I have figured out that my reserator has a small leak in it. It must be from somewhere that has little to do with anything important, and it must be like a few drips max, maybe 1 a day. When I open up my room from the summer heat with no fans on yet, I smell the Water Wetter. I have a bizarre sense of smell, so this is actualy a 1/50th of a drop of water wetter (its very diluted in my rig) that I am smelling.

However, I do not like it. The Reserator Plus would make this easier than removing all of these overly stiff and strangely machined "compression fittings"

I wish i could go back to Air cooling. It such a pain in the ass to deal with water cooling lines, to be hesitant to upgrade anything, to not even have the time to upgrade anything if one works a lot....

To make a silent rig its best to go via air cooling and pure spcr types of systems, even performance ones.

Even my pci sockets are jammed up with lines and crap.

Dont get me wrong, My Res1 system works better than air cooled and is more silent (nothing can be more silent than what I have unless you have a pumpless water cooling system, its near silent, its right at the inaudible range) but nothing is even close to as annoying.

not to mention expensive.

While I'm sorry to hear about your experiences I knew there were reasons why everything I have planned and am currently building is purely air cooled. After hearing so much about the Reserator even I was contemplating it.... I guess worrying about air leaks isn't nearly as bad as worrying about water leaks (plus you don't have to change it).

My thoughts exactly. I prefer aircooling, because once everything's set up, you can basically forget about it. Just make sure to set the failsafes in the BIOS in case a fan goes out, but otherwise, it doesn't require any maintenance.

But kudos to those who have to dedication to do watercooling. It is much better than air if done right.

No kidding. I had lots of fun setting it up but now i don't want to touch it cause it is a pain to upgrade anything. mine is not even as quiet as my last (low power) air cooled system. At least i can run my 9800 pro at 450 mhz!

I see where you're coming from, and I had the same problems with my first watercooling setup, which wasn't quiet at all. However, a well-built all-internal watercooling system should solve the problems you're experiencing. It can actually be just as easy to change hardware/configure/etc. a watercooling system if done right. So if you set up your own design, watercooling can be very easy to maintain! In my special case, even easier than air!

Also, if you have a power-hungry GPU and want a near-silent system, watercooling is one of the two only ways I've seen. Traditional air-cooled systems are quiet but not near-silent as long as it has a single fan, Nexus or not. I put my Antec Phantom into my fan-cooled rig and CPU temp went up 30 degrees! Whereas, my watercooled rig stayed cool. My watercooled rig is completely passive with a muffled CSP-MAG that is already quiet to begin with, and dampened WD Scorpio notebook drives. I doubt air-cooling can possibly be as silent as what I have while carrying Geforce6800GT, passive Antec Phantom PSU, 2.7GHz Athlon64, and four hard drives.

Even less convienent and even more silent would be passive heatpipe cooling =). If leaks are what's bothering you, you can always just go for passive heatpiping.

I myself have dealt with the Reserator as well as the Koolance EXOS. The Reserator gave me many problems from the start - from banging noises to well, banging noises. It ended up being the pump not liking distilled water, despite the fact that it says it in their manual. I got rid of it.

I have an EXOS Aluminum now, and it does fine. I have 3 M1As in it, and while it can get noisy, ESPECIALLY in the summer, I'm usually gaming so hearing sniper rifles going off easily drowns out those on full blast. It can cool the components very well, but again it really depends on if you want to spend the time and effort.

Watercooling DOES take a very very very VERY long time in terms of setup, layout, and all that. In the end though, obviously, WC can make a high performance system VERY quiet, and run very cool. My oversight was my 6800's Ramsinks, which evidently don't cool the ram well enough. So while my 6800 GPU is at 50-55 C load here in scorching California (85 F ambient average), the poor ramsinks will let the memory overheat to 60C, in which my screen just blanks out. Kinda contradicts using WC, and it's very annoying when I'm about to pop off a guy's head in Counterstrike:Source then BOOM my monitor goes blank and I have to restart.

Yah, that's my 2... err *stares at the long post*... dollars worth. lol.

I would think that 60C is well and good for ram. but i gather not.

could be a faulty piece in there or not accurate measurements of temp. both i bet.

Yeah, you still need air flow in a case, I always have at least 1 120mm Papst in there. its just a very long living fan that doesnt change in sound ever it seems.

nexus might be quieter, but papst can run at any voltage and well, is very steady in its performance over time. I will try a nexus quad fan system on lowest voltage in 200 gb mini server linux box thing attempting to make it so that i enver have to look at it for more than an hour every few months and yet not be heard at my parents house.


Yes, you need water wetter in your rig. its excellent. the water just blooms and flows as one object but its thin still. kinda neato.

I personally think watercooling should be left to the experts who have done it for such a long time. I am disconcerted by the fact that every second manufacturer is now introducing water cooling: Zalman, Gigabyte, CM, Thermaltake, Foxconn, Aopen etc. I think when large companies start exapnding their range to things like that, quality becomes and issue, and a huge concern when it comes to something like watercooling.

I will personally (if I move to watercooling) stick to a company with lots of experience such as Koolance, Innovatek, Danger Den, Swiftech etc.

yeah I would agree here. odd that I do.

fittings are slightly leaking and I did them cleanly, perfectly and with normal human pressure, and above normal level of vigilance to keeping everything perfect and not kinked. all cuts are made clean with razorblades, all at 90 degree angles, shrugs. The tubes are all adjusted by bend for the perfect smooth curve they would make in flow.

heck. i duno what the heck this could be from. Zalman wants to replace parts for me though. They are asking a lot of questions becuase they are actually concerned with my issue.

nice and odd. zalman techs are normally very good people to work with, i have noticed this over the past few years.

Shrug. Wouldn't be the first time a key part that supposedly has X spec and is supposed to be precision machined actually wasn't. Happens all the time with automobiles.

I don't know what the problem you're having is, but I don't suppose it's something that can be fixed with teflon tape or silicone adhesive (the kind that can be applied wet)?

Most likely, your reserator doesn't have a leak. The smell is probably coming from the tiny little pin-hole in the top cap of the reserator tower. The hole is so small it's almost impossible to see, but it's there (it has to be to prevent the thing from forming some kind of airtight seal that would make it (nearly) impossible to open. It doesn't help that water wetter STINKS. If you think something IS leaking, try wrapping tissue paper around the fittings and running the reserator for a while. If the tissue is wet after a couple of hours, you've got a problem.

I loved my reserator (still do in fact, though it's not on my main system anymore). It's by far the quietest and easiest to use WC rig I've had personal experince with. Opinions do vary, and there are some of them out there that are poorly made monsters. I read about acaurora's banging reserator and my heart goes out to you, bud.

I hope this helps.

well a piece of wrigley's spearmint gum is on the blow hole. I like it there. at least i can take it off easy if i need to.

and its tasty.

Well, I think i should do the paper tissue test. thats a good idea. ill never see where it is on its own, its a TINY leak. and sometimes it doesnt at all i think. like the tubes are moved and then it might happen a tiny bit. lil unerving though right?

water wetter has a bad chemical smell but really isnt as bad as some make it out to be.

It works DARN well though. excellent stuff. I havent cleaned my system yet though, I am due at the end of the summer, that will be like 6 months. I am trying to maintenence every 6 months. (also gives me excuse to get new vga block and x800 XT all-in-wonder :drool:

I hope you find the leak. If I even THOUGHT I had a leak in any of my systems, it would keep me awake at night in cold sweats. If you have the original Reserator (the blue one, not the newer black "plus" model) check the flow meter. The original flow meters had plastic fittings and a see-through plastic wall. They were recalled because they leaked. The newer/replacement ones are made of metal and glass. If you have one of the old ones, contact Zalman and they should replace it for free. They did mine but not before it popped one night and gushed fluid and stinky waterwetter all over my floor while I slept.

Good luck.

It could be that the "leak" is actually evaporation through the Zalman silicon tubing. Silicone tubing is more permeable then vinyl.

You could buy the same size clear vinyl tubing at Home Depot for $4 for 20 Ft. Replace all the Zalman blue silicone and see if the smell and leaks disappear.

You could also add some UV dye to the water, it makes finding leaks really easy.

here ill do this:

uv die, and paper tissue trick. then, ill be able to see it even better.

just waiting for my my x800 gfx card and newer zalman vga waterblock to arrive before i go flipping things around


vinyl eh?

i could try that. hm. would cut easier as well.

hm.

Nothing stinks like water-wetter.
Water wetter will sweat through silicone tubing.
Water wetter degrades silicone and I suspect that as the months pass the silicone will eventually sweat water, and then crumble like a common baloon left in the sun.
Water wetter fumes are bad for your lungs and brain directly, stink and sanity / irritation issues aside.

If I knew of an ideal--or even had a favorite--surficant + anti-elecrolosis + anti-growth addative I would happily recommend it.

Get rid of your water wetter now, please.

Anyone find something that stinks more than water wetter, be sure and let me know!

Use it in your car, not your desktop.

hehe i used nulon ultra cool off the shelf of the local department store and i've been running the same water in there for about 1.5 years now without having to change it. it's still mostly clear

but as much of a watercooling fan i am, i have to admit it definitely is like being in pc-upgrade/maintenance jail. even if your system is finely tuned to the point where nothing is wrong with the watercooling loop itself, there's still the problem of this big mass of tubing and waterblocks that, while in themselves don't pose a problem, altogether present a massively humongous hassle.

jefe: you think managing the 10mm OD (iirc) zalman tubing is hard - try managing 19mm OD tubing! it's nearly impossible.

about leaking - i wouldn't be too paranoid about it as long as you have a good additive in there that kills off the conductivity. e.g. i didn't really know my old cpu waterblock was leaking until i found a uv green puddle of coolant on my video card (still worked and everything)

First of all, don't use waterwetter. Like the post above said...yeah...

While I do admit changing parts in a watercooled rig is more difficult than with aircooling parts, if Quick Disconnects and the right parts are used, it is only a very slight disadvantage over air. It does indeed take some time to set up, but once you have it up, there's nothing more to it.

So I disagree that watercooling is like prison. In the past 5 years my watercooling parts have outlasted 3 systems. Maintenence is pretty much zero except having to refill the resorvoir every 2-3 years. Leakage has never been a problem for me or many of the people at Procooling.com and ocforums.com. I think the headache that comes from watercooling depends heavily on how it is set up.

If one goes back to aircooling and decide to run a hot video card, trust me one will have worst headaches. To those who run demanding computers, good luck having two to a half dozen fans in the system and calling the system "quiet". I think it's a lot easier to run a watercooled system, drop in a fanless PSU and muffled suspended hard drives, then muffle the entire computer, no fans, no ventilation, no worrying about temps (especially GPU!). Thing can be made inaudible @ 1 meter, which can be considered silent. There are pumps today that are significantly more silent than the quietest notebook drives.

Not like prison? Dude, on another forum a guy with watercooling got a shiv in his back after complaining that he thought it was a pain. Another guy had to pay his system off with cigarettes to get it to get off its fat lazy butt and cool his computer like its supposed to.

My first WC system was a PITA! I used 1/2" OD tubing, it wasn't quiet, and the tubes were so thick I didn't have room for anything. And it smelled slightly of coolant (the system was not airtight, I drilled holes in the lid of a jug for my reservoir)

Now I have everything in a Yeong Yang YY-0221 cube, I use Innovatek components with 8mm tubing, a much smaller 12v Innovatek/eheim pump, I'm cooling the CPU/GPU and NB, soon to be 2 GPUs, and I'm only using Innovatek water additives (odorless ), and I couldn't be happier. It uses a dual 120mm radiator which I have Nexus fans on, and not only does my system run silent, it's clean, aesthetically pleasing, and keeps everything cool even at OC temps. Innovatek fittings are leak-free in my experience, and the "tank-o-matic" series reservoirs are fantastic. I am drilling the top of mine out to route to a fill-port, so I won't even have to crack my case open to add more water in the future.

With a little experience and a lot of planning, and a bit of luck I have the perfect system for me. Sorry it's not working out, but like everyone else said, ditch the stinky car fluids.

I see you have a fondness for water wetter, but have you considered running ONLY distilled water and the Zalman Reserator additive (http://www.sharkacomputers.com/zag1blancowa.html) ? Assuming your temps don't rise to unacceptable levels, and you don't have a leak after all, this sounds like the best solution for happiness.

hm i have a leak ouit of the back of the comp.

i duno where its probably just on the outside "compression" fitting. jeez i wish i had the res Plus with quick release things and that simplistic answer to the pci slot entry/exit for tubing.


i will get zalman's coolant though. i figure I cant go wrong with that. I will though dilute it more than they ask, I always do that for whatever coolant is recommended (i like more heat capacity vs extra safe)

I notice coolant smell as well from my reserator and I cannot find any leak at all. I use the original zalman stuff that comes with the reserator plus mixed with distilled water.

I put some tape over the small hole at the top of the reserator, and its definately not from there.

If I put the tube all the way to my nose, it does indeed smell collant in its full length and it seems like the smell gets worse if I run something CPU intensive over long periods of time so the water temperature increases. CPU temperature is normally in the 32-36C area, smell seems to increase if I run CPU intensive stuff for long enough to make it climb up in the 45C area (which takes quite a while with all the water in the reserator )

In my case, I am using the tube in its full length, which probably causes the smell to transfer better to the air in the room than for most.

Anyone else that notice smell from their reserator tubing? Per cm tube the smell is not strong, so you really have to put your nose more or less in contact with it to smell it.

Terje

Yes that is normal for the Zalman silicon tubing. You have to get a less permeable tubing than silicone or change coolant type. I use HydrX cooling additive from Swiftech and the odor is barely noticable within a few inches.

Check the hardness (Shore rating) of the tubing and compare it to silicone hardness.
Also the tubing wall thickness is a factor. So you would want a thicker and/or harder tubing and probably smoother (so particles do not adhere to the inside wall).

Then the type and concentration of the coolant additives also factor into the amount of odor.

In the end you will just have to try different tubings and coolants to eliminate any odor through the tubing. IMO not worth it for such a small odor of the Zalman.

Thanks for the feedback.

I suspect that I will have to change the tubes in any case as I suspect that the smell is "stuck" in the tubes now and will take a long time to go away.

Will go hunting for different tubes (don't like the blue color anyway ) and additive tomorrow.

Seems like HydrX and Zerex are mentioned to be the least smelly ones, but they don't seem to be listed on many web sites in japan.

Hope I will find it in the shops.

I have nothing bad to say about HydrX, though you need 2½ bottles of it for the reserator. I like the cool green color as well, nice if you have clear tubing inside the case Its slightly UV reactive too i think..

for me the Reserator has been flawless, a large part of this due to the aforementioned compression fittings. I have yet to encounter a better style of fitting ensuring 0 leaks and maximum convenience for the user, and zalman quality is top-notch IMHO.

This in contrast to a WC system I ditched after a nasty drip on the video card which almost killed it.

However, I must say that for running a system 24/7 with 100% confidence, there's nothing like the peace of mind you get with aircooling. My main system is aircooled with 3 slow-spinning 120mm fans (one of them in the PSU) with uptimes ranging in the 3-4 month period and I couldn't be happier with it.
Moving to watercooling would save me the CPU fan but I would need to up the RPM on the remaining one, so where exactly is the progress in that?

For me, watercooling is pretty much Flawless. Dangerden everything, with vinyl tubing. No coolant smell, no leaks, and EXTREMELY quiet. I rigged up my system with 3 fans, to maintain airflow, and performance.

Right now, I don't have the watercooling stuff in. I just have a ghetto rigged arctic fan on a stock hsf, and a yate loon d80sm12 in the psu. Voided, of course.

I find 120mm fans at 1,000 rpm are near silent. (assuming quality fans)
CPU coolers from Zalman can be 92mm to 120mm now.
PSU fans now have thermal feedback loops to throttle speed.
Video cards have options like the Artic Cooler with 1500 rpm fan exhausting out the rear (uses an extra slot)

Air cooling has come a long way from 80mm extremely noisy high rpm fans. I'd say water cooling is for extreme silence and overclockers where it originated from.

I first was after power (overclocking)
Then I wanted quiet stability (SPCR)
Now I want it smaller (SFF)

Apparently I want it all...

For those of you still pondering: don't go W/C!
Sooner or later it will come back to haunt you at a time when your new-found interest of silence-tinkering has lost its appeal. My w/c system always has a surprise up it's sleeves when I can't find the time to mend it, whereas all the (extremely quiet) air-cooled ones I've built seldom demand attention. Perhaps a temp-sensor tape gliding off a heatsink once every two years or the mandatory automated fan-controller software needs an update.
That's a piss in Mississippi compared to tubing going old...
... or a dead graphics card in need of a quick replacement - except there's:
a goddamn w/c block on it that won't fit the new one
so you need to drain everything
and adjust the new block to your old diameter of tubing
that need re-routing if the new block has it's ports on a different angle
which means a leak might appear again
and that's gonna be hard to find because the case looks like a snake-nest
and even though w/c is waaay cooler on a nerdy lan-party you can still build an air-cooled machine almost silent too if you invest the same amount of time and money into such a rig instead.

As you can see I'm a man of many troubles.