Distilled or deionised?

GoogalyMoogaly · 7 Sep 2010 at 22:54

Hi guys,

Couple of questions for the water coolers out there.
I'm planning to cool my loop with water and some corrosion blocker (just to be safe, not sure if I need it).
Do you have to use distilled water or can you use deionised water?

If I'm using a corrosion blocker with either type of water, which version of PT Nuke should I use? PT PHN Nuke or PT Nuke?

Thanks.

w3bbo · 7 Sep 2010 at 23:04

Either - makes no difference.

GoogalyMoogaly · 7 Sep 2010 at 23:12

Sorry was that distilled or deionised water makes no difference, or PT Nuke or PT PHN Nuke makes no difference?

Or both?

piggin · 7 Sep 2010 at 23:17

The water makes very little difference.
They do say distilled is better but it is a lot harder to get.
As for deionised, you can get that from most large supermarket.
I purchase from the one that begins with a T
As for an additive, I would go with a silver coil.

GoogalyMoogaly · 7 Sep 2010 at 23:33

As I'm using a Res/Pump combo is there a chance the coil would vibrate annoyingly in the reservoir?
The one I've found is a little too big to fit in the tubing I bought.

piggin · 7 Sep 2010 at 23:54

I have two xspc res tops for my DDC pumps and they make no noise.
I have also placed a silver coil in a swiftech micro res with a D5 and no noise.

w3bbo · 8 Sep 2010 at 09:34

Just buy some dionised or distilled. There is NO difference in cooling ability. One has ions taken out (which are replaced as soon as they contact metal), the other has minerals taken out.

A couple of drops of PT Nuke per 1ltr of water is all I have used and I have never encountered any biological growth in any of my rigs. No need for coils or fancy dandy coolants (that actually perform worse over time).

PaulyD · 8 Sep 2010 at 10:24

w3bbo said:
Just buy some dionised or distilled. There is NO difference in cooling ability. One has ions taken out (which are replaced as soon as they contact metal), the other has minerals taken out.

A couple of drops of PT Nuke per 1ltr of water is all I have used and I have never encountered any biological growth in any of my rigs. No need for coils or fancy dandy coolants (that actually perform worse over time).

I second this. However I do have silver coils in my loops as well (as already had them so might as well put them in)

piggin · 8 Sep 2010 at 10:30

Agree, as long as you do not use a coolant with a die in it then you will have no problems.

These are my 280GTX's after my system had been run for only a few weeks on Feser one (red). The red colouring had stained in inside of everything.
I just could not get it out. In the end I scrapped all the pipework, removed all the blocks for cleaning and flushed the rad out with 48% caustic soda.

PaulyD · 8 Sep 2010 at 13:48

Yep, thats the problem with Dyes, i used Feser blue for a while and even after changing to deionised and 3 different loop rebuilds the water would still get a blue tint from what was in the rad.

Horrible stuff..

mmj_uk · 8 Sep 2010 at 14:02

The coolants with dyes are much worse for CPU waterblocks than GPU, I used Feser for a while and the CPU waterblocks have a sort of fine mesh grid on the copper base to increase the amount of area that contacts with water, well after a few months I found that it was gunked up pretty solidly meaning that there was less surface to contact with water thus resulting in higher temps.

I've been using Distilled+PT Nuke (PHN version) ever since and not had any problems at all, you can buy 5litres of distilled online for about £20 it may even be cheaper if you shop around.

Scougar · 8 Sep 2010 at 14:24

I thought distilled water isn't conductive whilst deionised is?

EDIT: Just looked it up, it does conduct electricity, but too a much lesser degree. As soon as it gets contaminants from say solder flux or other things, then it will start to conduct again. It has to be VERY pure water to not be that good at conducting it seems, which won't be achievable in PC's I suspect.