Water wetter: is it REALLY necessary for dT?
 

OK, I know waterwetter is anti-fungal/algea/anything living. I also know that its anti-corrosion. BUT, I was reading the technical info for it:

http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/redtech3.htm

And it seems that the only real cooling benefit, is in a 50/50 glycol/water system, which has a much reduced specific heat capacity. water wetter restores it to what normal water is. but if you look at the charts, there is maybe a degree difference between regular water and water/water wetter. Then again, its a 20F difference no their dyno test.

So the point is I'm really confused. Obviously Ill keep using it to keep my system clean, but am I *really* getting any cooling benefit?

Water wetter is supposed to help prevent/slow corrosion. I don't believe it would affect a PC's temps enough to make any difference in the performance or lifetime of the parts. Unless of course, you put too much in and in that case I dont know what happens.

For what its worth, I used a capful of it in RO water for my coolant. Its been turned on since January of this year and there is nothing growing in there, no problems at all. The RBX channels appear to be brand new when looking through the clear top. I've never changed the coolant, just added a bit of water now and then. I dont know if WW did anything at all but once I find something that works, I stick with it. There will be a capfull in every coolant fill from now on until I see a problem.

We went over this years ago and came to the conclusion it had and unmeasurable cooling benifit in a PC loop.

thats what i came up with too, i was just verifying it

why can I understand chemistry now yet get a C in the class? sheesh.

It contains a surficant (sp?) which helps break the surface tension of the water which in theory will increse flowrate and heat transfer.

but

Like jaydee says it makes so little differance its of no value to us. Im pretty sure it would attualy reduce specific heat capacity and thats why you should not use too much

It also makes a damn mess in your system. I wouldn't use it. I still have a baggie filled with the slim it percipitates.

The anti-corrosion properties of Red Line Water-Wetter is very important in WC systems that have more than one type of metal in contact with the water. And unlike anti-freeze, it will not lower the cooling ability of the water. As far as I know, it has very little, if any anti-bacterial or fungicidal properties.

In my original WC system (that ran for about a year and a half) I had no problems with "slime" using water-wetter. When that system died (!POP! goes the bad caps), I changed out all the vinyl tubing and the tubing almost immediately turned a weird "bubbley brown" color. I changed tubing again about 3 months ago to clearflex and have not had any problems with it. I have read about problems using Red Line Water-Wetter with acrylic resevoirs. The problems mentioned were cracking around joints and connections.

Off topic, but I have a question for DrMemory. Was that an ECS motherboard ? I just had a K7S5A Rev. 1 go pop. Heard the caps were inferior quality.

I bought an Abit NF-7 to replace it and all is well...

Abits had the same cap problem then too. MSI as well. Bunch of bad caps made it into the market. Lots of people who bought boards made during that period had trouble.

The stories of Abit's bad caps are totally unfounded. Abit has used Rubycon for all of their boards for the last couple of years. Rubycon is the #1 manufacturer of caps and #1 in cap reliability.
Epox on the other hand... I had two 8rda3+'s go pop in the last couple of months.

Abit's bad cap's were very real (KA-7s especially), but they were smart enough to admit it, learn their lesson, and avoid any repeats.

After all the scandal, it's sad that some board makers still try to cut corners on caps.

Not had any slime from water wetter and I've been running systems using it for well over a year now. Not had any problems with it whatsoever in fact.