I second this. I built a water cooled PC a few years ago (custom loop) and while I haven’t had any issues so far, part of maintaining a water cooled PC involves removing the radiators, washing them out with a cleaning liquid, putting the radiators back in, then running another cleaning solution through the loop for about several hours, then running water though it to rinse for several hours, then finally putting in the new fluid. It’s a time consuming process that will be more difficult if your build is set up in a way that’s hard to drain or remove the radiators from (like mine unfortunately). This maintenance is supposed be done at least once a year. It’s been longer than that since I’ve last done it, so I’m in a situation where I can either bite the bullet and perform the pain in the ass PC surgery or have a sword of Damocles hang over my machine.

There’s also the upfront pain in the ass in building the system. In my case the place I planned to put my pump is more awkward to reach and drain than I anticipated and there’s no room in the case for it anywhere else. There’s also installing the waterblock on your GPU. This requires removing the stock cooler and attaching the waterblock. The brand of waterblock I ordered didn’t have instructions on how to install so I had to find the instruction manual for a different brand of waterblock for the same GPU and wing it when the instructions didn’t apply. If you can figure out the instructions, you better hope one of the tiny delicate screws you need to remove doesn’t lose its threads while you’re unscrewing it and become stuck. This happened to me and I spent hours trying different ways to get the screw out, all of which were a pain in the ass and several of which could damage the chip with an easy to make fuckup. Did I mention that doing this delicate task that can easily fuck up your several hundred dollar hardware voids the warranty (a warranty sticker breaks when you remove the stock cooler)?

The only benefits you get from all this is the cool factor and maybe less fan noise.