??Long Term affects of Water Cooling??

[Sproket]

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

[V12|V12]

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! 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.

[gmat]

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.

[Alchemy]

Originally posted by gmat
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

[V12|V12]

Jet-dry (or equivalent) in *very small* quantities should do its work without foaming too much.

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...?

[Sproket]

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

[Sproket]

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

[Whomp]

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.

[Axle]

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).

[gmat]

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.

[Sproket]

Also anyone used this:

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

[bigben2k]

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

Optimal mix ratio is 3 parts water: 1 part InnovaProtect

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