Overall it was quite a stressful exercise because I sent the system back completely assembled. The previous time I sent the case back for correcting the problems with the WS240 configuration, it was just the case and cooling systems. This time the motherboard, processors, disks, graphics card, etc are all there. The system was in working condition when I sent it - I really hope it comes back that way.
Why worry? Because there is a lot that go wrong. I don't exactly know what is involved in replacing the water pump, only that I'm not really equipped or qualified to do it myself. The WS240 is a self contained unit and it was not really intended that the customer be able to replace parts or modify it.
One problem is that if they try to replace the water pump in the case, cooling fluid could leak into the system and damage something. The water pump sits on top of one of the CPUs.
If they have to removed the water-block the pump sits on from the CPU, then there is the issue of reattaching it. I used some pretty special thermal paste for bonding the CPU to the water blocks and requires special preparation.
If they have to remove the entire WS240 then they will have to pull the motherboard. If they pull the motherboard there are all kinds of connections that have to be put back in the right place. In particular the SATA cables to the disk drives all have to go back to the right disk drive or the RAID configuration will be toast.
I suppose one reason people worry about their children so much is that they have invested so much in raising them. It's a little bit like that for me too, I conceived Gemini: researched all the system components, architected a system design, build the system, went through the birthing process, multiple times in fact as Gemini has been reborn several times. Gemini is a problem child to say the least - I've seen so many things go wrong that it's all too easy for me to imagine so many other things that can go wrong.
So it's a little like sending your child on a two week trip to a special hospital to treat a special disease. All I can do is worry and hope that all turns out well in the end.
