Jack4Smith

Zalman Reserator 2 - 2 years usage review

Monday, September 21, 2009 11:03:36 PM

Installation
In August 2007 I bought brand new PC. I have it in our living room, so I have decided to buy water cooling (WC) too to avoid noisy CPU and very noisy GPU (8800GTX) fans.

I have bought Zalman Reserator 2 with 8800GTX waterblock also from ZALMAN.

Installation was OK. I am "average" PC builder... I have built this PC by myself, so adding this WC to it was 4 hours work for me. I had to remove CPU and GPU passive and active cooling blocks and replace them with CPU waterblock (supplied with Reserator 2) and 8800GTX (bought separately).

See the pictures:

8800GTX fan removed and replaced by the waterblock
PC Case open with complete assembly
Mission accomplished

Initial lauch was also OK. Remaining air in the tubes was eliminated by lifting Reserator 2 above the PC. Flow indicator began to rotate and everything was so QUIET.

Usage
After 4 months of smooth operation the flow control began to beep accassionaly alerting me that the water flow stopped. Each time I had to push the RESET button on the Reserator or tilt it from side to side as described in the manual to force water to flow again - but you have to be near the PC during that time. Sometimes I let the PC turned on during the night and you can imagine how pleased I was in the morning returning to my PC with beeping Reserator for several hours already

.

This flow failings happened randomly, sometimes it was really lack of flow, but later I noticed that more and more often everything is going fine, flow was OK, indicator was rotating and SUDDENLY the Reserator STOPPED and began to beep. WTF?!?!?

See the movie:

I went through several forums and I have read many stories of this Reserator 2 where people indentified BROKEN FLOW CONTROL which STOPS the Reserator INSPITE OF THE FACT THE FLOW IS OK.

As I have mentioned these failings were random at first but few days ago it got worse and and the flow control failed to analyze real WATER flow at all and after few seconds of PC running flow control immediately began to beep. And after RESET AGAIN and AGAIN.... It was so annoying that I prepared myself for several weeks of PC outage and for calling my vendor to replace this Reserator under warranty conditions. I have ended up with adhesive tape over the RESET botton to force Reserator to RESET "automaticly" without my finger on it...

See the photo:

Reserator 2 with sticky tape

My last chance before claiming new Reserator was to replace the water inside, because I have also noticed few small blue object in the water tubes near "IN" sign of the Reserator.

I have bought new anti-corrosion liquid ZM-G200 and enough of the destilled water. When I opened the Reserator and poured out all the coolant I was very suprised to see the sediments and pieces of the agglutinated coolant inside on the walls.

See the photo:
Sediments of the coolant

So, I have tried to clean it all with destilled water and I have reassembled the Reserator agian with new coolant. But with no luck. The flow control was failing again on regular basis. So I have applied my sticky tape and played some game...

After aprox. 15 minutes of flow control failing and reseting IT STOPPED to fail and no beeping occured SINCE! Maybe the flow control was dirty and confused by sediments and replacing the coolant cleaned it after 15 minutes of forced operation with immediate RESET.

So now I am happy again looking forward next followin 6 months of operation till the collant´s sediments "damages" the flow control again...

JULY 2008 UPDATE
I had to clean the Reserator´s tubes again because sediments were blocking the coolant flow and the flow control was failing again. I will have to definitely find different coolant which does not agglutinate.

SEPTEMBER 2009 UPDATE and FINAL SOLUTION
As suggested by other users in January 2009 I have replaced ORIGINAL EXPENSIVE ZALMAN COOLAN with noname nonoriginal Alphacool AlphaCola coolant and suddenly ALL problems dissapeared and Ï have no problem since. It seams that ZM-G200 really sucks, it agglutinates and it is causing all the flow detector related problems.

D-Link DIR-655 one YEAR usage reviewFlag counter ;)

Comments

Unregistered user # Tuesday, May 13, 2008 10:14:25 PM

4polelowpass writes: Hi, I think there is a problem with the ZM-G200 anti-corrosion liquid since it does agglutinates. I too have flushed out as much as I can with distilled water, but the flow control kept failing in random fasion. Recently my Reserator 2 became totally unreliable, failing every 10 minutes or so. It has never been that bad before and I could not see why it was failing. I read an article about coolant additives at www.overclockers.com (http://www.overclockers.com/tips1153/index.asp) and it struck me to check the pH-value of the water I was using, and to my surprise it was not neutral (pH 7), it was around 4 to 5. To remedy this, I added small doses of household chlorine, (which has a pH-value of 11) until the coolant water became neutralized. Already after the first dose of chlorine, the Reserator went silent and now the pH-value of the coolant is between 6 or 7. Perhaps the Reserator senses this? It's a good feature to have considering that the coolant should have a pH-value of 7-8 to minimize corrosion. Strange thing is that is isn't mentioned in the documentation. My Reserator is happily doing it's thing and it has done so ever since I added chlorine. Now I'm going to add a little more for good measure. :)

Jack4Smith # Thursday, May 15, 2008 3:50:58 PM

So, you think the solution is

1) use ZM-G200 with coolant additives to reach ph 7-8
or
2) do not use ZM-G200 at all - just destilled water and additives
or
3) use different collant than ZM-G200 with additives

?

Unregistered user # Tuesday, September 30, 2008 11:59:31 PM

Karim writes: Thanx dude! The tape solution works! greetings from holland.

Jack4Smith # Tuesday, December 2, 2008 5:48:11 AM

To Karim:

The tape was only temporary last chance "solution"

before changing the coolant and cleaning the reserator.... I am now looking for new coolant which does not agglutinate...

Unregistered user # Friday, April 17, 2009 12:08:31 PM

Equinox writes: Hi, I had exactly the same problems with my Reserator 2. I removed as much of the agglutinated ZM-G200 coolant as possible and then tried a different coolant: innovatek Protect. It's a German brand that contains no colorant. Since then my Reserator 2 works smoothly. In addition, the new coolant also solved another problem. For some reason the destilled water with added ZM-G200 tended to form tiny bubbles inside the CPU block. These bubbles then got caught in the CPU/VGA block, aggregated and slowed down the overall water flow. Unfortunately, despite all my cleaning efforts, there are still some ZM-G200 sediments left in those hard-to-reach places. These sediments gradually come off and get caught in the "IN" valve of the Reserator. So, from time to time I have to free the valve from those pesky blue residues. But apart from that, the coolant swap definitely did the trick for me!

Unregistered user # Thursday, November 26, 2009 8:36:07 PM

Anonymous writes: I have had a Reserator 2 for a few years now on a Q6600. Never had a problem. Yesterday the alarm started when I turned on the PC. Discovered I had a few minutes earlier knocked the mains power plug out of its socket slightly. replaced it, and it seemed OK. But then noticed the flow indicator wasn't turning. Opened it up, and despite fluid in the tubes, the reservoir was bone dry. Not good. Mixed up a nice fresh batch of coolant, and started to pour it in, and it came straight out the bottom. It seems the grommets on the two cables (power and 12v) which enter at the bottom have hardened and shrunk. Weird thing is there is no sign of any coolant having leaked out onto the polished wood it sits on. I think I will throw it out and go back to a fan.

Unregistered user # Sunday, December 13, 2009 5:24:07 PM

Johnny S. writes: I thought my problem with the Reserator 2 was with the pump. I even bought a replacement pump. It became increasingly harder to get the Reserator 2 to start by itself, even though it would never fail once running. Changing the coolant has solved my problem. For now I'm not using additives, just dístilled water. Thanks for this information, it's been very helpful to me!

Unregistered user # Wednesday, December 30, 2009 7:53:27 PM

Mike N writes: I've had my Reserator 2 for about 2 years now. I had no problems at all until a week ago when I heard it start beeping when I was asleep. I turned my system off. I have a gateway quad core system but I only use the water cooling for my dual video card setup. I had not changed out the cooling for about 1 year and 9 month I think. But I had finally decided to change it. all the tubing was covered in the blue residue. As I was looking for information I saw that the unit itself is discontinued. Maybe this problem showed up after 1 year of use in all units and zalman decided to get rid of it before it cost them too much. It comes with a bottle of ZM-G300. which is the same as the ZM-G200 only half the size. I'm wondering if the consentration levels in that first bottle you use are not strong enough and cause it to agglutinate. Then when you mix the second batch, which is twice as much, it starts breaking free and clogging the system. I'm working on making a mini reservoir to put on the tube right before the intake value. it's sorta heart shaped with both the in and the out on the top. I'm hoping that maybe the particals will settle in the bottom of it instead of blocking the intake value. I am using 2 small hand sanitizer bottles for the reservoir body but I need to find something to bond or melt them together. I also need to figure out a way to make the values on it smaller because they are bigger then the hose but I have some ideas for that still. in the mean time I added some chlorine bleach to the tank. just gotta let it cycle through now then recheck the pH levels.

Jack4Smith # Tuesday, March 16, 2010 4:29:09 PM

Thank you for your comments. I am very glad that my experience helped you to solve the problem. I think this device is great product because of no fan present = extremely quiet operation.

Zalman only made one but fatal mistake with the ZM-G200 and ZM-G300 coolants.

Unregistered user # Wednesday, July 27, 2011 11:09:30 AM

Anonymous writes: I have a HUGE problem too -for years, with that f.....g "cooland" that those morons at Zalman provided! If we consumers were organized as we should, we should all demand our money back and send all units back to put them in their a....! That liquid indeed was solidifying in small bits that block the flow indicator and make it stop. It also "paints" everything that has touched that liquid, including the tubing and even the pump. After less than 2 years of operation when the problems started, I took off the internal pump and installed a thermaltake p500 pump inside the pc which had many times higher flow and was quiet enough. But guess what happened: Eventually after 2 years, it stopped working and the pc automatically shut down because the CPU temp exceeded the maximum limit! I thought the pump was dead since there was no flow at all and it didn't make that hum noise anymore, but after I disassembled it, I saw that it was all green inside, caused by the liquid and was hard to turn it by hand! So I washed it with alcohol while trying to turn it and after a couple of minutes it turned with ease and it became 100% operational again! Note that it failed even though I had replaced all the liquid with pure distilled water! But the remainings of that damn liquid on the internals of the whole system was still there. Even a small amount of that -again damn liquid was enough to produce more solid bits that block the flow indicator ocasionally. I had also "invented" that tape solution my self and now -as I'm righting I hear that stupid "tweet" alarm noise because the flow indicator is still stuck after I cleaned the pump. I'm trying to find something to put into the "Reserator" in order to dissolve those liquid remainings. BOTTOM LINE: 1. I won't ever buy anything again from Zalman. Their criminal stupidity has been proven -I had enough. 2. I won't ever put anything inside a PC water cooling system except pure, distilled water. Ever!

Unregistered user # Monday, January 16, 2012 7:39:52 AM

Anonymous writes: Greets. Sorry to bump an old thread but i have to respond to the last anonymous contributor that you cannot just use distilled water. It will cool better than anything else but it will also corrode all the copper and aluminum in the system, ie all your water blocks. The best thing to use is distilled water with additives. The most readily available products are standard high performance automotive coolant. Try the motorcyle racing coolants.