Boy this one took a differant turn!
I agree with Koslov on hard water being VERY widespread in this country. And many people living out in the countryside don't have filtration plants to remove any of the mineral content prior to it being in the house. Not far from me (5 miles) is a area with ground water so strong with sulfer it has a strong stench of rotten eggs, & enough taste as well that I don't drink it if in the area. There is also various amounts of salt and other minerals in wells throughout this area. And in home water softeners don't/can't deal with it all. Nasty. I can only imagine what tap water in this area would do, and very fast, if used in a mixed metals system or even in a pure copper one if the system is turned off often. And it is hard on home plumbing as well. (Note; I'm now to the point that I've replaced most of my home's metal plumbing with plastic pipe for this reason, hard water sux.)
On the other hand I can well understand Cathar's not realizing how very differant things are here vs in Austrailia where he lives. He's lived without this high mineral content all his life, what would anyone expect him to relate to. And he did note that for peace of mind you should use corrosion inhibitors and always in mixed metals system.
I think most people have the common sense to realize that if you have problems with home plumbing at times then you shouldn't be running it in a computers closed cooling system for any reason. And what you might read on a computer message board doesn't change that.
Best advice to all is use distilled water + 3-5% corrosion inhibitors.
It costs very little as Ben pointed out, and is sure worth the peace of mind for so little cost. You can even get 3X distilled & deionized water for under $5 per fill up(for system of 1 gal. or less), and compared to what a good computer & water cooling system costs this is a
REALLY, REALLY cheap insurance compared to your total investment.
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