Water Sound Inside My PC

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by garryj, Feb 4, 2013.

  1. garryj

    garryj Active Member

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    My PC has started to make some sounds inside it that sound like water, almost like a trickling sound on and off.

    I have a water cooler and have had for some time, do you think there is an issue with it?

    I am kinda worried the water will gush out and cause serious damage to all my PC components and potentially electrocute me.


    Anyone else had this issue or come across something similar?
     
  2. Veteran

    Veteran Ancient Guru

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    Check the connections.
    The sound of water is probably where some of the water has evaporated over along period of time due to heat, Hence an airpocket and the sound of water trickling.

    I would say top up the water but i guess you cant cause its an all in one cooler.
     
  3. ground_zero298

    ground_zero298 Master Guru

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    All in ones can be bled if they have the rubber hoses. Just need a small bowl and a 1/4 inch, double brass barb.

    Aio's have oil, not water inside them. Won't hurt anything if they leak. They all have a little air inside them that usually in stuck in the radiator, if it gets bumped or moved you will hear it flowing through the system. I've seen them take up to 3 days to get settled again.
     
  4. _OM_

    _OM_ Guest

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    ...Ironic time to hijack a thread, but here's what hit me last night:

    One of my neighbors called up with a cooler problem. Knowing that I have boycotted the NFL until Jerry Jones a) gets banned from any association with the NFL and/or b) winds up dying painfully and moving on to that place in Hell he has reserved for him(*), he invited me over to see if I could find out where this small puddle of water at the base of his tower case came from. As he has no cats or other pets, he was concerned that his liquid cooler had sprung a leak.

    ...When I got to the system, there was a small puddle indeed. About the diameter of a beer can based on the evaporation stain it left on the desk, halfway poking out from under the case. He'd smartly turned off the system, and hadn't seen any issues before noticing the puddle, and although he picked the parts he had someone else assemble it. The case has two sides to it, so I pulled off the base side - the bottom side, or the one on the wavesolder side of the MB, YMMV on the name, natch :) - and had a look to see what sort of damage was there while the neighbor moved stuff from the hatch side away.

    ...On closer inspection, there was no sign of any damage per se, not to mention any indication that this problem had been going on for any real length of time. The neighbor stated that he'd cleaned the desk a week earlier, and didn't see any signs of moisture or spillage, nor the small puddle. The tower *is* near the room's A/C unit, and as we've had warmer-than-normal temps this Winter - Apparently Obama repealed Winter in Texas for some reason(#) - I began to suspect condensation. But the humidity around these hyar parts, podnuh's, ain't been exactly whut y'all'd be calling =damp=, not by a long shot!

    ...Anyway, off goes the hatch side, and he's got a Thermaltake Water 2.0 for a cooler. So, after a quick look-see for water, I pull the cooler and check for leaks. Save for one drop on the cooler's heat exchange plate, there's no sign of any leakage. In fact, the cooler appears to be full, and he's suffered no overheating since the system first went online, not even on the one or two days the A/C was off and the heater was running full blast.

    ...Further inspection showed no sign of moisture on the motherboard below the CPU, but there *was* water stains on the backside of the video card, and once I got that out of the way there were a few drops inside the plastic enclosure, and evidence some water had gotten into the video card's fans and splattered all inside the enclosure; the flying droplets had left tracks in the dust on the inside of the enclosure.

    ...While my neighbor started drying out the video card with Q-Tips - as well as cleaning the fans and enclosure - I took a much closer look at the motherboard. What I found was condensation all on the inside loops of those heat sinks that surround the CPU's ZIF socket. No moisture on the CPU - other than the thermal paste - or any part of the socket, but those decorative sinks all had beads of H2O inside of them. A more scrutinizing visual check showed very small water drops and damp dust on the top of some components, but only towards the outer or top parts, i.e., on the upwards-facing side of a barrel cap, but only on the side away from the MB. No evidence at all of the moisture having drained down the MB before collecting on the components.

    ...All in all, there were about a dozen components below those heat sinks that showed any signs of having water or condensation dripped on them, all of which were positioned in the direction of where the puddle under the case collected itself when the dribbling was occurring. There was some puddling evidence inside at the bottom of the case above the outside puddle, but this had apparently not persisted long, and the water had leaked through the bottom of the case and onto the desk before causing any semblance of corrosion either on the MB, the CPU, the Video Card, or the Case.

    ...Which brings up this interesting query: has anyone here ever come across a situation where the heat of those radiator fins on one of these fancy "Military-Class" type motherboards has collected condensation when operated in a passively-cooled environment, with the A/C in the room keeping the temps around 65F/18C? I've seen this occur on a 1KW Linear Amplifier using a quad of old 6JB6 tubes - old CB jackjaw put fins around the tubes because he was blowing them at least once a week, and the first day we hit 90% humidity, it looked like the damn thing was an aquarium that had sprung a leak after a few hours of operation! - but not on *any* system running even superheated.

    ...Again, no sign that the Thermaltake sprung any sort of leak, and there was no spill of any sort outside of the case from a beverage or any other normal source. So it's a bit of a mystery at this point in time as to what happened. In any case, he had another non-liquid cooler to replace the TTK with, and was supposed to go and grab a Cooler Master H60 to act as a backup with all the chip OC turned off. I've got the TTK over here running on an old spare somewhat dead box that won't boot, but it'll at least run the cooler to see if anything dribbles. I left a few dry tissues at the base of the case, just to help catch the water and isolate a bit better from whence the dribblets drobbled.

    (*) Two levels below all the IRS workers, just at the end of the flame trench where all those surplus F-1s that were shipped in are constantly burning and frying all the anti-NASA morons and the Secretaries of Defense who've screwed up over the decades, including McNamara, with seats reserved for Rumsfeld and Dickhead Cheney.

    (#) But I digress. Besides, it's best not to mix politics and overclocking :p
     

  5. ground_zero298

    ground_zero298 Master Guru

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    If you have humidity in cool air it will will condense on a warm radiator. Kind of like toilet.

    Humidity and cold air probably have the fins cooler than the ambient air temp, cold air coming in the front of the rad then warm air coming out the back can create condensation.

    I've seen people use humidifiers on external radiators, they were capable of getting into the 30's in a 70 degree ambient temps. Down sides was condensation through out the loop.

    It's probably just a fluke of temperature circumstance. I know when I was in the military in Texas (chiller ac units) and had the air cranked, their were days I would open the door and you could see the air start to condense where the warm met the cold. Sometimes the doorway floor and surroundings would start to get wet.

    In all my years traveling around in the army I've never seen weather like Texas anywhere else.
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2013
  6. Arctucas

    Arctucas Guest

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    The other way 'round.

    Warm, moist air condenses on a cooler, dryer object.

    For example; a glass of iced tea on a humid summer day.

    You will not see condensation form on a cup of hot coffee on a cold winter day.
     
  7. ground_zero298

    ground_zero298 Master Guru

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    Yes I know this. Was referring to the computer being mid 60's when he starts it, then the warm air circulating on the inside.
     
  8. Bogard

    Bogard Guest

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    water sound in PC, that is not good!! Get all water out of PC immediately, all components will be ruin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
  9. scheherazade

    scheherazade Ancient Guru

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    All my all-in-one's have had a water sound at some point.
    Some have always had a water sound.
    Some have had a water sound later at some point.

    Roughly :
    2x aquagate 120
    2x h50
    2x h60
    1x h80
    1x h100


    I've had one leak (H50).
    The leak seems to have self-sealed, as the fluid gunked/congealed over the hole, and ended up plugging it.
    Can't say it was by design, but it happened.
    The leak was on the radiator, and never got onto anything else.
    The unit kept working, and I found the issue during a bi-yearly clean, long after it happened.
    I replaced it just in case, but didn't have any problems regardless.

    -scheherazade
     

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