Eisbaer Extreme Solo

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bkrownd

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I'm trying to fill and test an Eisbaer Extreme Solo I just got. (the pump/radiator unit without the CPU block) I ran tubes from the in/out ports to a jug of distilled water, using soft tubing and bulkhead fittings on the side of the jug. The results are not what I expected.

Since this is a test I am only powering the large "molex" power cable, assuming that the VPP755 will run at its preset speed without the PWM connection. Is this assumption correct?

The pump runs, and the unit filled with water, but the flow rate is MUCH less than I expected. I tilted the unit in all directions trying to get all of the air out of the radiator, but even after more than an hour I could still hear water splashing sounds inside the unit suggesting there is quite a bit of air trapped inside. I pulled the fill port plug and confirmed that the water was up to the top. Also, the flow rate is not constant, but changes unexpectedly. Most of the time the flow is slow, but at one point the water starting coming out very strong and fast for no obvious reason, and soon it was slow again. I can't trust putting together a working loop and installing the unit until I understand why it is running so weakly and inconsistently. Can you provide any suggestions?

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bkrownd

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I got rid of the jug and closed the loop with a little rotary flow indicator at the end of the hoses, using gravity to vent bubbles and top off via holding its port as the highest point. After churning out some of the little bubbles for the first minute the unit settled down and ran silently after that. The rotary flow indicator doesn't really provide any quantitative sense of flow rate since it spins faster than I can see, and I don't have a strobe to flash it with. Unless I get some kind of quantitative flow indicator I'm just going to have to go on faith that it's pumping the proper amount of coolant.

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bkrownd

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It is installed and running quietly, cooling my CPU only.

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The pump tach is connected to the CPU_OPT (read-only?) header on my motherboard, reading either 3800, 4000 or 4200 RPM on different days. I have no previous experience with water cooling, so I can't really say anything about performance until I get an in-line coolant thermometer, but my computer is working normally.

By the end of this year I'd like to get a new graphics card with water block, and to support that I also got a NexXxoS 360mm UT60 radiator to add to the loop.
 
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bkrownd

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The Asus motherboard software reports about 30-32C when not much is happening, but it varies quite a bit as different process start up. When I run MSI Kombustor "CPU burner" it goes up to about 71C. (4.7 GHz i7-4790K) I don't have any other stress testing software right now.
 
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bkrownd

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I put the pump cable on the CPU_OPT header, which I think is read-only RPM. (not PWM control) The fan cable is on the CPU_FAN header with PWM control.
 
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bkrownd

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I haven't taken it out of the housing to check the setting, but I am expecting that it was set at 5 when it was assembled.

When I run MSI Kombustor "CPU burner" the pump RPM goes up from 3800 to 4440 RPM, and then back to 3800 when I stop the burner, so maybe the motherboard is actually controlling the pump PWM (CPU_OPT) using the CPU_FAN curve I set for the fans. The motherboard manual is not clear about this. It seems to be working well, though. I intend to get a coolant thermometer and flow rate sensor installed.
 
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bkrownd

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Here's an update since I'm currently servicing my Eisbaer Extreme Solo coolant system for the first time: After roughly 6 months running successfully as shown above I am completely rebuilding/upgrading my system this week. (reasons unrelated to liquid cooling) In that time the Eisbaer ran daily without any obvious problems. I don't do stress tests or really monitor coolant/cpu temperature closely, so I can only say my system always ran fine under normal load. After the first month I noticed a bit of fine black sediment developing in the bottom of the integrated reservoir, which I suspected was paint flakes from the radiator and black fittings. I will disassemble the CPU waterblock eventually to see how much sediment ended up in the fins. Hopefully the fine sediment will be a lot less after this first rebuild. Also after about 2-3 months the loss of coolant was enough that the pump would produce a burst of fine bubbles when I first turned the computer on. (there was never any noticeable external leakage) The churning bubbles only lasted a couple seconds at power-up, and the bubbles were re-absorbed during the first hour of operation so I didn't worry about them but did intented to top off my coolant soon. I have a spinny flow indicator in the loop, so I monitored healthy coolant flow at all times. I did not observe any discoloration of the Mayhems X1 coolant after 6 months, or other weird gunk.

I am still only water cooling the CPU. I don't intend to add my GPU to the water cooling loop until I purchase a higher power GPU at some point in the future.

I have assembled my new computer, and will re-install the Eisbaer cooling loop soon when my new cpu waterblock arrives. I need to flush my Eisbaer Exteme Solo to get as much of that black sediment out of the reservoir as I can. Emptying the old coolant required a lot of rocking the Eisbaer back and forth to get all the water to flow out the ports. Now that it's empty I'm going to do a thorough flush with distilled water via all 3 ports.

This brings up a comment I had about the unit's construction. I originally expected the Eisbaer to have the normal nexxxos radiator ports inside, and my original intention was to set my loop up as shown in the photo above, take the end cover off the Eisbaer and I thought there would be a port at the top of the radiator endcap which I could fill from at the very highest point in my loop. When I took the end cover off the Eisbaer I discovered this radiator doesn't have the usual port in the endcap, which I guess was eliminated to have one less potential point of leakage/failure. However, the normal port on the endcap of the radiator (opposite the reservoir end) would have been really convenient for filling, draining, flushing and inspecting.

The Silent Wings fans used in the Eisbaer Extreme Solo are really silent. I like them a lot.
 
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buyobuyo

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bkrownd said:
Also after about 2-3 months the loss of coolant was enough that the pump would produce a burst of fine bubbles when I first turned the computer on. (there was never any noticeable external leakage) The churning bubbles only lasted a couple seconds at power-up, and the bubbles were re-absorbed during the first hour of operation so I didn't worry about them but did intented to top off my coolant soon.
Click to expand...

The drop in coolant level isn't due to a loss of fluid but a movement/consolidation of air trapped in the loop. Basically, a lot of micro bubbles and/or a few larger ones collected in your reservoir. The burst of fine bubbles when you power on the system is from the pump sucking air when it starts running. The bubbles aren't absorbed; they just collect somewhere in the system to form a bigger bubble.

Your black residue could also be the pump slowly eating itself from all the air you've been running through it.
 
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bkrownd

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I first noticed the fine sediment in the reservoir a couple of months before the momentary burst of tiny bubbles on start-up began happening.
 
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bkrownd

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I thought of taking a picture when I first noticed it, but it didn't change much after that so I never did. I just assumed it was finer bits of paint/coating flushed from the radiator and black fittings, like the flakes I saw during the initial flushing.

I have been occupied with configuring the new machine. The real test comes when I decide to install the water cooling loop, probably 2-3 weeks from now. Next weekend I may run the eisbaer just driving the rotary flow indicator like I did early on.
 
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