eisbaer expansion is not sufficient

[psychotik2k3]

Just take a few minutes to share with you my experience (and one from my friend too).
Im' watercooling my PCs since 2001 (yeah first one got only a waterblock with an aquarium pump immerged in a tuperware and a car interior radiator), went with almost all brands of watercooling, alphacool, bitspower, EK, thermaltake, zalman (yes i loved the rezerator v1 ), phobya....

i bought for my living room computer an eisbaer 280 to cool my ryzen 5 3600 and i added a 240 rad plus another set of eisbaer quickplug tubes so i would be able to plug my old rtx1080 that i would transfer from my PC.
Read good reviews and since it was designed to be expanded unlike other shitty AOI which got too weak pumps and too little liquid inside, i decided to try it.
did that, installing went fine just had to add some water because of the GPU.
seems to work but the 1080 started to died the next 48h while i was not using it in 3D, seems the memory got a problem... damn too bad it died just when i transfer. just put back the aircooled 970.

a freind on mine wnated to watercool his PC and his new RTX3080 tuf, but didn't wanted to go with custom loops so i adviced him whith the same setup.
he bought all of this including an alphacool waterblock for his 3080.
Unfortunately we struggle to have the rtx cooled correclty... the waterblock is crappy and if you plug it in the correct way the GPU got correct temps but not the memory (he get same temps as aircooled) and if we invert the flow then the memory is cooled but not the GPU... plus the fact taht memory use a 3mm thick thermal pad (sic ! )
he posted about his problem on the forum.

at the same time i get an hand on a rtx3080 so i could swap with my 2080 and move this 2080 to my living room pc.
but this time i added a water flow indicator... oh my...
i understood why i struggle a little to flush the air bubbles.... at best with the CPU block +280 rad +240 rad + gpu i had a flow of 0.3 litters per minute at best...

So i decided to tear all the loop appart and do some real checks,
i succeded to get the head column of 60-70cm, but only a simple loop (waterblock tube waterflow indicator) allowed me to get the bloc flowrate.
as soon as i add a radiator, first i struggle to fill the whole loop but adding a radiator nearly cut the flow in 2, and i get sames results when adding a second rad and worse when adding the gpu.

that really annoyed me so i just bought the cheapest barrow cpu block, a small barrow pump and use a little reservoir that i had from my old setup and redid the whole loop, i kept the tubing diameter so i could use the fittings of the eisbaer and damn... it took me 3 minutes no more to fill the loop, with the pump at minimum i have 60l/hour so 1l per minute, more than 3 times the best i had with the EISBAER and there is no sound at all.

So i'm very very disapointed with alkphacool products now. i bought a lot from them and EK in the past but i will just keep the fittings from alphacool, because the EISBAER is the same shitty AIO as all AIO and it should not be marketed as expandable, and the gpu waterblock definitively got a problem with cooling the memory. even this test agrees with our observations... i whish i would found it before my friend bought his block.

the only good new on this story is that thanks to the bad things happened to my friend i didn't made the mistake to go to alphacool waterblock to cool my 3080FE, sure i had to pay a hell lot more with the EK special edition but my memory never goes above 58° even when mining, while my friend get 100°.

 

[Thomas_S]

Hi @psychotik2k3, I'm sorry you're dissatisfied. Nevertheless, it would have been easy to contact us briefly here in the forum. Then we would have been able to provide help here as well. Now, after the fact, it is of course difficult to see where the error came from. It would also be interesting to have a link to your friend's forum enquiry.

 

[psychotik2k3]

Hi @psychotik2k3, I'm sorry you're dissatisfied. Nevertheless, it would have been easy to contact us briefly here in the forum. Then we would have been able to provide help here as well. Now, after the fact, it is of course difficult to see where the error came from. It would also be interesting to have a link to your friend's forum enquiry.

there's a whole thread about it, he joined in the middle and your coworker Eddy tried to explain about these temps are in the specs before you post yourself

Memory temperature with Alphacool Eisblock Aurora Acryl GPX-N RTX 3090/3080 with Backplate (Reference)

Hello, I purchased this block for 3090 at launch and was wondering if there is some changes for memory thermal pads. Problem is that memory temps are about 90c at full load and I think it should not be that high?

forum.alphacool.com

but clearly the problem was not a 0.3mm tolerance like igor's found, but simply the use of cheap thermal pads on the ram rated at best at 3W/mk and they are 3mm THICK -_-
for comparison on my EK FE they provide 1mm thick, so that means that at the minimum the pads dissipate 3 times more heat than on yours.


but don't try to deny that you have problems with memory temps on your 3080 block series
here is one of the few tests of your block:

your block got ram 20°C higher than competitors




and last thing: my post was not to complain that you didn't helped me. absolutely not that.

when i discovered the nearly inexistant flowrate i started doing video to send to you... then i realised that it would takes me far less time and less questions about "will it be enough" than to order a pump and a block. I almost took your DDC eisstation but it in resupply at that time and the barrow was on stock so as you can see i'm not mad at you or whatever

my post was just to inform other people about the reality versus marketing and that i will never try any AIO again because there are no miracles and yours 2600 LT pumps are only enough to cool a cpu with one rad and no more.

a pump needs to be able to get more than 2m of head pressure and 100l/hours of flow so you can fill without hassle and then you can make it run at min power so you have enough flow rate to cool but with silence.

 

[psychotik2k3]

although there is one point where yes i'm disapointed: it's about the quality of some of your products that is lower than it used to be, gpu waterblocks specifically.

 

[davido_labido]

First of all, there is no need for vulgar language. This is a family-friendly forum and if you can't express yourself without the need for bad language, please take it elsewhere.

Now, for your concerns.

A single DC-LT pump will struggle with an added GPU block AND an added radiator, however, as it is expandable, it is very easy to add a second DC-LT or even stronger pump. GPU blocks are rather restrictive and the DC-LT is a small pump.

If you want to make things easier, you can use the Eiswolf II, this is exactly what I outline above, a second pump, a second radiator and a GPU block.

Our AiO is expandable, however, it needs to be done in a way which takes into consideration the size, power and restriction of the components.

 

[psychotik2k3]

first sorry if my language hurts you, it's like that that i talk and i like to name a cat a cat,
then when you say ok yes a single dclt will struggle so just add another pump....
this is exactly what i say the marketing is BS us because when people complain you admit that yeah it's too weak...
this is from the user manual of the eisbaer




, it's not me who imagined this so don't be condencendent because this is exactly what i complain about.

you got the marketing that promise a lot and when people have bought and face the reality and complain then you you reply to them of course it will not be enough jsut like you did on this thread. and jsut like on the thread with memory thermal problems on rtx3080 waterblock where you first tell 105°c is in the spec until someone gives you the memory spec where it indicates it will throttle at 95°c and after that you say ok if you got memory problem write to us we will send you better thermal pads

this is exactly what i told in my first post, it was a share of experience so other customers don't do the same error believing your marketing because there is a double language with the forum responses.
i know that your job is to estinguish fires the best you can. but honnestly when someone spend more than 400 euros just to find out that it does not work and worse it may fry the GPU, that's kinda hard to swallow.

and i never said it before but honnestly after my tests with the pump flow i'm pretty sure that my rtx1080 just died because of that. because one part (memory or display scaler) that is not thermally secured, as it should not go hotter than gpu, was not cooled enough, even if i didn't launched any 3d tests yet when it died (video artefacts). At first i thought it was a coincidence that it died when i transfer... now i would not bet on it.

 

[davido_labido]

Don't worry, it doesn't offend me at all, I was an engineer at a 1200 person workshop for 9 years, there isn't much I will ever hear that hasn't been said to me already, however, we have to have a standard on the forums that others don't get offended. I appreciate you toning the language down, it saves me having to edit things and makes it nicer for others who will read. Thank you.

As for the image that is posted, this actually is showing you two pumps, it is showing an Eiswolf and an Eisbaer together. It explains it right above the image. The Eiswolf has a DC-LT, the Eisbaer has a DC-LT. We're not trying to promise you something incorrectly, It is in the manual that if you're expanding the loop with a GPU block and radiator, that the Eiswolf is the way to do it.

 

[psychotik2k3]

my bad, i should RTFM correctly. didn't noticed it was an eiswolf with integrated pump as it looked like one of your old nexxoss GPX, didn't knew the pro version got an integrated pump.
And as i allways have to look at the names because i allways mismatch.

So can you tell marketing that they modify their press release kit because on the reviews i saw everyone indicates that it's expandable wnad that you can add a graphic card but never with the fact that the GPU cooler must avec a pump integrated (or add another pump in the loop)

thanks anyway.

sebastien

 

[davido_labido]

It is no problem Sebastien, I can see how it could be confused, hopefully, with the new Eiswolf versions, it should be a lot clearer as they show the pump on the side. I am not sure if the Eisbaer manuals will be updated with the new Eiswolf images, but I will mention it .

We do try and inform reviewers that we work with that you will require a second pump if you're going to expand the loop with more than an extra radiator and we try and get materials where they show the Eisbaer and Eiswolf together. However, reviewers are rather independent and like to do their own thing so that they can show unbias results and sometimes, admittedly, our press kits have been up to scratch. We are working on streamlining the press process, trying to get the correct information to the correct people and also trying to make it so manuals are easier for customers to read, however, this all takes time and will likely not be something that customers will see an overnight change with, but they should see gradual changes over time.

If you would like any further help with your loop, feel free to ask.