Some of you might recall I put up some pictures on Twitter showcasing new functionality called “Generation 2” Virtual Machines.  These new VMs support UEFI to enable fast boot and secure boot functionality in VMs.  The client OS for these VMs must be x64 and Windows 8 or later.  Here is a screenshot of the VM Creation screen showing the generation selection:

As you can see you have the two options.  One for Gen 1 which is the way things currently are in Hyper-V, and the other for Gen 2 which is the new functionality available through Hyper-V in Windows 8.1.

And here is a screenshot of the HD Partition screen within a VM that shows it is indeed in UEFI mode.  The partition structure is the dead giveaway as it’s GPT.

As you can see, this new feature is fully functional in this build of Windows 8.1.  I have been using it for various test VMs for a few days now and have not noticed any problems with the functionality.  I am very happy with the fact that these VMs boot in half the time as the older style ones did.

Anyway that’s it for now.  Stay tuned for a few more “Blue” related posts I will be doing in the coming days.

Open Letter to Microsoft and the Community

I decided to write this letter with the help of various others in the community to agree with my assessment of current things relating to Windows 7 and the way it is being handled.  Enjoy the letter, I think we make a LOT of good points that need to be considered.

The growing number of atrocities committed by Steven Sinofsky as the Senior Vice President of the Windows group has been mounting week by week. Recently, I think we saw the effect of this boil over. But first, before we get into that, I think we need to examine who he is and what he has done.

Steven Sinofsky was brought in during a time of great turmoil, when Microsoft was doing it’s damndest to recover from the mess that Jim Allchin and Brian Valentine made. Don’t get me wrong, they were good people and had only the best of intentions, but they made a damn mess out of Windows. Windows was late, unstable, and had an entire Operating System scrapped, billions wasted.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of a board member of Microsoft. Here we have the two highest revenue generating products, one ships like clockwork, pushes out innovation, is loved, has no PR problems, and most often comes in under budget. Then, we have this other product. It’s getting horrible press, it keeps getting delayed, it’s budget grows and its performance decreases.

The only logical choice is for Windows managed like Office. I must say, I was pretty excited when I heard that the Windows ship would be ran as tightly as Office. But as time passed, that excitement waned. It was two months after Windows Vista RTM’d that it became clear what kind of ship Windows was going to be.

Steven Sinofsky’s defiance to talk about Windows Vista Service Pack 1 painted the picture of what the road to the next version of Windows would be like. All we wanted to know is what Service Pack 1 would be. Would it fix performance bugs? Would it fix file transfer speeds? Should we have any hope that Windows Vista would get better? Alas, none of these questions were answered.

Soon after, Steven, under your directive, Microsoft employees were not even allowed to acknowledge that they were working on a new version of Windows. This was purely ludicrous, as we all know you would not have thousands of employees spinning around in their ergonomic chairs, in their beautiful little offices. The refusal to admit such a mundane detail was where your castle started to crumble.

This enraged us, and made us determined to undermine you in any way possible. We chose the method of rumor mongering. This gave way to the general belief that the next version of Windows would “go to pieces” or other stupid ideas. I will admit, this was not at all how we should of reacted. But you left us no choice. Damn it, you would not even let the name “Windows 7” be spoken until November of 2007!

As you continued to keep up your policy of defiance, all of got even more and more angry. All the Microsoft contacts that anyone in this community had were starting to let their anger show. These people WANTED to let people know what was going on with their features, or at least wanted to hear what customers thought about what they had. You had succeeded at enraging your employees and the Windows Enthusiasts.

For you see, the culture, the very essence of the Windows Enthusiast/ Microsoft relationship was based on openness and sharing. It is obvious but unnecessary that you didn’t want to be as open with Windows 7 as you were with Windows Longhorn. As I already mentioned, the management of Windows Longhorn was horrible, which is something that Windows 7 would not suffer from. You used,(and have continued to use) Windows Longhorn as an excuse to not talk.

Who could resist the temptations of an Apple like disclosure policy? We know how those psycho zealots react at their cult gatherings conferences. Who wouldn’t want that for their product? But Steven, you do not realize that Apple has always been like that. Windows was never like that, that is why such a drastic transition would never work… You attempted to wrap a fusion of Apple secrecy and Office management around this thing called Windows. This experiment failed miserably, and any competent manager would have recognized this failure with the reception of how Service Pack 1 was handled.

I am sure that Steve Ballmer has seen this failure on your part, but it would be impossible to remove you in the middle of the Windows development. In fact, you have strategically placed yourself at the heart of Windows 8 before Windows 7 has even reach beta, to make sure that you cannot be removed without the project falling apart.

You had the opportunity to talk about the Windows 7 vision, possibly even give monthly “State of Windows” videos on Channel 9. But no. You chose complete secrecy. And do not even try and comfort yourself with this “Engineering 7 blogs.” You have this innate ability to talk so much and say so little. Karl Rove would be proud of you. Do you see what this has done? It has made it so when something does leak, it is spread to all corners of the community with anger and aggression, with the sole purpose as a vendetta against you and solely you.

Over this past week, there has been an explosion of leaked information regarding 6780. Steven, this is directly because of your choice to remain quiet. Would you have simply announced if PDC attendees should expect a build of Windows 7, you would not have this problem on your hands.

In the past, Windows has always had a face. For quite some time we had Bill Gates. He was and still is revered as a God. Then, we got Jim Allchin and he did a pretty good job as the face of Windows. Despite his blunder known as Longhorn, he was who we rallied around. This time, you have not given us a person like that. You have stood in the shadows, and given us a person to hate. Our hatrid for you grows every day that you are in the seat of power that you are in. As a community, we need someone to look up to. We need a face. If you chose to swoop in now and be the face of Windows, we would see right through it as a PR ploy. I implore you to get this through your head. We do not want you. Now, nor shall we ever.

But, let it be known, we do need someone to rally around. There is such a person in the Windows group. This is a person who motivates the employees. This person can lead the designing of new paradigms by developing brilliant new research methods. This person is willing to speak to the public. This person is possibly the only one who could replace you with the plans for future versions of Windows failing apart. This person knows what you have done right, and knows what you have failed horribly at. This person knows how to keep the customers happy. This person is Julie Larson-Green.

Julie Larson-Green led the development of the highly successful ribbon UI and keeps all her employees happy. When we hear that she will be in a public forum, we all get giddy at the idea of hearing her speak. Julie has seen your miserable failures, and she would know what to do and what not to do. She would find the balance between transparency and translucency.

That is why I am asking that the Windows Community backs me in my demand to the CEO of the Microsoft Corporation Steve Ballmer, the Founder and Chairman of the board of the Microsoft Corporation, and the rest of the Board of Directors of the Microsoft Corporation recognize Steven Sinofsky’s failures, and back me in my demand that Steven Sinofsky be replaced by Julie Larson-Green at the end of the development of Windows 7.

I sincerely thank all of you for your time.

-Chris Holmes
(Chris123NT) And the rest of the Microsoft Enthusiast community

So in order to utilize UEFI on my Laptop and still be able to install customized images from my WDS server, I had to create a Discovery image to boot the laptop into setup.  This is basically a Windows PE image that is customized to call the WDS server and start the install process.  This image can either be burned to a DVD or placed on a USB flash drive.  For the purposes of this guide we will be putting this image on a flash drive, and we will be making an x64 PE image, so for those of you with x86, make the appropriate changes to the commands.

I actually got the idea to do this from the Devhawk.net blog, but the instructions are a little different for Windows 8, so I figured I would write a post on how I did it.

So without further ado, let’s get started.

Step 1: Install the Windows ADK

You will need to install the Windows ADK, which you can download HERE

Next, install the Windows ADK, and select the options shown in the screenshot below:

These are the tools we need to build a custom Windows PE image to start the WDS installation.

Step 2: Create Windows PE Image

The Windows ADK includes a command line tool for creating PE images, called the “Deployment and Imaging Tools Environment”.  You need to run this as administrator to start the process.  Type the following command:

copype.cmd amd64 C:\winpe_x64

This batch file will create a new PE image of the architecture you specify, which in this case is x64.  If you want to create an x86 image, replace amd64 with x86.

Step 3: Mount the PE image with DISM

Now you need to update your PE image with some customizations that will make it look for a WDS server when it boots up.  To do this we need to first mount the image using DISM.  Thankfully the previous command already gave us a mount point to use, so type the following command exactly as it appears.

dism /Mount-WIM /WimFile:C:\winpe_x64\media\sources\boot.wim /Index:1 /MountDir:C:\winpe_x64\mount

Step 4: Add Custom Device Drivers (optional)

This section is only necessary if you have a network card that is not supported by Windows 8 out of the box.  If this is the case, here’s the command to add a custom device driver to your discovery image:

dism /image:c:\winpe_x64\mount /add-driver /driver:”PATHTODRIVERDIRECTORY”

Step 5: Add Setup Packages

By default, the PE image does not include the packages for Windows Setup, so we will need to add those manually.  For WDS Discovery we need the setup and setup-client packages.  To add these, type the following commands:

dism /image:c:\winpe_x64\mount /add-package /packagepath:”C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-Setup.cab”

Followed by:

dism /image:c:\winpe_x64\mount /add-package /packagepath:”C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-Setup-Client.cab”

Step 6: Add winpeshl.ini file

At this point, we have all of the appropriate packages in our PE image, now we need to add a file called “winpeshl.ini” which tells the installer to look for your WDS server.  So to create this file open notepad and insert the following:

[LaunchApps]

%SYSTEMDRIVE%\sources\setup.exe, "/wds /wdsdiscover /wdsserver:<fully qualified doman name of server>"

NOTE: In order for this to work, you have to specify your WDS server using the /wdsserver switch.  Auto discovery usually ends up throwing an error, so add this to guarantee your image will work.

After you have created this INI file, insert it into C:\winpe_x64\mount\Windows\System32\

Step 7: Add lang.ini file

Next you need to add a lang.ini file, otherwise you will get a nasty error about setup not being able to determine the language to use for setup.

The easiest way to do this is to take the lang.ini file from the sources folder on your Windows 8 Image and put it into C:\winpe_x64\mount\sources\

Step 8: Commit and Unmount PE Image

We have made all of the modifications to the PE image that we need to, so now it’s time to commit those changes to our boot.wim and unmount the image.  To do this, type the following command:

dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:c:\winpe_x64\mount /commit

Now the contents of the “media” folder is ready to be copied to a USB pen drive.

Step 8: Copy your Image to your Flash Drive

Now that your image is done, you need to copy it to a USB flash drive.  First make sure that your drive is formatted in FAT32, this is very important, as an NTFS formatted drive will not boot.

Next, type the following command to copy all of your files onto the flash drive:

xcopy c:\winpe_x64\media\*.* /e f:

Where F: is replaced by the letter assigned to your flash drive.

Step 9: Boot from your USB Flash Drive

Now you are ready to boot your PC from your USB flash drive.  Boot it like you normally would from a flash drive, and if you did everything right you will end up at the same WDS screen that you would normally see if you PXE boot your machine.  And the best part?  If your machine supports UEFI, this boots in UEFI mode.  So if your NIC is one of the many that cannot PXE boot in UEFI mode, this will do exactly what you want while still allowing you to install your custom images off your WDS server.

I hope this guide helps some of you, and as usual if you have any questions, leave them in the comments and I will help you with anything you need clarification on.

Please note, that an unactivated system will flag itself as non-genuine, so if you need to test Windows Update or anything else that checks the genuine status of the install, you will need to activate, but you can do that manually when YOU see fit, not when Microsoft feels like doing it for you.  So without further ado, here is how to modify your install media so Windows will NEVER activate by itself without your consent.

Required Tools:

• Windows 8 ISO (any SKU)
• Notepad (the program, not a pad that you write on with a pen)
• ISO Editing Software of your choice
• Ability to follow directions

Creating Unattend.xml file

The first thing you need to do is create the unattend.xml file.  The purpose of this file is to tell the Windows installer to do specific things.  For the purpose of this guide, we are going to be telling the Windows installer to disable automatic activation.

Open notepad and paste in the following code, and save the file as unattend.xml

Paste the following for x64 systems:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="specialize">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-UX" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <SkipAutoActivation>true</SkipAutoActivation>
        </component>
    </settings>
</unattend>

 

Paste the following for x86 systems (32 bit):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="specialize">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-UX" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <SkipAutoActivation>true</SkipAutoActivation>
        </component>
    </settings>
</unattend>

Insert Unattend File into ISO

The next step in this process is to put the unattend.xml file where it needs to go.  Since this unattend is only processing something during the specialize pass of the install (right after hardware is installed), we have to put it in a specific location to get around having to have it present on an external removable device.  For this guide we are going to utilize the $OEM$ folder structure to avoid having to edit the WIM file, and thus making things a little easier.  Here’s how to do it

1. Extract the contents of your ISO to a folder (ex. C:\Test)
2. Go into the sources folder
3. Create a new folder called $OEM$
4. Inside the newly created $OEM$ folder, create a folder called $$
5. Under the $$ folder, create a System32 folder and inside that folder, create a Sysprep folder
6. Inside the Sysprep folder, insert the unattend.xml file you just created

NOTE: The reason for putting the unattend in this folder is because this is where Windows looks for an unattend file during the specialize pass of setup as referenced HERE.

Re-build ISO

This is the part where you take the contents of the ISO you just extracted, plus the modifications you just made, and re-build your ISO.  You can use any ISO editing software of your choice.  I personally like to use UltraISO.

Also note, at this time you can also create a bootable USB key with these files and it will work just the same as if you burn an ISO to DVD.

Install Windows 8 and Verify Auto Activation is Disabled

At this point you are ready to install Windows 8 on your PC.  So go ahead and do that.  Once you are done, you can easily verify whether you did this procedure correctly or not.  The most obvious way will be the fact that your PC will not be activated.  The sure way to really make sure is to go into the registry, and navigate to:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\Activation

Once there, you should see a DWORD value named Manual.  Make sure it is set to 1.  As long as it is, you did it right and your system will never automatically activate itself, and you now have the freedom to activate your PC when you feel it is ready to be activated.

I hope this guide helps all of you, and I welcome anyone who has any questions to ask and I will answer them as soon as possible.

There actually is one other reason I waited so long to post this part, and that is because I wanted to make sure the new tubing did not have the same problem as the old tubing, which I am about to talk about below.  So without further ado, let’s get started.

Tubing Issues

After encountering the issues with the blocks, I almost immediately noticed a disturbing issue with the tubing.  Within days of putting in some new lengths of Danger Den Dreamflex UV Red tubing, I noticed that it was beginning to cloud.  Well surely it couldn’t be corrosion, as it would not happen that fast, and it couldn’t be the coolant as I was using distilled water + PT Nuke PHN (NOT CU).  So I decided to look into the issue.  I came across a thread on overclock.net where many people were having the same issue, and the issue was plasticizer buildup on the inner wall of the tubing.  This seemed to be a result of a reaction with fluid going through the tubing, and it didn’t seem to matter what kind of fluid.  Everyone was having the issue regardless of type of coolant.  With this information I decided to dismantle my system and examine the tubing, and what I found was rather disturbing, have a look at the picture below:

As you can see, there is a buildup of white gunk on the inside of the tubing, this was present inside all lengths of tubing throughout the entire loop.

So upon further research, a forum member on overclock.net named skyn3t, recommended a tubing called Durelene.  He said he was trying it and after about 2 weeks so far was not having any clouding.  So I decided that I was going to try it.  I headed over to sidewinder computers and ordered 20 feet (so I’d have extra) at a very reasonable 69 cents per foot.  Once I got it I was rather impressed with just how clear it was, and it was extremely flexible which was an added bonus.  Here is a picture of the tubing:

I immediately started the process of installing the tubing in my system.  I also took the opportunity to change some things and rebuild the system, all of which I will outline for you.

The Rebuild

Not only did I decide to replace the tubing, but I also decided to replace the fans.  I was previously using Phobya nano G2 1500 waterproof fans, and while nice looking, they are total junk.  I had a good half of them start to experience bearing failure to the point where they wouldn’t begin to spin on powerup unless you gave them a “nudge”.  So I decided to replace all of the fans with Corsair’s AF and SP series performance edition fans.  The SP fans went on the Radiators, and the AF’s functioned as case fans.  I wired all of these fans to my fan controller so I can have them quiet, or pushing a ton of air and being not so quiet (for benching and high overclocks).  Here are some pictures of the fans themselves as well as some pictures of them mounted to the radiators:

As you can see, these fans look great on the rads, and with the color rings, they fit in PERFECTLY with the color scheme of this build (black and red for those who don’t remember).

Next I set out to route the new tubing, and I decided to change the routing a bit to reduce the amount of tubing used in the system and streamline the flow.  Here are some pictures of the installation process of the tubing:

As you can see, the new routing is much better, and the tubing is clear, which I wasn’t sure how it was going to look at first, but afterwards I really like how it looks in the system, especially with the red LED lights turned on.  Below are some pictures of the machine all finished with this new configuration:

Conclusion

I hope you all enjoyed this build log as much as I enjoyed writing it.  One other thing I would like to mention on the topic of the tubing.  It has been 2 months since the installation of the tubing and I am happy to report that it is still as clear as the day I installed it in the system.  So if you are looking for a good quality tubing for your rig, definitely give Durelene a try, you won’t regret it.

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below.  And I’m also considering doing an overclocking guide for x79, so if you’d like to see that let me know in the comments.

Fortunately for all of us, a kind Happy Bulldozer (seriously this is what the guy calls himself), wrote a small app called Tiny Window Borders.  This app lets you set your desired border size with a nice little slider, and then you simply log off and back on to see the change (or just restart explorer.exe).  This app is great for people who don’t want to delve into the registry for something that really should be an exposed option anyway.  So without further ado, click the link below to head over to winaero and download this nifty little utility.

Download: Tiny Window Borders for Windows 8

These gripes included being thrown into Metro to view photos and videos, and having IE Metro be the default on a desktop PC.

If you are interested in these tips, I have posted them in a short guide to point people in the right direction.  If you have any other tips or tweaks that you’ve used, feel free to post them in the comments!

View: Optimize Windows 8 for Desktop Use

Welcome!
This guide will describe how to backup and restore your activation in a few easy steps in case of a worst case scenario and you have to reinstall Windows.
1. Go to C:\Windows\System32\spp\ and backup the store folder as this turned out to be the only folder you need to make backup of (verified by myself)
Attention:
The store folder might be hidden, open up Folder options from Control panel and choose View tab, select Show hidden files and folders + uncheck Hide protected system files
Attention 2:
Make sure to verify that the store folder contains these files and folders!
1 file named data.dat which is hidden
1 file named tokens.dat which is visible
1 folder named cache containing a file named cache.dat
2. Re-install Windows
3. After Windows is re-installed I suggest running a new Command Prompt as Administrator where you need to type in slmgr -upk to uninstall the key so the status changes to Unlicensed
4. After step 3 you need to reboot in Safe mode and easiest way is by using msconfig via Run. Choose the Boot tab and then Safe boot-Minimal, apply and restart when prompted
5. After the PC has rebooted in Safe mode open a new Command Prompt as Administrator and type net stop sppsvc to stop the Software Protection Platform service (sometimes you can get a message that it’s already stopped and not running)
6. Go to C:\Windows\System32\spp\ and replace the current store folder with the backed up one (I just copied the folder and pasted over the old one replacing the files altogether)
7. Go to Run and use msconfig and choose Normal boot under General tab this time, apply and click restart when prompted
8. When restarted you can see that the watermarks are gone and by checking the usual slmgr -dli/dlv/xpr commands in Command Prompt you’ll see that it worked and you’re activated + by checking the Volume Activation Management Tool 2.0 you’ll see License Status: License renewed and Genuine Status: Genuine

I have tried and verified this with Windows 8 Enterprise Edition x64 a couple of times and typing from my activated PC again. I could literally do this all day
This solution should be possible to do with any edition of Windows 8.
And now that this is confirmed to work, taking backup and restoring the activation in Windows 8 shouldn’t be a hard thing to do and should work beautifully once we buy Windows 8 and activate it legit when it ships.
As for now enjoy all the testing and use of Windows 8 with confidence!
Here’s the nice tool mentioned in another thread to use to check statuses:
Volume Activation Management Tool 2.0 – http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl….aspx?id=11936
PS.
IMPORTANT
The solution will likely 100% fail if you make changes to hardware and re-install Windows and then trying to restore activation again, but this have been the case since the Vista days.
And also you can’t activate one edition of Windows thinking you can use the backup for another edition later.
The activation is tied to your specific hardware and OS edition, so keep this in mind.
I would also like to clarify that now that we’re activated with the KMS solution the activation is valid for 180 days, nothing more nothing less. There is no magic behind this backup solution that could expand the period further then the 180 days without re-activate via an KMS server eventually.
Once we buy the retail version of Windows 8, backing up the activation would be a more permanent solution given that you don’t change the hardware or OS edition along the road which means you have to reactivate and backup again.
EXTRA IMPORTANT
It has come to my attention that installing certain hardware drivers will break the activation on Windows 8 forcing you to reactivate. One way to prevent this from happening would be to make sure everything is installed and up to date before activating and then take the backup. That way when you have reinstalled Windows and the hardware drivers it should work just fine restoring activation later.
If you have come this far and still reading this then congratulations you deserve a gold star. You should have the knowledge to backup and restore your Windows 8 activation without problems by now and understand what this is all about.
Thank you for taking the time to read all the way down here, it will save much time for both parties!
.: The information contained in this thread is for general guidance regarding backup and restoration of activation in Windows 8. I, JaguarXJ12 will not be held responsible for loss of activations if something goes wrong :.

First and foremost will be the final post in my Building Arcturus series.  In this article I will cover what essentially became a total system redesign due to some issues that were encountered post-build.  It will also contain a lot of valuable information for those of you looking to create your own custom water cooling loops.

The second article I will be doing has more to do with what people know me for.  I will be doing a comprehensive article on Windows 8 that will cover the new features, how to best utilize the new UI, and best of all, how to get the most from Windows 8 on a conventional Desktop or Laptop PC, because let’s face it, most people out there do NOT have tablets and I doubt people want to invest in touch screens and start reaching across their desks to interact with their PC’s.

Anyway that’s all for now, I just figured I would drop this post here to let everyone know what I have coming up, so keep checking back over the next few days.

Oh and I’ll just leave this here for everyone as a little reminder that Windows 8 is done:

Pump Issues

The first issue that I had was with the pumps, as you know from the previous pumps, the main pump was built into the reservoir and the secondary pump was its own separate entity to boost the flow rate of the loop in order to achieve the best possible cooling performance.  After about 3 weeks of the machine running the primary pump started making a horrible noise.  Came to the conclusion that one of the D5 pumps had failed.  So for extra good measure I ended up replacing BOTH of the pumps to be sure.  After replacing the pumps things were back to normal.

Fast forward about 4 weeks after this initial issue, the primary pump in the reservoir fails AGAIN.  This time I disassembled the entire loop, and checked everything for particles etc…  There was nothing found floating in the water, near as I could tell the pump issues were being caused by a clearance issue in the Danger Den Monsoon reservoir.  And this was with the standard black O-ring and not the red one that brings the impeller closer to the housing.  I bet it would have failed almost instantly with the red O-ring in place.

In order to mitigate this issue once and for all I got an XSPC Dual bay reservoir and a Bitspower dual D5 pump top.  I redid the loop with this configuration and the pump issues disappeared, I have not had a single issue since.  So I clearly had a bad reservoir.

Block Issues

Shortly after I assembled the rig, I discovered many many forum posts covering issues with EK’s nickel plating process that resulted in parts of the nickel peeling off and chipping and resulting in a sort of bi-metallic corrosion that would discolor the blocks and generally make them look like hell on the inside.  I thought I was ok since I had the new electroless nickel plated blocks.  So after having the machine running for 3 months, I decided to pull the loop down to do some maintenance and cleaning.  When I pulled the hoses off I noticed a black residue inside the blocks, so I decided to pull them off and disassemble them.  What I discovered was nothing short of horrific.

All of the blocks in the system were corroded inside, and they displayed clear evidence of the nickel plating flaking off.  So much for EK’s new Electroless nickel plating huh?  Here are some pictures of what I found inside the blocks:

As you can see in the above photos, the copper is showing through the nickel and the rest of the discoloration is a result of the corrosion that occurred due to both metals touching each other and being open to the water.  There is noting in the coolant that would cause this, contrary to what Eddy from EK would like us to believe.

I ended up replacing all of the blocks in the machine with copper blocks to ensure that this would never happen again.  Here are the blocks that I used:

• EK Supreme HF Copper (had one from my previous build that was still clean as new)
• EK Rampage 4 mobo Blocks (since the Koolance ones are Nickel)
• Heatkiller GTX 580 Hole Edition Blocks

I re-assembled the loops with the above blocks and have not had a single block related issue since.  So if you are looking to water cool your PC, stay far far away from EK nickel plated blocks.  The copper ones are fine…..for now.

Stay tuned for the next post where I will be covering some interesting things about tubing.  Will be a good read for almost anyone who water cools or is planning to water cool in the future.