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H80i burst all over my rig and myself


MCR202

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Just got an H80i that I was excited to get installed, but that excitement went away about 20 minutes ago when the hose to the radiator popped off without warning and covered my entire build, the chair that was about 4 feet away, and myself with coolant.

 

I have absolutely no idea why this happened since I wasn't even touching the radiator or the waterblock at the time, and hadn't in at least 5 or 10 minutes as I was busy putting other parts of my case back together. Once I put the hose back on, it seemed tight enough that it would take quite a bit of force to get it to come off.

 

The motherboard and CPU were sitting in pools of the stuff, which smells like sulfur / rotten eggs. PSU was luckily on the other side of the divided case (Air 540).

 

I'm not really sure how to go about cleaning it up, as it has managed to fill every single space that could hold pools / deposits of it. What kind of coolant are these filled with?

 

Not really sure what to do here... the H80i is obviously not going to be very useful now, and the rest of my build is a mess. The only lucky part was that my 4 GPUs were on the other side of the room at the time.

 

:(:

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Any help would be appreciated. I gave up after spending two hours trying to clean as much of the coolant off the motherboard as I could. The coolant has left a nasty residue behind everywhere it has dried up, and there are still "pools" of it sitting in the 24-pin ATX connector, the CPU power connector, and various other places where having a liquid sitting is a bad idea.

 

As of right now I have a useless Z87 FTW motherboard, a H80i with little if any coolant left in it, and a mining rig that isn't mining much of anything.

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DONT power it up anymore[of course] and rma the cooler

if it were me id remove the motherboard and all affected parts and clean very thoroughly and let dry a couple days. pay attention to any connectors as far as cleaning as their most important..

i feel your pain with everything and having to put your build on hold but cleaning is essential.

quite frankly if it were me id use compressed air after cleaning while holding parts upside down

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DONT power it up anymore[of course] and rma the cooler

if it were me id remove the motherboard and all affected parts and clean very thoroughly and let dry a couple days. pay attention to any connectors as far as cleaning as their most important..

i feel your pain with everything and having to put your build on hold but cleaning is essential.

quite frankly if it were me id use compressed air after cleaning while holding parts upside down

I should have clarified that it hasn't been powered on since the "explosion", and wasn't powered on during... it was mostly in pieces when it happened. The waterblock hadn't even been placed yet. I guess that's lucky point number two technically. I definitely wouldn't even consider powering it up in its current state... plus if I tried to hook up the 24 pin and 8 pin power connectors, I'd just end up ruining the cables coming from the PSU.

 

The coolant managed to travel a lot further than I thought it did... I'm finding little spots of it all over pretty much everything in the room today. Had to have been under a lot of pressure based on that and the noise it made when it happened.

 

Thanks for the input guys... I think I'm going to try the distilled water route over the weekend if I have time. Will most likely just pick up a replacement motherboard before then. I guess worst case, the new motherboard will probably cover its own cost by the time I have enough spare time to deal with cleaning the old one anyway.

 

As far as the RMA, I sent a support request, but judging by what I'm seeing on this forum, I'm not really counting on hearing back from Corsair any time soon.

 

Does anyone know what is actually in the H80i? The only info I can find is about the previous generation (h80), and claims propylene glycol and water, but I don't think that's what came out of this one.

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I would fill a plastic bin up with distilled water, and soak the effected items. Let dry, and hope for the best.

 

That's an idea many people don't think of. In the Navy, we used to wash all of the electronic components in distilled water once every couple of years. I've also done this will a cellphone or two that took a dip, one in salt water and one in the toilet. Both phones worked well afterwards.

 

The only concern I'd have is if the component had relays that weren't sealed but, if they are coolant soaked, what's the difference anyway.

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Like every one else suggests, do not power up anything in that build that was affected by the spill, and take time to clean the mess up. one way might be like the other person said which was to get to a air compressor to blow out some of the residue. you probably should try to contact corsair directly through their support line. other wise good luck.
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I think they have a form you can fill out to get reimbursed for components damage by a failed cooler. I unfortunately received an H100i from Corsair over the holiday that the hoses had detached from. Noticed when I was taking the wrapping off the box that the box was damp. Opened the box up to find coolant allover the box and the hose had separated from the radiator. We had extremely cold temperatures while the box was being shipped. I am not sure what the freeze point of the coolant is but if the coolant froze during shipping I am guessing that could have damaged it.
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  • 2 weeks later...
The coolant managed to travel a lot further than I thought it did... I'm finding little spots of it all over pretty much everything in the room today. Had to have been under a lot of pressure based on that and the noise it made when it happened.

 

The coolant is not under pressure. After I got my H100i I took my old H100 apart just for the heck of it. Its coolant definitely was not pressurized in any way. The liquid itself was indistinguishable (to me anyway) from automobile coolant.

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Have you heard back from Corsair regarding replacement components? My H80i just exploded on my computer while it was on, and seems to have fried the mobo/psu/gpu, and I don't know what else (I hope not my processor/HD/SSD).

Timmeh, please submit an RMA request to get he ball rolling. Make sure let them know whats happened and you would like to file a damage claim.

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Thanks, peanutz.

 

I did file a ticket. I received a call from Customer Service today and was told to expect a warranty technician(?) to reach out to me before the end of the day to give me more information on the process, but that didn't happen. Bit frustrating, but "c'est la vie", I suppose.

 

Not trying to derail the thread. I was just inquiring because this fellow seems to have had a similar experience with an exploded component and I wanted to hear his experience since I'm just starting.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Curious how this all worked out for those with a burst cooler?

 

My H80i just burst while installing the mother board. A good portion of the coolant getting on the mobo. CPU seemed to be spared. The radiator and fans were installed and the water block was sitting off to the side when it happened. One of the hoses came off of the water block. And it certainly seemed under pressure as the coolant arched upwards from the hose. I live in Denver (no Broncos jokes please :) and maybe altitude had something to do with it.

 

I’m curious why some people are recommending to wash the mobo, ram, etc. Is there a conductive residue left once the parts have dried? Everything looks clean to me after drying. I’m tempted to put the stock cooler back on and see if it all works ok. I could then return the cooler to Micro Center for a new one… or maybe even a different one? I have a Cooler Master Elite 130 case by the way.

 

Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

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If it's standard ethylene glycol in the unit then, yes, it is conductive and even more so if not pure.. I've used distilled water in the past to clean electronic assemblies after getting them gunky with spilled coffee, soft drinks, etc. I am not sure what residue would remain after ethylene glycol dries but, at the voltages in question, probably don't pose much of an issue.
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Curious how this all worked out for those with a burst cooler?

 

My H80i just burst while installing the mother board. A good portion of the coolant getting on the mobo. CPU seemed to be spared. The radiator and fans were installed and the water block was sitting off to the side when it happened. One of the hoses came off of the water block. And it certainly seemed under pressure as the coolant arched upwards from the hose. I live in Denver (no Broncos jokes please :) and maybe altitude had something to do with it.

 

I’m curious why some people are recommending to wash the mobo, ram, etc. Is there a conductive residue left once the parts have dried? Everything looks clean to me after drying. I’m tempted to put the stock cooler back on and see if it all works ok. I could then return the cooler to Micro Center for a new one… or maybe even a different one? I have a Cooler Master Elite 130 case by the way.

 

Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

 

 

The bolded is what happened with my H80i, though mine exploded while I was out and the computer was idle.

 

I have no idea what to wash the components with, as I didn't even bother trying to do that. My strategy was to snap a bunch of pictures of the damage, create a ticket, AND immediately call Corsair and see what their plan of action was/get the ball rolling. My fear was that cleaning the components would do nothing, and then Corsair, while dealing with me and my request for assistance, would have issues with whatever action I took/not warranty parts.

 

It took them a good bit of time (with a fair bit of me being a squeaky wheel) to get me sorted out, but I just shipped my components to them for "internal testing". They're supposed to determine whether or not the H80i was defective, and whether they'll pay for damages.

 

I highly suggest you go this route. While inconvenient/time consuming/incredibly frustrating (I'm going on a month with no computer :evil:), it seems the most prudent/safe course of action to me.

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I’m curious why some people are recommending to wash the mobo, ram, etc. Is there a conductive residue left once the parts have dried?

Yes, it's conductive. So you want to wash it good and let it dry a couple of days before powering up.

 

A good fast drying electronice cleaner is also a good choice but can be expensive depending on where you get it. Isopropyl or rubbing alcohol works too.Make sure it's 90%

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  • 1 year later...

My H100i burst open as well. The hose came off at the CPU water block. It happened while the computer was turned off and had been off for about a week. I built this system about a year and a half ago.

 

I was fortunate in that the computer was turned off AND the power supply was turned off. I was just setting there working on another computer when the one next to me made a loud noise and burst. Very odd.

 

This was my best system, which cost me a fortune to build.

Case was a Lian Li PC-V2120

ASUS RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION

64 GB Ram

1 Gig of SSD

2 Gig of hard drive

Core i7-4930K

GEFORCE GTX 780 TI (When I bought it this card alone cost me over $900)

 

 

The PC-V2120 is a huge tower. Most of the fluid settled at the bottom of the case. The one component though that got drenched was the 780 TI.

 

I'm going to disassemble every thing and clean with alcohol. We will see how things go.

 

I have pictures, and will be contacting Corsair.

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Isopropyl alcohol the 99.9% pure stuff is also good for cleaning stubborn residue of boards with a short bristled brush preferably nylon bristles.

On the 780 Ti the stuff went down in behind the fans. I'm going to get a Turkey Baster and wash down in and around the fans. I'm worried about the bearings on the fans and the cooling fins.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So all my components were okay and the machine is back up and running. I'm using a Noctua air cooler and am very happy with it. I've overclocked with comparable temps.

 

Corsair wanted me to

1) Pay to ship the failed H100i back to them

2) Then they would determine after receipt what they would do to make good on the failed cooler. They could not tell me if I would get a new cooler.

 

I said no thanks, and I'm done with Corsair. It's not like I don't have other choices. LOL

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Holy crap! I am in the process of finishing up my build (all brand new parts) and after reading this I'm wondering if it was such a good idea to go with Corsair for a lot of the parts. One part being the H110i GTX.

 

I'm also surprised that nobody from Corsair has commented on this thread. Them "laying low" about this obvious issue scares me to death after the money I've invested in my brand new system.

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  • Corsair Employee
So all my components were okay and the machine is back up and running. I'm using a Noctua air cooler and am very happy with it. I've overclocked with comparable temps.

 

Corsair wanted me to

1) Pay to ship the failed H100i back to them

2) Then they would determine after receipt what they would do to make good on the failed cooler. They could not tell me if I would get a new cooler.

 

I said no thanks, and I'm done with Corsair. It's not like I don't have other choices. LOL

 

If the cooler was purchased within 30 days, we will cover the shipping via a return label after the RMA has been approved. However, if there is an issue with return expenses, you can call our customer service directly and ask to see if a label can be made for you as an exception. After we get the cooler back, we'll exchange it for a new one as we don't ship out used coolers.

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