Apex pump died within minutes of use

[Angel_of_Deths]

Few weeks ago I ordered Core 200 Aurora with Apex pump with some other bits via local PC hardware store. About a week later it showed up and I started upgrading my loop. When I was done with upgrading I filled the loop with fresh translucent coolant (exactly the same what I had previously) and powered the pump (PSU jumper, with no other parts powered) and let it run for few minutes to bleed majority of air out and shut it down. While it was shut down, I did the final touches and cable management. While I was doing that, I noticed the pump was really warm, which I thought was a bit odd after running such short time. But I decided to close the panels anyways and power the system. Due to long memory training on cold boot, I missed the bios window, though didn't have much to tweak in there in a first place. After booting into the OS, I almost immediately noticed CPU was idling hot, about 65C. After bit of scrambling, I discovered the pump wasn't running, despite attempting to. Distinctly twitching slightly every few seconds. Shut the system down and started debugging with PSU jumper. No luck. Drained the loop and put fluid back in, still pump wouldn't start.

On following day I decided to disasseble the loop and do further investigation about the pump. The impeller was light to turn by hand. Next I tried to power it on in open air (I did put coule of drops of water into the bearing shaft), but no, still only twiching every few seconds. While I was trying to figure how to take impeller out, I noticed the faint odor of burnt electronics coming from the pump. With that, I made reasonable conclusion that something did fry up during the very first power on.

I made RMA to the store and shipped the combo unit. Haven't yet heard back from them but I'm expecting to get a response within next few days.

 

[Eddy]

If you have started an RMA through your retailer, then we don’t need anything from you. The retailer has to handle that. We don’t process every RMA case worldwide directly; usually the retailers do that, and we then receive a report once a month or once a quarter. Anything else would just be duplicate work that could cause confusion.