Well, isn't this great... Thought I had a quiet weekend (well, relatively quiet, read the next post), with a bit of gaming and such. But apparently, my oh-so-wonderful water-cooled video card thought otherwise.

Twas Friday afternoon: I booted up my pc. Although it was a bit more silent than usually, I discarded it as being the bit cold weather of these days.
Thought it would be neat to do a bit of retro-gaming, and fired up the old Half-Life 1...

About two minutes in the game, alarms and whistles and popups went off, and as the message your card is too hot appeared on the screen, I distinctively shouted out: WTF!
I quickly cranked up the ATI console, and saw an astonashing 113 degrees C ! Wow, I quickly turned off the pc, disconnected the power, hoping the coolant would kick in when I turn it back on. It didn't... Temperature was climbing back to 114 degrees C, before I pulled the plug.

Something was definitely wrong with the coolant block. I opened up the case, and it didn't take a long time to see what was going on: the coolant block was leaking fluid. The greenish coloured water was pretty much in every crack and nook, and all around the fan and fan speed regulator. So much for the fan, and most likely, the water circulation thingy was dead as well.
I barely got it out, when I felt the water seeping out of the block. Yikes!

I quickly speed dialed my dealer, and turned the card in. Since it's not normal that a Thermal Take coolant block breaks after 8 months, my dealer is trying to trade it in for another card: either the same but air cooled, or a better one. Let's hope for the latter.