Project Rainbow Vomit: Alphacool Core Storm 360 (Plus extras)

[Mussels]

It'll look better too. Worth the effort IMHO.Of course, it's your system and if you're happy with it, that's what count. Wasn't trying to come off telling you want to do.

The entire joy of custom loops is that at any time you can add remove or alter anything it


and Alphacool of course loves this because people spend money on new shiny bits to make those changes

 

[Athlonite]

It'll require some 90 degree fittings and shenanigans, but will clean up that one janky hose

And who doesn't like Shenanigan's

 

[Mussels]

And who doesn't like Shenanigan's

The Irish!

They FECKIN LURVE SHENANIGANS

 

[Mussels]

Todays Episode of Mussels has a creepy new forum pic is called: "Mistakes and how to fix them"

Oh no, how do i change my tubing without draining the entire PC and lots of hard work?


Why, Alphacookls quick disconnects! (also known as a QDC)
Without *TWO* openings, liquid drains out super duper slowly letting you control things super well.

Everyone say hi to Bingo as the quick disconnect comes out, and DON'T FORGET THE TOILET PAPER. There is always a little mess that needs wiping up, so make sure you have the TP stocked before you do this!

You raise the hose high up in the air (Or have spare tubing ready and add as an extension!) - liquid flows out the lowest point so an opening up high has nothing come out, letting you remove the quick disconnect from the tubing, and then tada - you pop it right into your fill bottle to safely re-use

It comes out very very slowly

Once i was ready with the fill/drain bucket, I used Alphacools little AlphaTool to make that second opening at my hidden fill port up top, speeding this up

Because the lowest opening was above the height of the GPU block, helix res, pump and so on - none of their liquid wanted to leave, I basically drained the top radiator only doing this

I then sealed up the previously open end (by re-attaching the QDC) and worked on the CPU end, repeating the same trick with the top fill port
These are dirty dirty EK rotary fittings (which are actually really good) and allowed me to tetris twist this

In a trial run the tubing didnt go straight at all but with a gentle curve, letting me leave some slack with the tubing - and letting me hide the QDC beautifully

@lexluthermiester stole 40 cakes, and that's terrible

As punishment for the cake theft and giving me ideas on how to improve the build, you all get some photos

This one is grainy, but it's closest to how the colours appear in person

 

[lexluthermiester]

@lexluthermiester stole 40 cakes, and that's terrible

Don't forget the 400 pies I stole...

Jokes aside, beautiful work!

 

[Mussels]

Because the fractal cases have sliding rails for the fans, it's let me slide the top radiator further to the rear - giving me plenty of room for the hose to pass by

And then that extra space intended for 140mm fans vs 120mm let's the quick disconnect fit so damn well in there too

 

[Mussels]

I had four 90 degree G1/4 fittings from EK in this build
3 have now failed

They're all the same colour in the dark chrome (Forgot the official name) - the lighter silver ones that are years older are all fine.

The leak is in the rotary join, not somewhere you can fix as an end user or replace a washer

 

[Nordic]

I don't know how I missed this build when it was first posted. Very cool. Im a fan of alpha cool. I have been using one of their nexxos monsta rads for nearly 10 years now.

 

[Mussels]

I don't know how I missed this build when it was first posted. Very cool. Im a fan of alpha cool. I have been using one of their nexxos monsta rads for nearly 10 years now.

Build logs don't get much attention, but since this was the first (hopefully of many) sponsored parts i've been sent in a decade I'm doing my damned best to give it the attention it deserves

I've unlocked more pro camera settings on my for slower exposure times and stacking images, but it might go super weird with any RGB animations (Tempting to run some of the fancier effects and freeze them in place, for images)

 

[Nordic]

Your build is an inspiration. I plan on getting a thermaltake P3 and I will be getting a new alphacool rad for that. No rgb though.

 

[Mussels]

I wish i could get cameras to show the RGB as it appears in person

The lian li strimers have a really slow refresh rate so they're not great for animations, but the corsair RAM can do some crazy truly hypnotic things that photos just don't catch

 

[Mussels]

Popping in to say that theres been zero change after all these months with the coolant. No clogging, no particles no issues whatsoever.

The coolant is as clear as day one, and Alphacool deserves praise for that since some company with a two-letter name failed so badly at it, despite multiple colours and attempts.

 

[Mussels]

Maintenance update!
So far, theres been zero problems with the build.

I noticed a buildup of *something* floating on top of the res, and decided to document some basic cleaning


Draining out some liquid with a giant syringe meant for car oil, i found some... dots. Helpful.

Blurry image, camera had issues focusing on the dots - it was simply dot-like fluff of some kind.
I wiped this out with tissue paper first, then a microfiber cloth second before the following steps - but i dont wanna spoil the surprise

Who am I kidding - it genuinely seems like this is a great reservoir design because it caught *all* the debris

Obviously, this is concerning - but at the same time i had no performance issues, and this loop did reuse parts from my contaminated EK loop
Yes you, EK. Leaky contaminated pain in my butt.

Now to drain it out was simple because i hid that drain valve - kink the hose, remove the cap, attach an extension hose to a bucket
Because of that floof, i added a filter to try and catch anything coming out from this part onwards

This top mounted drain/fill port on the Alphacool rad is a godsend, I used it to let air in and drain out the front side of the loop via gravity

Glug glug glug, the forbidden gatorade goes

Now this is where the magic comes in.

Blowing into the top radiator with my powerful mollusc lungs, the coolant would drain out the front drain port - until the front radiator was empty and just air blew out.
By opening the top of the res and closing the drain port (by kinking at that red line) the fluid would instead try to escape out the top of the res instead - filling it, and letting me drain that fluid out the front hole instead.

I could also achieve this by tilting the case, but i'm lazy.

Nothing showed up in the filter or coolant i tipped out, all that debris was caught in the reservoir

This is mixed clear coolant with the dregs of the blue coolant, and theres not a single sign of any more debris - she's in the clear

So if you skipped to the end for whatever reason, the summary is that some crud accumulated but unlike the EK hardware, this res caught it all and kept it out of the loop.
Nice.

 

[Mussels]

Bad news - another EK 90 degree fitting decided to leak, and it may have taken out the UV CCFL in the cool helix res.

Extremely difficult to photograph

but you can see a drip forming here, right above the power wire for the UV lamp

These EK fittings are just trash, that's 6 of the 8 that have leaked over time - they cannot handle *ANY* angled pressure at all without failing, and that's almost impossible to achieve, even something as simple as moving a tube can cause them to leak, let alone pressure from something shifting like a GPU

Considering i've now had the LED strips on both sides of my EK GPU block fail, lots of failed coolant (4x bottles mystic fog clogged up), 6x failed 90 degree fittings and a GPU block that's 'leaky' internally i'm pretty disappointed with EK, and quite happy with alphacool who's products have been quite solid and reliable.


seriously, EK - what even is this?

Onto the good (alphacool) stuff:

Their generic fitting design is smarter than it seems. Soft tubing expands over time where the fittings stretch it, but the screw on cap design they use makes it so that expansion makes the fitting tighter - wear and tear benefits the user with a stronger connection.

If you want used tubing to fit, you gotta bend and squeeze and coax it through

And then it slides "loose" on the fitting because it's already stretched from the last usage - but once she's tightened on, it's like new
Not all fittings work like this, and some would be a leak risk to do this with

AC's design here is great -the expansion of the tubing makes the connection more secure over time, not less.



Once I get some new fittings I'll get the helix res back in, I need time to dry out and test it's UV lamp still works too.

 

[lexluthermiester]

seriously, EK - what even is this?

Looks like a failed o-ring or o-ring not completely sealing properly.

 

[Kapone33]

Bad news - another EK 90 degree fitting decided to leak, and it may have taken out the UV CCFL in the cool helix res.

Extremely difficult to photograph
View attachment 303918

but you can see a drip forming here, right above the power wire for the UV lamp
View attachment 303919View attachment 303921


These EK fittings are just trash, that's 6 of the 8 that have leaked over time - they cannot handle *ANY* angled pressure at all without failing, and that's almost impossible to achieve, even something as simple as moving a tube can cause them to leak, let alone pressure from something shifting like a GPU

Considering i've now had the LED strips on both sides of my EK GPU block fail, lots of failed coolant (4x bottles mystic fog clogged up), 6x failed 90 degree fittings and a GPU block that's 'leaky' internally i'm pretty disappointed with EK, and quite happy with alphacool who's products have been quite solid and reliable.


seriously, EK - what even is this?
View attachment 303927


Onto the good (alphacool) stuff:

Their generic fitting design is smarter than it seems. Soft tubing expands over time where the fittings stretch it, but the screw on cap design they use makes it so that expansion makes the fitting tighter - wear and tear benefits the user with a stronger connection.

If you want used tubing to fit, you gotta bend and squeeze and coax it through
View attachment 303923View attachment 303926



And then it slides "loose" on the fitting because it's already stretched from the last usage - but once she's tightened on, it's like new
Not all fittings work like this, and some would be a leak risk to do this with
View attachment 303924
View attachment 303925
AC's design here is great -the expansion of the tubing makes the connection more secure over time, not less.



Once I get some new fittings I'll get the helix res back in, I need time to dry out and test it's UV lamp still works too.

View attachment 303928

When I had a 6800XT I bought an EK block because the block was a nice Single slot and I loved it. Then one day I saw the lights flickering and a water fountain coming out of where the block and the Inlets meet. Thankfully the card did not die but I lost a MB and some RAM. The next block was from Alphacool and as soon as the 7900 series was launched I sent a message to Eddy to confirm that there were blocks coming. Now I can't explain how much I enjoy my PC. Of course I use the Quick connect system (another thing I love about Alphacool). Now I am looking at that C1 block to have everything connected by Water. Oh yeah I also have an Alphacool pump/res that is Whisper quiet a hell. The only sound coming out of my PC that is audible is my 3000 RPM Noctua fan that keeps all of those NAND drives cool when the GPU is going hard..

 

[Mussels]

Looks like a failed o-ring or o-ring not completely sealing properly.

which fits since the o-rings in all the 90 degree fittings have failed

 

[eidairaman1]

When I had a 6800XT I bought an EK block because the block was a nice Single slot and I loved it. Then one day I saw the lights flickering and a water fountain coming out of where the block and the Inlets meet. Thankfully the card did not die but I lost a MB and some RAM. The next block was from Alphacool and as soon as the 7900 series was launched I sent a message to Eddy to confirm that there were blocks coming. Now I can't explain how much I enjoy my PC. Of course I use the Quick connect system (another thing I love about Alphacool). Now I am looking at that C1 block to have everything connected by Water. Oh yeah I also have an Alphacool pump/res that is Whisper quiet a hell. The only sound coming out of my PC that is audible is my 3000 RPM Noctua fan that keeps all of those NAND drives cool when the GPU is going hard..

I felt ek was overrated. Rather have Dangerden back. I like how Alphacool make complete cover blocks for AIBs and not just Reference cards

 

[lexluthermiester]

which fits since the o-rings in all the 90 degree fittings have failed

That sucks. But at least it's fixable.

I felt ek was overrated.

They are. However, they do make good stuff.

 

[InVasMani]

I wasn't expecting a dingo sh*tting on a toilet, but here we are.

 

[Athlonite]

I wasn't expecting a dingo sh*tting on a toilet, but here we are.

just be thankful it's not an Aussie bloke shaggin a Kangaroo mate (jk)

 

[Athlonite]

which fits since the o-rings in all the 90 degree fittings have failed

cheap O rings maybe, maybe grab some decent automotive ones and replace em if that's possible

 

[Mussels]

I wasn't expecting a dingo sh*tting on a toilet, but here we are.

That's a Red heeler, not a dingo

Heelers entertain your babies, dingos eat em

cheap O rings maybe, maybe grab some decent automotive ones and replace em if that's possible

Can't, the design is such that you destroy them to open them - all but the one on my CPU block have been binned already.

It's the inner o-ring on rotary G1/4 fittings, not the easily accessible end ones


Sunlight and reflections make this tricky, but the current setup without the helix is finalised

Poop emoji in place of poopin Bingo, temporarily.

 

[Athlonite]

It's the inner o-ring on rotary G1/4 fittings, not the easily accessible end ones

Bugger

 

[Mussels]

I did find a static lighting look for the RAM i'm super pleased with, too