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Do you ever replace your aio?

Soldato
Joined
8 Nov 2006
Posts
22,966
Location
London
why would the fluid permeat through the rubber or fluid dry out? never heard of this and there is no science behind it. water molecules are not small enough to permeat through rubber at molecular level. certainly the chemicals they put into the water don't react with rubber either. if eveything is air sealed then there is no reason for liquid level to dry out. inside the tube is effectively pressurised so even the likes CO2 which CAN permeat through rubber cannot get through due to pressure.

If there is a small air gap developing in one of the junctions however resulting in tiny tiny leak over time then yes, it will reduce water levels and dry out.

However I think the main problem is really not water drying out or anything aforemention, the crux of it all is the oxidation of the cold plate. while the water and the additive chemicals are meant to be non-corrosive and in a AIO there shouldn't be any air ie oxygen the metal should be completely protected. but this is never the case. the water is likely to have certain amount of ionised oxygen modelucles in it. and there may well be impurities in the water that catalyse the reaction or even trapped air within the system. so over time the corrosion of the metal will cause residual build up which will eventually cause blockage and/or pump failure.

So basically this entire thread is where @pc-guy introduces the idea that AIOs only have distilled water in them and then gets into an argument with everyone. When no one else claimed AIOs only have distilled water inside them.

It isn't just water that is in the fluid and you didn't look hard enough for rubber permeability

@Ross Thomson even tells him. Instead @pc-guy goes on to criticise Steve Burke.

Straw man. Fluid loss in general was not being discussed, the permeation of rubber by water was.

Regards scientific rigour, I've seen more of that from pc-guy than the person making the original claim, yet you're not calling them out?

I've no particular affinity for pc-guy, but some of you have some fairly profound basic reading comprehension limitations.

Where? This is a general thread about liquid loss in an AIO. Where we have empirical evidence for this. The only strawman was introduced by @pc-guy.

The second post. The very first reply was correct and the thread should have ended there.

The fluid inside AIO's can and often does slowly permeate into the tubes reducing the levels, that will affect temperatures. 5 to 7 years is not too soon for low fluids inside AIO's, my NZXT packed up after 5 years, i opened it up to look inside... it ground the bearings down into a pulp that blocked the micro fins, it did this because the bump was running intermittently semi dry from low fluid levels.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Feb 2019
Posts
17,464
Any leak is a risk. Liquid plus electronics not a good idea unless can plumb it outside the case or better yet outside the house

There is also a risk when you stick a 2kg piece of metal hanging off your motherboard that it 1) warps the board and damages connections and 2) breaks off and writes off the system.

Everything is a risk. If AIO were a big risk they would not be selling so well - in fact AIO's are selling more units than air coolers and have been for some time now - AIO are now so popular that every tech brand under the sun is now making an AIO cooler.
 
Soldato
Joined
8 Nov 2006
Posts
22,966
Location
London
edit: for me, all I used to use was distilled water in my water cooling loops back 6yrs ago. Never needed to have additives so I was no aware of the chemistry of the modern AIO. So to that effect Steve Burke’s video about “extreme permeation” can hold truth if the solution inside the AIO has any alcohol or oily content. However I strongly rebuke the idea that water can permeate through rubber. It is nonsense.

This thread has never been just about just water permeating through. Where did you get that idea? Only person talking about that is you.

If an AIO doesn't contain just distilled water or milk, why would you talk about either?

An AIO loses fluid through permeation. Don't start talking about something else, which you've seen has little to no relevance to the topic at hand.

Your posts clearly give the impression that AIO's cannot lose fluid. Yes you made the mistake of assuming that they only contain distilled water (easily made), but that's your mistake. Don't deflect it on to anyone else or hide behind what you strictly said. No one else has claimed distilled water can permeate the rubber, not that I'm inclined to believe you given your posts in this thread.
 
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Soldato
Joined
30 Jul 2005
Posts
19,358
Location
Midlands
There is also a risk when you stick a 2kg piece of metal hanging off your motherboard that it 1) warps the board and damages connections and 2) breaks off and writes off the system.

Everything is a risk. If AIO were a big risk they would not be selling so well - in fact AIO's are selling more units than air coolers and have been for some time now - AIO are now so popular that every tech brand under the sun is now making an AIO cooler.

Got large air coolers on multiple systems for over 10 years and never had issues. I wont be going to water any time soon.
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Feb 2010
Posts
10,740
Location
East Midlands
I currently have a noctua nhd14 and an h100i v2. Both are great coolers, but the noctua is ugly and clunky. The corsair looks so much better in my system. If the pump packs up, I'll buy an am4 bracket for the noctua and use that.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 May 2005
Posts
4,896
This thread has never been just about just water permeating through. Where did you get that idea? Only person talking about that is you.
seriously, you can twist whatever truth you want. this is what i said in my post below. specifically I said "water molecules". my previous experience of water cooling is just that "Water" never had to add anything else to it. so I was talking about Water permeability. clearly the AIO fluid is a mix of water and alcohol so that is different game. I already conceded that point.

and again I never said fluid in a close loop cannot dry out, i specifically said if there are air gaps in junction then such mechanism will take place and dry out. again the risk of this is low.

many people talk about gunk building up in the AIO thats stopping their pump work. distilled water and glycol drying out does not yield gunk, as neither leave any solid matter behind when evaporated. water if have impurities or dissolved CaCO3 then that will leave lime scale etc but not if the water has high purity. the gunk people referring to is the oxidised metal of the cold plate. which is the primary mechanism I pointed out that will affect the AIO performance.

"why would the fluid permeat through the rubber or fluid dry out? never heard of this and there is no science behind it. water molecules are not small enough to permeat through rubber at molecular level. certainly the chemicals they put into the water don't react with rubber either. if eveything is air sealed then there is no reason for liquid level to dry out. inside the tube is effectively pressurised so even the likes CO2 which CAN permeat through rubber cannot get through due to pressure.

If there is a small air gap developing in one of the junctions however resulting in tiny tiny leak over time then yes, it will reduce water levels and dry out.

However I think the main problem is really not water drying out or anything aforemention, the crux of it all is the oxidation of the cold plate. while the water and the additive chemicals are meant to be non-corrosive and in a AIO there shouldn't be any air ie oxygen the metal should be completely protected. but this is never the case. the water is likely to have certain amount of ionised oxygen modelucles in it. and there may well be impurities in the water that catalyse the reaction or even trapped air within the system. so over time the corrosion of the metal will cause residual build up which will eventually cause blockage and/or pump failure."

"Can’t find any citation on water permeability through rubber."


just stop giving out half stories. water does not go through rubber, swimming pools are tanked with rubber membranes, almost every single water retaining tank I can think of has some kind of rubber membranes.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
14,041
Location
West Midlands
I know it might not seem obvious, but your first post criticising the following.

The fluid inside AIO's can and often does slowly permeate into the tubes reducing the levels, that will affect temperatures.

was this

why would the fluid permeat through the rubber or fluid dry out? never heard of this and there is no science behind it.

You then go on a tangent about water, when the term clearly used was 'fluid' and caused a thread to be pages longer than needed. How can you not see you got yourself into a complete mess, and rather than just saying, OK, we are thinking/typing different ideas fluid loss in a CLC/AIO does happen over time.

You seem like you want to cause yourself grief, and make yourself look argumentative for no reason.
 
Soldato
Joined
8 Nov 2006
Posts
22,966
Location
London
just stop giving out half stories. water does not go through rubber, swimming pools are tanked with rubber membranes, almost every single water retaining tank I can think of has some kind of rubber membranes.

The fact you insist on saying this at the end of your post says everything. Hung up on water for some reason. Nice strawman.

I'm no expert but I think Steve Burke and the NZXT article, as well as @humbug's post answered the query perfectly.

I'm also not even sure all the comparison's you are making are even like for like. AIOs only have a couple of 100ml of fluid in them, are closed systems run for years sometimes continuously without replenishing. A swimming pool, tanks, coolant in cars are not like for like comparisons. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on the science.
 
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Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
39,267
Location
Ireland
Well this thread went full on derp mode relatively quickly.


Here's a vid with a fury x that has lost some coolant over years of use, he tried to refill it to no avail.
 
Caporegime
Joined
29 Jul 2011
Posts
36,339
Location
In acme's chair.
Holy **** nobody CARES if water can permeate rubber just shut up! We have established that the fluid can go missing, it doesn't matter how it goes missing, or indeed how much water is in the fluid. :p

Lockdown is driving people nuts. :p
 
Associate
OP
Joined
2 Mar 2012
Posts
31
So this thread has gone a bit off the rails from what I originally posted, anyway I plan on keeping my cpu til it dies or ddr5 comes out so I dropped the cash on a nzxt x63,
managed 4.8ghz overclock with very good temps,
core 1 - 56
core - 2 58
core 3 - 52
core 4 - 56
Cam was set to silent mode for the pump and the fans set to 40% in bios
this was after running aida for 2 hours, before my h100i couldnt even do 4.5 without the temps staying under 77, so huge improvement, I should say the x63 has a 40mm bigger rad than the h100igtx but overall Im really happy with it and cod warzone runs way way better than stock 6700k did, maybe at stock it was holding my 2070super back? I think all in all aio upgrade is well worth if it your struggling to oc and maintain decent temps and can give your cpu a bit of extra life :)
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Mar 2004
Posts
15,686
Location
Fareham
My NZXT X52 still works after almost 2 years but all of the RGB LEDs on it have died.

I ordered the NZXT Z73 instead, which seems to be DOA, pump doesn't work (makes no noise at all) and CPU temps hit like 100 degrees C before I get scared and shut it down.

Checked and double checked and as far as I can tell I am connecting everything up properly on the new one, just seems to be non-functional. Plugged in the old X52 and temps back down to 40 degrees.

Not really a great time at the moment with the NZXT ones, but they do look the best still.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Feb 2019
Posts
17,464
Linus just did a test with a stock 10900k having a nhd15 and a 240mm aio and the 240mm was consistently able to sustain higher boost clocks and lower temps compared to the air cooler
 
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