From Boredom Comes Chaos

I did a bad thing today. I got bored and decided to relocate the reservoir for my computer cooling system. Turns out I had some room on the right side of the case – I just had to Dremel off the plastic tabs that were sticking out of each side of the water reservoir. So after I moved it over and cut (mostly new) tubing, I hooked it up and everything seemed to be running fine.

Then I noticed a drop of water on top of the power supply. Uh oh... So I quickly unplugged the pump and examined where the leak came from. It was much worse than I thought. The drop was nothing compared to the puddle I had on the other side of the power supply, which rendered it useless. I thought it was a leaky radiator, so I took that out and tested it. No leaks. Hmmm... Turns out that the leak came from a reused tube on the output end of the radiator that I cut short since it didn't have to go to the other side of the case. In doing that, the tubing twisted and the seal between the tube and the radiator was no longer watertight.

The tubing had molded itself around the ridges on the fitting, so the movement in the tubing (i.e. moving it to reach the other side of the case) broke the watertight seal. So now I have a 0-watt Enermax paperweight. =(

Lesson learned for you watercooling d00dz: if you are going to reroute your tubing, cut new pieces, or at the very least, snip off the part of the tube that molded itself to the fitting.