Desktop Go Boom!

Okay, so yesterday I figured I would do something simple, add a few extra sticks of memory to my desktop that I bought on the weekend while driving around.

Turns out, while I was digging around inside the case (An old Antec 180, big honking lump of steel case), I knocked the cable running the CPU water cooler loose. I didn't notice at the time, and put everything back together and booted the desktop up....

About ten minutes later just as I was getting things going and patting myself on the back as it just worked right first time... SLORP down went the machine. Given how quickly it went down, I immediately went "Oh crap, what did I do to the CPU?", as it was classic motherboard thermal safety shutdown.

Opening the case, to find the culprit, the loose cable... however I also had *SPARES*... loose bits rattling in the case... turns out the Corsair CPU water cooling kits have their pump assembly (which fits over the CPU) warp if they get too hot, and it not only popped off the plastic cover of the pump unit, it also broke the PCB off the pump head, and appeared to have destroyed solder joints and much more.

Now, I know it was my fault, so I don't blame the kit for failing, however that sort of failure I consider a real concern as the kits are supposed to be used to be used to drop your CPU temperature, and a kit being able to warp and destroy itself at any temperature before the motherboard steps in and says "Nope, we're not doing this anymore, everything shut down", should not be possible. It's a major design flaw.

Anyhow, as replacing the kit meant taking the motherboard out of the case, I figured, heck, why not just replace the case too? So that's what we did, new Corsair 400R case (hey, I don't hate the company, I can understand that some products might suck and others work out well), and a Thermaltake Bigwater 760 Plus liquid cooling kit. The hubby wants to direct most of the heat from our desktops outside or somewhere else, not sure if he can do it, but a proper liquid cooler means we can extend the heat exchanger out of the cases and put them somewhere else.

Anyhow, I have piccies of the blowout of the old CPU cooler, will try and get time to drag them off my phone later today.