Hi Everyone,
 
So the pump that came with my Hadron Hydro kit leaks.  EVGA was awesome enough to send me a replacement pump.  That one leaks, too.  They both work fine for about a few days, but then they start leaking.  I suspect they weren't tested under load, with warm 60 C water rushing through them.  
 
Whatever their testing methods, I decided not to mess around with thousands of dollars of EVGA moba and GPU.  I ordered a custom pump from another vender and I installed it.  After several days of intense World of Tanks action, I am happy to report that my new pump does NOT leak.  At all.  Not a drop.  So I have confirmed the problem in fact lay with the pumps that came with the EVGA Hadron Hydro kit.
 
Note also the design of the new pump:

• The new pump is smaller, but retains approximately the same size reservoir.
• The new pump is quieter.
• The new pump is made from a clear ceramic.  It feels more sturdy and the seams between the 3 pieces (pump, plexi-top, reservoir) are nicely made with gaskets between them.
• The new pump reservoir fills from the top, not the side.  Seriously, the old fill hole design doesn't let you fill the reservoir all the way, unless you tilt your machine!!  It also makes spills more likely; I had to put paper towers underneath the pump after tilting it just to fill the reservoir.  No, just no.
• The new pump came in 3 pieces that are easy to assemble.  If the new pump motor were to fail (years from now, I expect), I just have to order an $18 part instead of replacing the other two pieces.  The pump itself is a tiny thing, and unscrews easily from the bottom of the plexi-top (their name for the middle piece).
• The entire new pump with top and reservoir costs around $55 from an online shop.  Somewhat more expensive ($76) from a more famous online shop that rhymes with "ozenCPU"  I sadly paid the higher price, but they threw in a couple of 1/4" G screw plugs because you need at least one in my kind of setup (one outlet, one return). 
• The new pump seems more powerful.  My CPU temps top out around 52 instead of 60 now.  Maybe some of that is the thermal paste on the CPU settling in, but I think it's mostly the stronger pump.
• The new pump has a connection that hooks right up to a fan header on my motherboard.  The old pump needed an adapter, although admittedly the old pump had a cool LED light inside of it.  Not a big deal, if I need a light I can buy one easily enough.
• The new pump drives out the air bubbles immediately.  The old pump struggled to do so.  I had to tilt the case with the old pump running to try and get the air bubbles out.  All I had to do with the new pump was to fill it as it consumed the coolant to fill air spaces in my loop.
• The new pump does not leak like the old one did.

So everything is working great now!  Kudos to EVGA for their Stinger Z87 Motherboard and their GTX 780 Hydro Copper video card.  The performance is great, I've got settings in World of Tanks maxed running on 3 screens (5970x1080 odd resolution due to bezel adjustment).  
 
However, I strongly recommend taking precautions if you are going to use the stock pump that comes with their Hadron Hydro water cooling kit.  I suspect that that entire batch of pumps they had made for them leaks.  Now with the new pump, I can run my computer without fear of coolant gushing everywhere and turning my system into an expensive hunk of junk.  Seriously, it's not fun worrying about a leak while running your rig.  Water cooling has been around for a while; tubes, fittings, and pumps are all made and tested to not leak.  The fact that the stock pump from EVGA leaks is... not good.

I almost bought that same pump. Its nice to see that it will fit the stock pump stand. I wish I could buy that part seperate from evga's kit because I plan to assemble my own parts. 

KMC234,
this is definitely unusual, I have personally built a few of these and done some long term testing without issue.  That being said I would like to work with you on getting this squared away.
I will be contacting you directly shortly.
 

Hi Jfeil,
 
I'm so sorry to hear that your graphics card was ruined!  Maybe my noobishness with regards to water cooling PCs served me well here.  I do happen to be an engineer (of sorts), and when I unpacked the kit and looked at the pump I was dubious.  So I was careful with it, and monitored it constantly during the first few days of usage.  I put paper towels around and under it.  Eventually when it started oozing bright green liquid I was able to see it immediately and I drained the loop.
 
The warm water guess is just that: a guess.  But it seems the leak got worse only after putting the system under load.  So maybe it's not a terrible guess.
 
Like I said, I'm a complete noob in this area, but the pump I eventually purchased rocks.  It was clearly made for this kind of operation in mind, and very fortunately it fits in the tiny space allotted for a pump in the Hadron Hydro case.  If you're still going to use the case, I might suggest buying the same one I bought.  I've been running it for about a week now under constant load and so far, so good.
 
The pump combo I ordered is called "Alphacool DC-LT Ceramic 12V DC Pump + Plexi Top + Reservoir".  The ceramic building material they used probably doesn't expand/contract due to heating very much.  Internet search that and you should find some vendors that sell that pump.  One note, however.  The pump screw holes are aligned 90 degrees to the outlet port, so you can't screw it into the existing mount or the case, unfortunately.  You'll have to use another mounting scheme, maybe strapping it in with zip ties or an angle bracket.

bigbrag
I almost bought that same pump. Its nice to see that it will fit the stock pump stand. I wish I could buy that part seperate from evga's kit because I plan to assemble my own parts. 

If you buy the pump, note that the screw holes on it are facing the wrong way to be used with the stock pump stand (the pump stand which comes with EVGA's kit already attached to the pump, NOT the Hadron case itself).  You'll need to find another way to secure it.

kmc234
 
 
 

 
FYI those anti kink coils belong on the OUTSIDE of the tubing, not inside!  You want to fix that ASAP as mixing metals within a loop will cause blocks to breakdown and deteriorate. Could make the tubing cloudy and can clog your pump/blocks.
 

 
Don't let this happen to you!
 

 

saer.

kmc234
 
 
 

 
FYI those anti kink coils belong on the OUTSIDE of the tubing, not inside!  You want to fix that ASAP as mixing metals within a loop will cause blocks to breakdown and deteriorate. Could make the tubing cloudy and can clog your pump/blocks.
 

 
Don't let this happen to you!
 

 

Yuck
Is that the EK block??

I am not an experienced water cooling enthusiast, so a question of difficulty will be subjective.  I didn't think it was very easy because I was afraid of getting coolant on my sensitive electronic parts.  Still, I've done it 3 times now and I only had a tiny spill one time and it didn't fall on anything sensitive.
 
Here is what I do:
I went to the store (Target?) and purchased a "Flavor Injector", which is just a plastic syringe that comes with a pair of metal needle tips.  I say needle but the diameter of the tip is actually something like 2.5 mm.  The tip wasn't suited to my purpose so I snipped maybe the last cm off of it using the snippy part of a pair of pliers.  So now I've got a syringe that can get into a tight space and suck the water out.  I also purchased some plastic containers to hold coolant.
 
Because the old pump was poorly designed with the reservoir cap on the SIDE of the reservoir (****), I now had to tilt my Hadron case to the side maybe 60 degrees from vertical.  I propped it up with some books to make sure it didn't slip during this delicate procedure.  I also had to tilt it so that the open panel of the case of facing up  towards me, which meant that if I had a spill it would go right onto the motherboard.  Sadly, this was my only option because of the placement of the reservoir cap.
 
I opened up the cap, and I used the syringe to drain as much of the coolant as I could get to.  Then I squirted the coolant into one of the plastic bins I purchased.  Following this I closed up the cap, picked up my entire Hadron case and tilted the machine around until some of the coolant was back in the reservoir.  I repeated this several times; this took a while.  I didn't get ALL of the coolant out this way, but I was able to clear most of the lines, allowing me to transplant the pump safely without getting any coolant on conductive surfaces.
 
I'm going to have to do this one more time because of the metal anti-kink coil inside 2 of the tubes.  I put them in there because the instructions that came with the Hadron case said I should.  However, the poster above you in this thread has really put the fear of me of corrosion for my water blocks, especially the delicate one on the GPU (GTX 780 Hydro Copper).  So I'm going to have to drain the coolant, pull out the metal coils, cut more tubing, replace the tubing, put the plastic anti-kink coils I purchased on the new tubes, hook up everything, put the coolant back in, and then leak test again.  Thankfully, draining the coolant should be A LOT easier and less risky because the reservoir of the pump I purchased (images earlier in thread) allows me to fill / drain the reservoir from the top.
 
If someone had told me how much work this would end up being before I started, I'm not sure I would have tried to water cool my system.  I think, knowing what I know now, I would have custom purchased all the parts of my loop instead of buying the kit.  That would have allowed me to make sure everything was compatible, put a drain fitting on the lowest tube, and really made maintenance a lot easier.

Hi Jfeil,
 
Thanks for your suggestion.  Yes, I had immediately considered using one of the end caps on the bottom of the graphics card as a drain port.  The reason I did not is because I didn't know the viscosity of the coolant; I imagined it would be like unscrewing the joint underneath a sink.  Fluid would start oozing out of the unsealed screw, and I didn't know if it would start running along the bottom of the graphics card towards the motherboard.  I suppose I could tilt the machine a little bit towards the table edge so that gravity would encourage the fluid to run away from the motherboard.  I had actually purchased a medium-sized funnel expressly to carry out the procedure you outlined.
 
In the end, I still went with the syringe because then I would be 100% sure I wouldn't leak even a single drop of fluid onto a conductive surface.  But you're right I think; even if I did spill some coolant I could just dab it up with a paper towel and wait 24 hours to ensure everything was dry before plugging in the power again.
 
Acorn248, of course I detached the power from the case before doing anything related to the fluid lines.  I didn't mention it earlier as a step because I thought it would be obvious.

Hmm not pleased to read this, since I was almost ordering hardon hydro + waterkit and it will be my.first watercooling computer so I was happy when I found the evga kit since its all completed and made for the case... But what now? What's the name or size of your new pump? And did u need to replace anything else,? Is it worth buying the kit? Please advice me

Hi have the same problem, I've had my hydro kit for just over 3 weeks and the seal between the pump and res has failed and started to leak 
 
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I'm now looking for a replacement pump and res, what are the model numbers for the ones you've used?
 

I don't believe so. The hydro kit I have goes through an entire reservoir of coolant a month, so obviously there's seepage somewhere. I just can't find it.  Will have to figure out how to separate the housing from the pump to fully check it. I'm wondering if it's leaking inside the pump because mine has quit pumping twice now, I have to unplug/replug the pump back in before it resumes working, so it's going to get RMA'd regardless.

kougar
I don't believe so. The hydro kit I have goes through an entire reservoir of coolant a month, so obviously there's seepage somewhere. I just can't find it.  Will have to figure out how to separate the housing from the pump to fully check it. I'm wondering if it's leaking inside the pump because mine has quit pumping twice now, I have to unplug/replug the pump back in before it resumes working, so it's going to get RMA'd regardless.

I am very hesitant to build a new system around Hadron Hydro cooling due to this issue.