Water Water Everywhere...

[zigzag03]

I was very pleased with my CoolerMaster Seiden M120 cooler. It lowered my cpu temps a solid 20C from idles in the 50s to the 30s, while hard pushes never saw it above 50. Well done, says I, until yesterday when one of the hoses blew off the pump and sprayed the inside of the rig with, Im guessing by the smell, ethelyne glycol. I've disassembled and mopped up, but there was a that distinct smell of burnt electrical unhappiness. I havn't put it all back together yet, and if i do it will be with the old intel air cooler before investing any more cash in the old girl. Any thoughts on hosing the thing down with electrical cleaner spray or some such before giving it a try? thx

 

[BrightCandle]

Just let it dry, thoroughly and for multiple days.

The liquid itself should have been non conducting, mostly distilled water with some additives so you shouldn't have had any shorts but it can happen. Dust is actually your biggest problem with conductivity, when the water sprays out onto a dusty component the dust is incorporated and it unfortunately dramatically increases the conductivity, so hopefully your machine was nice and clean when this happened.

 

[Rvenger]

That's what kept me away from the Seidon coolers. I would contact coolermaster. Hopefully you have some pictures because they will probably cover your damaged hardware.

 

[dma0991]

If your PC wasn't running when the hose burst, it has a good chance of working without a problem after drying several days. The electrical components will be toast if it was running.

If there's any damage to other parts besides the AIO itself, try seeking compensation from CM. I'm not sure if CM will compensate for anything other than the AIO but IIRC Corsair did compensate for a user who had a massive leak.

 

[zigzag03]

it was indeed running at the time, i just happened to be sitting there, and i could smell the burnt electric smell before i could get the plug out of the back. am awaiting word from coolermaster, it was only a month old... i will advise.

 

[zigzag03]

Folks I need to revisit this issue: its been a long frustrating month of dealing with coolermaster on this issue, and their support dept has been less than helpful on several fronts. i will just hit a couple high points before getting to my most pressing issue.

I will c/p from my correspondence to save some typing:
""on 7/1 i got an authorization email in regards to eRMA # xxxxxxxxx which said go ahead and return this, gives the address, says nothing at all about you sending a UPS shipping label, cost me $17 and change, shipped it monday. yesterday, 10 days later, i get an email saying i can go online and retrieve a shipping label from UPS ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? i'm already upset that your cooler has sprayed down the components in my rig, and the burnt electrical smell coming from it before i got the power pulled, and now i've wasted $17, which is just about offset by the $25 rebate which is still 8-12 weeks from arriving. needless to say i am not happy.""
In fact, their site says specifically that warranty return is on the customer, so I guess i shouldn't be too unhappy? but this was just the start of a month long process to get another cooler. btw their solution to this was to upgrade me to their 120XL model. woohoo. more cooling i didn't really need. $17 is 3 weekday lunches...

i have asked repeatedly what was the coolant in these coolers. as i mentioned, it smelled to me like automotive antifreeze. to this day i have not gotten the answer. in a live chat with support i asked the guy what would have happened had that thing blown when i had my face in it and gotten whatever it is in my eyes, mouth, or breathed the fumes. surely there must be a disclosure in the paperwork that comes with the cooler. at the time i had sent the old one back, but i see nothing with the new cooler to address this. surely its an email or phone call to an engineer in china; it is 2013 after all. but this sounds like they don't want me to know. proprietory? not if i'm sprayed with it its not...

there is more, but enough whine... i got my cooler, put it all back together, and no boot. powers up, but no video. all fans run, case, vid, and ps, everything that should light up does, but nada. when it all happened, i disassembled everything, pulled battery and memory, cleaned and dried everything with iso alch, and then it sat for a month "resting".

i have no other components to swap in. i have swapped around memory slot pairs, used each as a single stick. i have used each vid card alone in each of the pci-e 16 slots. i got nuttin... so my question is, where does your vast combined experience tell you where else to turn, which component to buy and try? i hate to spend any money on such an old machine, but i don't think i can afford to start over. i will poll my few computer-savvy friends locally for components i might borrow but otherwise i'm out of options.

thanks in advance zz03

 

[BrightCandle]

Take the machine down to its absolute minimum. Hopefully you have a speaker that you can use with the motherboard speaker header. Boot the machine without the GPU. If you get a single beep that is a normal post and there is every chance your motherboard survived and the lack of video is the GPU. If it doesn't give you a beep then its likely the motherboard that is done for.

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

Folks I need to revisit this issue: its been a long frustrating month of dealing with coolermaster on this issue, and their support dept has been less than helpful on several fronts. i will just hit a couple high points before getting to my most pressing issue.

I will c/p from my correspondence to save some typing:
""on 7/1 i got an authorization email in regards to eRMA # xxxxxxxxx which said go ahead and return this, gives the address, says nothing at all about you sending a UPS shipping label, cost me $17 and change, shipped it monday. yesterday, 10 days later, i get an email saying i can go online and retrieve a shipping label from UPS ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? i'm already upset that your cooler has sprayed down the components in my rig, and the burnt electrical smell coming from it before i got the power pulled, and now i've wasted $17, which is just about offset by the $25 rebate which is still 8-12 weeks from arriving. needless to say i am not happy.""
In fact, their site says specifically that warranty return is on the customer, so I guess i shouldn't be too unhappy? but this was just the start of a month long process to get another cooler. btw their solution to this was to upgrade me to their 120XL model. woohoo. more cooling i didn't really need. $17 is 3 weekday lunches...

i have asked repeatedly what was the coolant in these coolers. as i mentioned, it smelled to me like automotive antifreeze. to this day i have not gotten the answer. in a live chat with support i asked the guy what would have happened had that thing blown when i had my face in it and gotten whatever it is in my eyes, mouth, or breathed the fumes. surely there must be a disclosure in the paperwork that comes with the cooler. at the time i had sent the old one back, but i see nothing with the new cooler to address this. surely its an email or phone call to an engineer in china; it is 2013 after all. but this sounds like they don't want me to know. proprietory? not if i'm sprayed with it its not...

there is more, but enough whine... i got my cooler, put it all back together, and no boot. powers up, but no video. all fans run, case, vid, and ps, everything that should light up does, but nada. when it all happened, i disassembled everything, pulled battery and memory, cleaned and dried everything with iso alch, and then it sat for a month "resting".

i have no other components to swap in. i have swapped around memory slot pairs, used each as a single stick. i have used each vid card alone in each of the pci-e 16 slots. i got nuttin... so my question is, where does your vast combined experience tell you where else to turn, which component to buy and try? i hate to spend any money on such an old machine, but i don't think i can afford to start over. i will poll my few computer-savvy friends locally for components i might borrow but otherwise i'm out of options.

thanks in advance zz03

No offense but if your still running a Q6600 its a good reason to step up, I'd make them pay for it!!!

 

[zigzag03]

brightcandle i am scrapping around for a speaker now. thanks
philly i couldn't agree more... their stated warranty says no dice but maybe theyre decent folks who wouldn't leave a customer hanging?

 

[BrightCandle]

brightcandle i am scrapping around for a speaker now. thanks
philly i couldn't agree more... their stated warranty says no dice but maybe theyre decent folks who wouldn't leave a customer hanging?

ROFMAO? I have never had a water cooling company take responsibility for its faulty products. Try a court threat, their fault products caused damage and a court is the right place to get that rectified.

 

[Micrornd]

Federal law (I am assuming you are in the US) requires them to supply an MSDS sheet upon request under the Hazard Communication Act.
You may want to remind them of that :whiste:

 

[zigzag03]

i know bc, and i don't have the money to build a new rig, so i don't have the swag to challenge anyone in court...

wife had other plans for the rest of my day, will swipe a speaker i know i have sitting at work and will try when i get home tomorrow

micro that was exactly what i was thinking. i went thru the paperwork that came with the unit and i see nothing like that. not sure how to approach it, but we'll see what they come back to me with, and go from there.

thank you both

 

[zigzag03]

one more time guys...

coolermaster is still at least talking to me about this, wanting me to revisit all the usual, and wanting me to go back to the old air cooler and try that. i don't really see it as being an issue unless plugging something into the fan header is pulling down the mobo, otherwise, from a POST standpoint, i could not imagine that what is bolted over the cpu could cause an issue. so i popped it off completely (i also wanted to see how good a job of thermal pasting i had done), disconnected the fan and pump headers, and did another boot test. so, with one stick memory, one vid card in peg slot 1, and nothing else plugged into the board, i still get no post beep and no vid output.

what i did note however, was how quickly (well under a minute) the processor started smoking the thermal paste off it, and way too hot to touch. i have never had occasion to boot a machine with no cooler on it; is it normal for a processor to get that hot that fast?

i do have a friend who is going to lend me earlier generation pentium which should be compatable with the board, and i will try it next and report to coolermaster and this thread. thanks again to all

 

[fastamdman]

.....You tried to post the machine with no heat sink??

 

[zigzag03]

thats what i said yup. and thats why i'm asking.... can it generate that much heat in 30-40 seconds?

edit: clearly it can, but should it?

 

[Big Lar]

thats what i said yup. and thats why i'm asking.... can it generate that much heat in 30-40 seconds?

edit: clearly it can, but should it?

In a word, Yes. When Real Temp was being created after discussion with the founder I did exactly that with an old chip and board. I used a thermal gun and it buried the temp in under 15 seconds. So yes, they get hot fast.
What I would do is pull all the components, spray compressed air under everything and then let it sit for a few days with the components on edge, not flat. Then reassemble and try again. Get beep codes and see what gives.

Larry

 

[Aikouka]

edit: clearly it can, but should it?

Yes. The first time I ever built a PC around 15 years ago, I thought, "It won't harm anything to turn it on for a second to see if it works." Hah... yeah, it didn't work after that. Fortunately, CPUs are a bit smarter with heat management these days, and they will normally shut off.

 

[zigzag03]

thank you gentlemen, that does answer the question. big lar this issue actually goes back a long time. shortly after the "incident" i did all that, then it dried on and off under a hot desk lamp for like 6 weeks. i got no beeps of any sort.

i came across an old dell gx280 with a 3.2 p4 that i swapped in without any results. i don't know for a fact that it was good as the machine had been robbed of memory and hard disk but i may slip a couple of my components as well as my q6600 into it and go at it from that angle and see what happens. thanks again for everyone's input.