1. Why is this thing still in use? Well not all of us are rich ok?
2. It doesn't shut down but it's basically useless at this point.
3. The only thing they haven't tried is replacing the whole liquid cooling for lack of parts, so there's no way to figure out if that's what's causing the slow downs.
4. Is it the video card needing to be replaced?
1. IMO, machine is still viable/useful.
2. Does it complete ePSA Diags?
3. The OEM Asetek liquid cooler only needs to be replaced/repaired if machine is over-heating . What does CPUID's HW-Monitior say your idle temps are (also, note temp at max gaming if possible).
When in use, are both tubes feel about the same temp?
4. Can't tell from here, but your technicians should be able to tell if it tests good or not.
#1 was kinda rhetorical lol, but yea still viable and useful
#2 i'm sorry I don't have access to the computer right now, so I can't do diagnostics. I can ask the techs to run it though if they haven't already
#3 I don't have these temperatures right now, but it was radiating heat and severely raising the temperature in my room. It only started doing that the last week or so before I started looking into solutions, but the temperatures in hwmonitor as I remember were pretty high
#4 they said the video card was ok, currently they're looking into replacing the cooling
Could happen if the Asetek pump wasn't running, or running very slowly due to coolant sludge. Run ePSA and see what the pump RPM is. I also assume that the radiator fan is spinning at this stage?
I've asked them to run the tests and tell me if it fails anything as well as to see if there is a rotation speed for the pump shown, will report whenever I get that info sent to me
Unsure what you mean by radiator fan, as there are a lot of fans. You'll have to be more specific. The intake (front bottom) fan is broken and they'll be replacing that
Rad-Fan bolts to left rear upper case, Rad (w/ cooling tubes) bolts to fan; in photo we see 27mm wide Rad bolted to (partially obscured but visible) 38mm fan
R4 premium 38mm wide Rad/cooler with copper-base, part# 01YGW often seen on eBay new/used ... if buying used, consider buying two (use 1 / store the working spare)
It's a sealed system. Would be difficult replacing the coolant while getting rid of any trapped air. Best to just replace it if that's the case. If it's sludge, the pump motor could also have worn out due to stress.
The liquid inside is usually a mix of distilled water and some kind of mold/fungus inhibitor.
Asetek uses a special pozi-drive screw head tip for the base cold-plate, standard Phillips screwdriver almost never works / strips it out, sizes to try are Pz0, Pz1, Pz2, Pz3
Typical ethylene-glycol (anti-freeze) + distilled water + anti-microbial agent
I don't recommend breaking the factory seal / gasket to attempt a cleaning + refill (which might take several attempts to get all gunk out of entire system: re-assemble + run cooler a few days / break it back down to check it + clean again if needed / re-assemble + run a few days, rinse & repeat), &, it's likely u may not be able to re-fill it all the way & so introduce air pockets / possible 'cavitation of impeller' or reduced cooling capability w/unwanted air in system (no good way to bleed all the air out); the low cost of AIO replacement (w/a factory seal) may be preferred
Procedure is to only remove bottom cold-plate + gasket, dump fluid & clean cold-plate, attempt to 'rinse' rest of system, fill it up & re-seal ... run it a few days or a week, (monitor temps) & re-inspect (chances are you didn't get all the gunk out & the micro-channels/fins may get blocked again)(gunk may be in the cold-plate area, the tubes, the radiator or all of the above)
They said there is no gunk and they thoroughly inspected it. It's just really old. They are going to be replacing the entire thing with a compatible/exact version, and running the tests
It was Chinese new year so all the suppliers were closed and the place closed early. I'll know tomorrow about the tests
They said there is no gunk and they thoroughly inspected it. It's just really old. They are going to be replacing the entire thing with a compatible/exact version, and running the tests
It was Chinese new year so all the suppliers were closed and the place closed early. I'll know tomorrow about the tests
How can they definitively say there's no gunk? Gunk in what? Only way to tell if there was sludge in the AIO is to crack it open... which then poses its own set of implications. Did they ever tell you what the impeller RPM of the pump was? That right there would be a good indicator of the cooling system's current ability.
But I digress; if they're going to replace the AIO, that's a good thing.
They said they took the whole thing off the CPU and put it back on after cleaning everything thoroughly, so if there was any they'd see it.
The problem is that the system had another failure while in testing and they couldn't even boot it up. The video card died and it wouldn't even output a video signal
At least we got charged nothing because they couldn't diagnose the problem
I've had it for a year at home now, sitting unused. When I got it back last year a friend sent me a replacement video card for free and I confirmed that it can output a signal with the new one
Unfortunately it was still slowing to a crawl and this is why I haven't been using it for a year. Pretty much worthless except for pulling the hard drive out for data migration into a new system
It kind of sounds like they damaged your GPU while testing or it was a huge coincidence that it suddenly failed..... they would have removed it, put it back in, removed it, put it back in...etc a few times and maybe they did something stupid.
If you still have the original HDD in the machine then throwing an SSD in her and doing a clean install (not clone) should really bring her back to life. HDD's get very slow as they age and even a new HDD is pretty slow these days.
It's definitely not useless and a little bit of TLC will get it purring again. From memory, the Corsair series H80 was a popular replacement on these machines but it's been many years since I had mine so I can't quite remember. I put a custom loop in my old R4 ALX.
If it's the CPU that is overheating then it's always possible that the CPU itself is having some problems after all these years
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
•
17.4K Posts
0
February 5th, 2019 10:00
1. IMO, machine is still viable/useful.
2. Does it complete ePSA Diags?
3. The OEM Asetek liquid cooler only needs to be replaced/repaired if machine is over-heating . What does CPUID's HW-Monitior say your idle temps are (also, note temp at max gaming if possible).
When in use, are both tubes feel about the same temp?
4. Can't tell from here, but your technicians should be able to tell if it tests good or not.
Rule 84
5 Posts
0
February 5th, 2019 12:00
#1 was kinda rhetorical lol, but yea still viable and useful
#2 i'm sorry I don't have access to the computer right now, so I can't do diagnostics. I can ask the techs to run it though if they haven't already
#3 I don't have these temperatures right now, but it was radiating heat and severely raising the temperature in my room. It only started doing that the last week or so before I started looking into solutions, but the temperatures in hwmonitor as I remember were pretty high
#4 they said the video card was ok, currently they're looking into replacing the cooling
amstel78
2 Intern
•
402 Posts
0
February 5th, 2019 12:00
Could happen if the Asetek pump wasn't running, or running very slowly due to coolant sludge. Run ePSA and see what the pump RPM is. I also assume that the radiator fan is spinning at this stage?
Rule 84
5 Posts
0
February 5th, 2019 13:00
I've asked them to run the tests and tell me if it fails anything as well as to see if there is a rotation speed for the pump shown, will report whenever I get that info sent to me
Unsure what you mean by radiator fan, as there are a lot of fans. You'll have to be more specific. The intake (front bottom) fan is broken and they'll be replacing that
Cass-Ole
6 Professor
•
1.9K Posts
0
February 5th, 2019 14:00
Rad-Fan bolts to left rear upper case, Rad (w/ cooling tubes) bolts to fan; in photo we see 27mm wide Rad bolted to (partially obscured but visible) 38mm fan
R4 premium 38mm wide Rad/cooler with copper-base, part# 01YGW often seen on eBay new/used ... if buying used, consider buying two (use 1 / store the working spare)
amstel78
2 Intern
•
402 Posts
1
February 5th, 2019 16:00
It's a sealed system. Would be difficult replacing the coolant while getting rid of any trapped air. Best to just replace it if that's the case. If it's sludge, the pump motor could also have worn out due to stress.
The liquid inside is usually a mix of distilled water and some kind of mold/fungus inhibitor.
markshaheen
2 Intern
•
372 Posts
0
February 5th, 2019 16:00
Cass-Ole
6 Professor
•
1.9K Posts
1
February 5th, 2019 17:00
Asetek uses a special pozi-drive screw head tip for the base cold-plate, standard Phillips screwdriver almost never works / strips it out, sizes to try are Pz0, Pz1, Pz2, Pz3
You can watch certain Gamers Nexus vids to see AIO teardown / refills, or What's Inside a CPU Liquid Cooler
Typical ethylene-glycol (anti-freeze) + distilled water + anti-microbial agent
I don't recommend breaking the factory seal / gasket to attempt a cleaning + refill (which might take several attempts to get all gunk out of entire system: re-assemble + run cooler a few days / break it back down to check it + clean again if needed / re-assemble + run a few days, rinse & repeat), &, it's likely u may not be able to re-fill it all the way & so introduce air pockets / possible 'cavitation of impeller' or reduced cooling capability w/unwanted air in system (no good way to bleed all the air out); the low cost of AIO replacement (w/a factory seal) may be preferred
Procedure is to only remove bottom cold-plate + gasket, dump fluid & clean cold-plate, attempt to 'rinse' rest of system, fill it up & re-seal ... run it a few days or a week, (monitor temps) & re-inspect (chances are you didn't get all the gunk out & the micro-channels/fins may get blocked again)(gunk may be in the cold-plate area, the tubes, the radiator or all of the above)
Rule 84
5 Posts
0
February 5th, 2019 20:00
They said there is no gunk and they thoroughly inspected it. It's just really old. They are going to be replacing the entire thing with a compatible/exact version, and running the tests
It was Chinese new year so all the suppliers were closed and the place closed early. I'll know tomorrow about the tests
amstel78
2 Intern
•
402 Posts
0
February 6th, 2019 07:00
How can they definitively say there's no gunk? Gunk in what? Only way to tell if there was sludge in the AIO is to crack it open... which then poses its own set of implications. Did they ever tell you what the impeller RPM of the pump was? That right there would be a good indicator of the cooling system's current ability.
But I digress; if they're going to replace the AIO, that's a good thing.
speedstep
9 Legend
•
47K Posts
0
February 6th, 2019 08:00
There is always Gunk. Over time sludge builds up.
Silicate dropout occurs after the coolant has been "worn out", and the inhibitors drop out of the solution.
Dust bunnies clog the radiator portion. ethylene glycol is what is used.
Changing this to Dex-Cool reacts with the plastic sealing surfaces, causing the system to leak.
The wiring is also not necessarily standard.
Rule 84
5 Posts
0
June 5th, 2020 22:00
They said they took the whole thing off the CPU and put it back on after cleaning everything thoroughly, so if there was any they'd see it.
The problem is that the system had another failure while in testing and they couldn't even boot it up. The video card died and it wouldn't even output a video signal
At least we got charged nothing because they couldn't diagnose the problem
I've had it for a year at home now, sitting unused. When I got it back last year a friend sent me a replacement video card for free and I confirmed that it can output a signal with the new one
Unfortunately it was still slowing to a crawl and this is why I haven't been using it for a year. Pretty much worthless except for pulling the hard drive out for data migration into a new system
mattyb3
5 Practitioner
•
1.7K Posts
0
June 10th, 2020 22:00
It kind of sounds like they damaged your GPU while testing or it was a huge coincidence that it suddenly failed..... they would have removed it, put it back in, removed it, put it back in...etc a few times and maybe they did something stupid.
If you still have the original HDD in the machine then throwing an SSD in her and doing a clean install (not clone) should really bring her back to life. HDD's get very slow as they age and even a new HDD is pretty slow these days.
It's definitely not useless and a little bit of TLC will get it purring again. From memory, the Corsair series H80 was a popular replacement on these machines but it's been many years since I had mine so I can't quite remember. I put a custom loop in my old R4 ALX.
If it's the CPU that is overheating then it's always possible that the CPU itself is having some problems after all these years