customers down severely by using a second-rate pump with it.

Well from what I have been told, Eheim is a top-notch manufacturer for water pumps, and I got my replacement pump for free from Zalman, so I'm not sure if you had to pay for your replacement, as long as you live in the USA?

nici - Yours, if it's been a few months and it's gotten only *slightly* noisier, then yours has no problems. I am guessing that Zalman is not having enough Quality Control over their products, as most of the time I hear from people that their Reserator works completely fine. It's either it works great, or breaks, i guess.

*starts dusting off the EXOS Aluminum box*

I've only had mine running for a month now, but so far it's almost silent. I leave it turned on 24/7, even when I turn the PC off. I recently switched it off to install a new motherboard, and had to put my ear directly against it to make sure it was running before switching on the PC (I didn't install the flow indicator).

On the other hand, I haven't had it long enough to fail due to corrosion or parts wear, so I guess I'll jsut have to wait to see if mine fails like the rest. I have a suspicion that many of them are failing because of corrosion, and the lack of anticorrosives in the water. The manual does state that even tap water can be used, but their website now includes a precaution: Personally, I'm using a large dose of Redline Water Wetter, Distilled water, and a small amount of an extremely strong pond algicide. If the pump fails, I'll probably have them send me a new pump, but I'll keep it as a spare and install an Eheim 1048 or 1250 instead.

To me, it looks like a non-technical higher-up at Zalman is stuck on not using anticorrosives, perhaps for marketing reasons. In the face of all the problems the are now seeing, they are slowly changing their tune. I can't imagine all of the smart people they have over there completely ignored the galvanic corrosion problem and the biological growth problem. They must not have tested this system very thoroughly before shipping retail units.

I'm also curious as to whether these pumps are failing when used in other applications, such as fishtanks. That data would be a large step toward figuring out why the pumps are failing and if there is anything we can do about it.

Actually, that disclaimer is printed in my manual, on page 2, under "Warnings" "When in use", and at the top of page 13 it says

It doesn't suggest using tap water anywhere - perhaps they have taken note? It sounds to me like Zalman put a lot of effort into corrosion-proofing the radiator and waterblock - and completely forgot about the pump.

I could've swore that it said you could use tap water... I dont have the manual anymore, unfortunately =[

My version of the manual definitely said to use distilled or tap water, without additives.

I still am not sold on the idea that corrosion is completely the cause. One reason is that it seems to happen so fast. even with tap water you shouldn't damaging corrosion so quickly. Another is the fact that these Eheim pumps are designed as used as aquarium pumps, where they happily spend tens of thousands of hours submerged in salt water, so their internals should be quite corrosion resistant.

And Eheim is generally well respected for their quality. But, the 300 is the cheapest pump they make, and there's always the possibility that Zalman happened to get a big batch of bad ones.

Other than that, I don't have any good theories.

/me votes "big batch of bad ones".

Sucks, and I'm guessing those bad ones went to the ones that got them first. DAMN IT. =[

My manual recommends distilled water, but clearly says tap-water is ok to use. I wouldnt even thinnk about unsing tap-water.. I use distilled water and about 10-15% Glycole, in other words its battery fluid and radiator fluid..

I've had the reserator for about 6 months running non-stop with de ionised water only. Recently it started to have long clanging fits which lasted 10-15 seconds and where lound!! like a marble was being thrown around in there.

So I opened up the pump, put a small amount of grease between the propeller and the housing. Added a small rubber pad between the pump and the reserator. Sealed it back up and its now running 90% quieter. No more fits and it is almost as quiet as the day I brought it home. Now I can hear my whiney WD hard drives again

It looks to me like the included pump wears out between the metal shaft and the plastic propellor. The clanging sound is most likley the magnets pushing the prop against the walls as it is turnning.

oh, and it is very unlikely the pump is corroding, it is entirely plastic except for the metal center shaft which had no corrosion on mine after 6 months of no corrosion protection.

I had a Res work OK for me for four months, then the pump started clattering. I've just replaced it with a Sicce Micra, and that's clattering too (I think I may have messed up when replacing it).

But... the stock pump went South after four months, which I guess is what this thread is about.

AH HAH!


So I'm NOT crazy!

My reserator pump has started sounding like a cement mixer now after 6 months of continuous operation. I've not used any additives in the distilled water apart from bactericide/fungicide.
I can't afford to wait for Zalman to get around to replacing the pump (which will no doubt fail further down the line) so I've ordered a eheim 1048 to replace it, which seems like the most common solution.
Shame really, until now its been the perfect solution, that is, unnoticeable.

The pump in my Reserator started to rattle after three weeks of use. I believe the reson is a weak magnet, not any corrosion. I replaced it with an external pump, but it started to rattle as well. I replaced the pump again, this time with the pump NewJet 606 from some company called Aquarium Systems (sold in our local pet store). The pump is much more powerful than the original one (it should pump 800 liters per hour) and rather quiet (gentle hum, no rattle) - it is constructed so the impeller turns on rubber pieces, so it doesn't touch the plastic walls and can't rattle.

Mine started clanging after a few months. I don't quite know what to do about it.

i mean does anyone know what the actual life of these pumps are supposed to be? maybe we have to change the pump once a year like we change the water?

Im currently using Super De-ionised water (i got it from my uni, im a chem student) and with that im using Zyrex Super coolant 5% mix ratio

so far no probs what so ever.

oh btw super deionised water is same as normal de-ionised but has been fillterd by a .8 micron ( i think) filter this is to get all the fungi out of the water at the start

The BioChem students say i should autoclave the water too...(laymens term means to make sterile) and then it would be like the purest form of water available lol

but i dont think there is much point to do that as the zalmon res will have stuff in it anyways, and i doubt the grade of liquid in the coolant (zyrex racing) will be all that so no point to making it super sterile

so basically what im trying to say is that this problem it would seem is only happening to people who used tap water or distilled with no coolant/anti corrosive?

ps. soz for the spelling its like 1:30 in the morning

<-- using distilled with no coolant/anti corrosive.

*hands a beer to Destroyer/Uberapan JOIN THE CLUB! ;P

I pulled the cover of my reserator enheim pump yesterday to find the source of the rattling before I pressed it back into service.

The impeller is plastic and sits on a metal shaft. It looks to me like the plastic has worn allowing the impeller to rattle on the metal shaft. I didn't use any anticorrosives, just distilled water and some anti-algae additives. I can't see any corrosion.

Interesting. Very interesting. Now if only it was all palstic, or somehow protected against rattling -.-

Mine's about 3 months old and been running silently 24/7 on deionised water.

I always have bad luck with poor overclocking componenets and noisy HDDs but this time it looks like my bad luck has run out

Funny, mine just keeps comin and comin.

Hello there....this NewJet 606 pump...did you install it just like the ehiem pump? Or did you do a external setup? I'm thinking of going to a different manufacturer pump since these ehiem pumps seem to have so many problems.

Hi everyone. I already knew about some people experiencing pump problems but I didn't pay any attention to the issue till today, I started experiencing the same. One of my desktop speakers is located next to the Reserator so I thought I was having sound card problems till it was clattering really loud and actually picked up the Reserator and discovered the problem which lead me to your forum. I actually reinstalled my sound card drivers earlier this month! LOL. I went to Zalmans USA website and didn't see any info regarding replacement pumps, acknowledgement of a pump problem or a contact phone number. I sent them an email today but it is the weekend here so I have not had a reply understandably. I purchased it in August 12 04 and it really didn't start making noises till about a month ago. It runs 24/7 and only cools the processor. I purchased it from Sharka Corporation and could not get ahold of anyone but I'm sure it's not their responsibility. Some questions,
1 I saw on an earlier post someone suggested calling Zalman. Can someone provide me a contact number?
2 What is the procedure in getting a replacement pump and are they the same pump? Reading the thread it gets confusing as to what pump everyone is recieving.
Also my occupation involves some large scale closed loop cooling and heating systems and when I first recieved the Reserator I too was interested in which route was best as far as any "treatment" chemical or additive to add to the system.Taking into consideration the properties and surface coatings of the components involved it was decided after consulting with the engineer that it was best to use distilled water and replace it regularly. Which is what I did, which is what the instructions call for. I say these things because on the Zalman forum they talk about things like air in the system or suggesting replacing the water in the system which frankly is a bunch of bullmalarkey.LOL This is a great forum and keep it up.

PrimaryB

Zalman will ship you a new pump within a few days, that is, if you submit the correct information to them.

I bought my Reserator 1 on July 2004, since then it has been working right and quiet. Sometimes it seems to start buzzing noticeably, but simply switching it off and on a couple of times the buzz diseapears (I think I have read that in the manual). I Also read that it is recomended to put something underneath the base of the reservoir that absorb the vibrations. Having this kind of things into mind, I'm very happy with my Reserator 1.