I've been using a Ultitube 200/D5 next combo for nearly 4 years now, and during these four years I've had three seperate instances where I've had 5V out of range warnings which I've investigated, and concluded that the controller unit below have had water leaked into it. It starts with the alarm warning going on and off for random sessions, and usually ends up with the alarm going contant until i disassemble the pump/reservoir combo and the dry the controller out. Honestly unsure where the water would have originated from, either one of the fittings from the outlet or possibly the reservoir not being properly fitted against the pump. As I got a top with inlet there's also a possibility that water may have overflown from there when the system is shut off and the pressure released make the water rise slightly (although i don't fill the reservervoir more than 80%). Other people seem to have gotten a "moisture detected", but I wonder if that's something aquacomputer have added in more recent years to their D5 next products. I seem to get 5V out of range warnings when i get the moisture problem.

I'm just curious, anyone else experienced this? Where's the leak likely comin from?

Aside from that, I do have have some feedback based on my experience with the D5 next.

• Why not add a redundancy that at least stops the water from leaking down the wall of the pump into the controller unit? Mistakes happen, and even with some slight spill where water drips down the reservoir, outlet/inlet or pump will literally always drizzle down onto the controller. Other D5 pump assemblies are at least not as vunerable to leaks like this, since they don't have a $70 controller unit right below the pump.
• The sata connection is placed in an extremly tight location. If you don't use a sata cable where the cable feeds directly behind the sata connection it's very hard to get a snug fit when you connect the power. I'm not gonna suggest solutions, I am sure there's been feedback on this before, but right now it's not that great.
• Connecting the pump to the D5 next controller is by no means simple. You have to rotate and line up the pump correctly to plug it in, and there obviously are two pins/holes and the actual pins to match. However, it still takes me a few attempts to get it right still. Any kind of indicator on pump and controller to match lines would have been helpful instead of eyeballing it when lowering the pump onto the controller unit.
• Let me be able to disable the alarms. Some of them can be turned off, but not all.

Not sure if I'd recommend the D5 next based on my own experience these past 4 years. It's been a good run, and it's a setup that I'll keep using until my next upgrade to 9950x3d, but I think i'll be going back to just a regular D5 pump due to vunerabble controller unit. On a sidenote, the aquasuite software has been totally awesome.

Thank you for the reply, it think you actually might be on to something. Of all the things I've disassembled and looked at, that membrane/gasket part on the bottom of the ultitube is something I've never really looked further into. I've focused on removing the pump assembly from the reservoir, looking for an improper fit between it and the bottom of the ultitube rather than assuming that water might leak from above due to that part on the reserver assembly. I've really never looked at bottom part of the reservoir as the culprit in my scenario. It might be the source of the leak from me, since I can't see any water on the outside of the entire assembly, the pump walls or from the fittings. Every time this has happened I've just removed the pump, pulled out the controller from it and then seen small drops of water/moisture on the PCB. Have to say though, his controller is really resilient, 3 seperate instances of leaks with moisture/drops on it and it survived and works just fine. Hell, even with water on it the pump controls and sensors showed no issues in functioning aside from the alarm blaring.


I'm contemplating what kind of cooling I'm going for in january with upcoming RTX 5080 and a 9950X3D purchases if I can get my hands on them. On one hand, these alarms which had me detecting water leaks have always come at terrible times, and had me swear off watercooling in future builds, but then again, I've been on water for 12 years now. Ever so often I tell myself it's not worth the time and money, but here I am as always, weeks leading up to each upgrade and researching what components i'm going to go with for my next WC build. Thanks for the insight, I'll look into it if I ever get another leak and also if I go with this setup for the next build I am making!