??Long Term affects of Water Cooling??
 

I was just curious how long have you had water cooling in your system, without leaks. How long until connections might to start to get loose. I know you need(should) to check them weekly.

Also I was going to put some jet dry in there to keep slime build up and keep those tubes looking clear.

How often do you change water? every 4 months?

Thanks

Umm I've been WC'ing for about 5+yrs and I've never had a leak, using marine quality grease+vinyl tubes and some screw type hose clamps... You don't need to check stuff every week, just do a test with stuff out of the case and look for weak points, then you should be fine... I went as far as coaing my mobo and other cards with clearish (thick) urethane coating, so if in the even if the unthinkable happens, I can simply shutdown and dry the parts off and get back to doing my thang! :D After a while, when you've tested and KNOW that stuff is not going to leak, then you won't even give leaks a second mind... Besides, if you use the proper quality tubing and grease/clamps, there's not enough heat produced in your system etc... to even bother the materials. And that Jet dry stuff... Don't F around with that. I came up with the DYI-additive idea a while back with VERY small amounts of Lysol and BigBen suggested jet-dry, they both work as a surficant, but Jet-Dry isn't made for anti-bacterial purposes and if even added minutely over a drop, will cause foaming in a high flow system, least from my experience... I'd leave it alone. As long as you have a nice 1:7 or lower mix of anti freeze, stuff should be fine, if not get some Redline water wetter.... good luck.

Yeah once leaks are taken care of, you won't get any, unless you move your system around or shuffle with the innards.
Now i've got a bad experience with water wetter, mine is 2 year old and now produces a gooey white oily substance that coats the tubes.
Jet-dry (or equivalent) in *very small* quantities should do its work without foaming too much.
Don't forget to add some anti bacterial, as Jet Dry is only a surfactant.
Anti Freeze -> i'm not sure it's anti bacterial. If it's based on Glycol it's good for preventing ice forming at subzero temps. If it's only straight watercooling then don't bother with it, i think it lowers the thermal properties of water too much.
I change water when i change tubes or waterblocks... that's between 6 months and 1 year apart.

Ethylene glycol is chemically similar to alcohol, enough that most bacteria can't live in high concentrations of the stuff. However, I've come across mentions in car-care boards of bacteria that is resistant to the stuff and clogs up the lines for the winshield-washer fluid.

I used water and some Zyrtek (sp?) coolant fluid, which is basically a bunch of salts to prevent galvanic corrosion, and that worked fine for me. Had a little bit of bacteria - slimy, discolored tubes - after six months, but nothing a good rinsing couldn't fix.

Alchemy

Very Small meaning, seriously, like LESS than a drop! I made a 1:7 mixture of Water+Anti-Freeze which totalled about 64oz, added 1 drop then filled my system with the mix, which holds about ~32oz maybe a little less and with in hours there was foam starting to arise! I don't have ANY 90°bends and a very non flow restrictive block, no matter what I did, even flushed the WHOLE system out with a new mix and the bubbles just kept coming back... The stuff doesn't like heat I take it; when things were very cool, like on standby, the bubbles would slightly subside, or interestingly enough, when I would add a small amount of Anti-freeze ~10ml, the bubbles would again subside, but would eventually return. Right now I'm using the same 1:7 mix, but with about 1/4 drop of Jet-Dry... The benefits of using it and messing up a nice batch of mix+having to flush your system, don't seem worth it to me. I just use a more concentrated mix of H2o+Anti-F ~1:5, yes adding more anti-F does reduce thermal efficiency, but it's NOT that much if, hardly noticeable, besides, you'll have a more bacterial-resistant system that won't need all the flushing etc... at the suffice of .5C at most...? :)

Well what about running just straight Distilled water?
How long until I might see slime or bacteria in tubes?
Thanks

Also I see that D-tek caries Supercool.
Anyone try that?

I'm kinda talking out my a** here, 'cause I'm new to water cooling, but I read quite a bit.
Serious fish tank folks add 1/4 to 1/2 a capsule or so of e-myacin, or some other antibiotic to the water to keep bacteria and fungus down. It dissolves completely, and only rarely needs repeating.

Just a thought.

Straight distilled water...hmm. It may have been from past (disgusting) setups, but running straight distilled water I get slime constantly. I just stopped looking, it's too gross.

If you're REALLY careful (like, say, don't drop lunch in it), and it's all sealed up, never would be my guess. And running 100% antifreeze was good for keeping things clean (just the temps that are ugly).

V12: weird. I think it may be the geometry of your airtrap. I have too a quite high flow setup. What i noticed is:
- don't add the jet-dry (or equivalent) too soon. Put only distilled water, and wait until all bubbles are gone, apart from the very small ones that hang on the tubing walls.
- then add a small dose (just a squirt) of the rinsing agent, with the pump off.
- cap the aitrap, turn on the pump, all small bubbles are gone ! And no foaming :)
Of course i've got a home made airtrap, made out of hard PVC tubing parts. It doesn't seem to produce foam by itself.
Last weekend (when i installed a new WB) i made the mistake to put the additives too soon - it foamed like hell, impossible to get rid of it short of flushing the circuit.

Also anyone used this:

http://www.highspeedpc.com/Merchant2..._Code=H2Oextra

No, but I sure hope that there's a lot of water in it:
:eek:

I'll be trying out Silkolene ProCCA: 1% mix ratio, contains no glycols.