What did *you* upgrade today?

[MindCrime]

Well I've had a new unused Antec Kuhler H2O 650 sitting on my desk for almost a year now. It was suppose to go onto the 7970 but I never got around to it considering the shim, install and possible leakage worries.

Yesterday I noticed CPU temps on the 3770k almost hitting 80c, without even hitting 75% utilization, 2-3 CPU WUs + GPU. I noticed the cooler, which was already installed when I bought the machine, wasn't actually secured that well. It's a monster of a cooler, a tunic tower 120 extreme, and the attaching hardware is difficult to get to and apply decent torque without specialized tools. After removing the cooler I can see a less than desired thermal compound application, tons on one side and what looked to be a dry spot as if it was never in contact.

In goes the h2o 650, many of you have installed these AIO liquid coolers, their install can be a pain. Setting up the brackets for the 1155 I go to install the first cold plate mounting screw and a little dribble of luiqid just walks out of the cold plate head and onto the mobo...WTF?!?!? It came out as I was trying to install that first screw which was a tough angle to get by the hoses. The hoses attach to the pump head at 90deg fittings that can swivel. I imagine I put too much pressure on the fitting trying to get the screw lined up. No more fluid came out, it didn't exactly feel like water but it also didn't have a smell. I dried up the fluid continued the install of just the cold plate, removed all ram but 1 stick, removed 7970. I layed the rig with the motherboard face down over a few sheets of newspaper to detect leaks and with the radiator/fan/pump positioned outside the case sitting on the desk. I turned the rig on and it beeped at me for ram or gpu missing, so now its sitting there going on about 1 hour just to verify no leaks and break it in hopefully. I believe FourOh had a bad experience with an AIO was it a Kuhler?

Leak came from this area
kuhler leak.jpg