Custom Loop Maintenance

[OolongGoat]

Looking through my orders at Microcenter, it appears I have had my custom loop in place now for a little over two years. I am thinking it might be getting to be that time for a flush and check on condition of my blocks and what not.

While I have everything apart and drained, I had a few questions.

Would I see any benefit replacing the pump on my distro plate? I have the EK one for my Lian Li 011D. Mine came with the 3.1 DDC pump. I see there are 4.2 DDC pumps out now. Looking at some readings around the net some say there isn't much different other than the controller contained within, and some say the newer revision is a stronger pump.

My 3080Ti does run a bit warm even for being on water. My edge temp never goes over 65-66C..... but that hot spot hits 86-87C under heavy long-term gaming. The memory stays around 70C. I am thinking maybe I got a bad mounting on my block. The card is about a year old. I was looking at possibly repasting and double checking the pads. I really think it just might be a bad mount.

I plan on keeping my AM4 system for a good while. I don't really overclock anymore other than what the motherboard and CPU boost to on their own. The GPU boasts on its own too.

Would I see any benefit from getting a Monoblock and possibly a chipset block? My X570 is the older one that still has the fan attached to it.

Just putting some feelers out.

 

[maxfly]

I wouldn't bother replacing your pump unless you think it's dying. EK makes good quality pumps. Virtually all DDCs are the same pumps with a few really minor changes. As long as your maintaining at or near 1gph with it, your golden. On the other hand, If you've got the itch...having a backup pump is like having a spare PSU. There's nothing worse than not having one when you need it.
It's never a bad idea to check your gpu mount when doing maintenance. It gives you a great idea of how well your paste and pad job turned out.
If everything checks out and your still concerned with your gpu temps, you should look at adding more cooling capacity. Or upgrading a rad or two.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of monoblocks. They generally add 5-8c to your cpu temps right off the git. They are very good at dropping vrm temps but most stock vrm heatsinks are overbuilt and already do a solid job with only a breeze. If your mb doesn't have decent heatsinks then go whole hog. That's what wcing is for afterall! To kill off high temps. They do look sweet tho, so there is that
Hmm, can you get solid chipset blocks today? If you can find one, why not? It will eliminate a point of failure and drop temps so win win.
GL and hope that helps!

 

[nguyen]

check out the water temp, if it getting close to 50C then the DDC pump might have short lifespan

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Yep tear it all down and do it right,
Repaste the block on the GPU.
New pads, yep. Might as well.

 

[OolongGoat]

Has anyone heard of or actually used this pump? Bitspower P5D PWM Pump V1 - Micro Center

I cannot determine if it is a D5 or a DDC. It looks like a DDC but it's pretty tall compared to other ones I have seen.

Interior of the Bitspower's "New" P5D PWM Pump : watercooling (reddit.com) <-- Someone took one apart here and it looks like a D5 in a DDC housing to me. Could I get some thoughts??

It looks comparable to the DDC 4.2 PWM compact pump with class leading head pressure – EK Webshop (ekwb.com)

I just can't determine the head pressure.

 

[ir_cow]

D5 pumps have a phat end. DDC pumps are basically flat squares. That Bitspower is trying to look like a D5, but its just a DDC pump and had a backend.

 

[maxfly]

Can't say what it is without seeing the rotor and impeller. It looks like a ddc/d5 hybrid but who knows.

Edit- its just a ddc, built to bitspowers vague specs with a confusing name. That's definitely not a d5 head. I guarantee it's not built by xylem, lowara or laing. I wouldn't buy it.

 

[OolongGoat]

I picked up that Bitspower pump. For science and all. It doesn’t fit where the EK 3.1 DDC goes in the distro plate. The holes are off by just enough to make you crazy lol. If I line up one, the rest don’t go. I am not going to force it and risk cracking the acrylic because it isn’t a straight line up.

 

[maxfly]

I picked up that Bitspower pump. For science and all. It doesn’t fit where the EK 3.1 DDC goes in the distro plate. The holes are off by just enough to make you crazy lol. If I line up one, the rest don’t go. I am not going to force it and risk cracking the acrylic because it isn’t a straight line up.

Haha, I've done the same. I picked up a couple of the really cheap ddc/d5 knock offs from AliExpress just to see what they were about. They are really poorly made unfortunately. Everything is made of plastic right down to the friggin bearing. So I couldn't use them. A dude on Facebook was more than happy to buy them tho.
Let us know how it goes. Does it have any manufacturer markings?

 

[OolongGoat]

Search results for: 'barrow pwm speed control 17w pump d rgb plexi 03 50 ba 0112 01 on'

TITAN RIG specializes in quality PC water cooling parts and accessories. Shop top brands like Alphacool, EKWB, Watercool, and more with a 90-day return policy.

www.titanrig.com

It looks very similar to this. No marks on the pump other than the P5D on the PCB.

I ended up buying an EK pump.

Though question…. The 3.1 had the impeller that is swirled and the 4.2 has the other one. When I installed the new pump as is, I filled the reservoir and it runs and looks like it wants to do something. I reseated it and nothing.

I swapped the swirl over to the new pump and it works as I can see the flow moving through the loop.

Would their shape matter that much??

 

[maxfly]

Search results for: 'barrow pwm speed control 17w pump d rgb plexi 03 50 ba 0112 01 on'

TITAN RIG specializes in quality PC water cooling parts and accessories. Shop top brands like Alphacool, EKWB, Watercool, and more with a 90-day return policy.

www.titanrig.com

It looks very similar to this. No marks on the pump other than the P5D on the PCB.

I ended up buying an EK pump.

Though question…. The 3.1 had the impeller that is swirled and the 4.2 has the other one. When I installed the new pump as is, I filled the reservoir and it runs and looks like it wants to do something. I reseated it and nothing.

I swapped the swirl over to the new pump and it works as I can see the flow moving through the loop.

Would their shape matter that much??

Rgr, it figures.

Hmmm, no it shouldn't. That's strange...all I can think of is because of the way the distro plates pump housing is shaped, it wont allow the 4.2s side vented(for lack of a better term) impeller push the water out. Essentially its blocking it. While the 3.1 having the open top impeller, was probably specifically designed for that type of distro housing. I cant really tell by looking at it but that's my best guess.

 

[xtreemchaos]

deff take your cpu block apart as ive found that the microfins collect loads of bits over the course of a year or two and can put quite a strain on the pump.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I wouldn't bother replacing your pump unless you think it's dying. EK makes good quality pumps. Virtually all DDCs are the same pumps with a few really minor changes. As long as your maintaining at or near 1gph with it, your golden. On the other hand, If you've got the itch...having a backup pump is like having a spare PSU. There's nothing worse than not having one when you need it.
It's never a bad idea to check your gpu mount when doing maintenance. It gives you a great idea of how well your paste and pad job turned out.
If everything checks out and your still concerned with your gpu temps, you should look at adding more cooling capacity. Or upgrading a rad or two.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of monoblocks. They generally add 5-8c to your cpu temps right off the git. They are very good at dropping vrm temps but most stock vrm heatsinks are overbuilt and already do a solid job with only a breeze. If your mb doesn't have decent heatsinks then go whole hog. That's what wcing is for afterall! To kill off high temps. They do look sweet tho, so there is that
Hmm, can you get solid chipset blocks today? If you can find one, why not? It will eliminate a point of failure and drop temps so win win.
GL and hope that helps!

Saved me a rant, what you say I back 100% tried a moniblock on my crosshair 7 but swapped to a EK CPU block.

Get some thermal PADS and Tim and redo your block on the GPU, it can hurt though so source the right thickness pads prior don't fit just any.

 

[OolongGoat]

Thank you all for your input and your assistance. I got it up and going.

I might have to look at adjusting thermal pad sizes. My original pad job was pretty solid going off the Bitspower instructions.

CPU temp dropped about 5C with a repaste and the new pump.

GPU temps improved on the core about 2C but the difference between the edge and hotspot is about 15C when doing regular gaming. If I loop Port Royal on a custom run with everything maxed out at my native resolution (3840x1600), the hot spot creeps up to 90C-91C which is about a 25C difference.

I will leave it for now and keep an eye on it. The card doesn't appear to be throttling, still boosts up between 1995Mhz and 2025Mhz consistently, and pulls about 430W fully loaded according to hwinfo64.

I am going to try to lower the power limit and play with undervolting.

 

[thesmokingman]

Damn, those temps... might as well go back to air.

 

[OolongGoat]

UPDATE:

So it wasn't sitting too well with me that my GPU wasn't performing thermally as expected from my system even after I performed my maintenance and upgraded the pump.

It appears that on one side of my GPU die a 2.5mm memory pad was elevated up onto the cold plate in part and not sitting in the groove fully as it should have been.

So another drain and refill later, I have a 10C differential now between edge and hotspot.

Looping Portal Royal again with everything maxed out as I did above yield a big difference. My edge doesn't go over 54C (it was hitting 65C routinely) and my hotspot is now at a chilly 64C (it was creeping into the 90C - 91C) territory.

Look what a bad mount can do

Thanks again everyone