Bubbles bubbles bubbles! Newbie needs a flush.

[moogthedog]

;tldr version:

First time at water cooling, bought a kit. Ran fine until I added blue dye from kit, and now it's all bubbles and noisy, and they're not shifting. Want to flush it and start again - can I use tap water for the flush?

Long version:
Purchased a 'Liquid Cool 240 mm Vortex One Advanced DIY Water Cooling Kit - Black' from Amazon and fitted it all up, running with just the distilled water from the kit. It started out noisy, but once I ran it with the PC on as well and it was allowed to warm up, it quietened right down. It also looked like a mad scientist's nightmare creation, but I've got some spares on order to do some rerouting and sort that.

I read in the instructions that the dyes contain a biocide to help keep the system free of muck, so I added a few drops each of the blue and green UV dye that was included in the pack until I was pleased with the colour. The green dye was translucent in the bottle, but the blue has some deposits that had evidently crystallised out over time. I squeezed the bottle a few times to break off the deposits and gave it a good couple of minutes of hard shaking - the result was an opaque blue liquid.

This is probably where I've gone wrong - Since adding the dye, the coolant has become subject to tiny bubbles that are making the system noisy again - It's not foam as such, but they hang around when the system is off. As the system runs, the pump smooshes them all up until they're tiny and they've ended up all through the tubing.

As I've got some changes to make and I've got to get my hands dirty anyway, it's my intention to flush the system out before I reconfigure and reload it with new coolant but - the price of distilled water what it is - I'm loathe to use that for the flush.

There are warnings all over that you can't just use tap water for coolant, but I'm not sure if that applies to just rinsing the system out.

So - a few questions:

Is it alright to use the system in its current state (Are the bubbles going to damage the pump?)
Can I use tap water to rinse the system out?
If I do - will it make a difference if a few drops are left behind - or should I let the system dry out before reloading it?

All thoughts greatly appreciated.

 

[moogthedog]

It's only been a couple of days - but before I added the blue dye (through the spare port on the top of the reservoir/pump, while the system was running) it was completely clear, and running virtually silently. An occasional one would be dislodged from somewhere (I'd hear the pump scoosh it), but as soon as they arrived back at the reservoir, they immediately disappeared. Within a couple of hours of adding the dye there were tiny bubbles all round the tubing, and they hang around.

This rather shonky photo shows the state at the pump exit after the system has been running for only a few minutes - small bubbles like those are all through the tubes, and gather wherever there's a slight hump when the system's off. They'll come together as single large air traps, but only after a couple of hours, and as soon as I start the system up again the cycle repeats. The cloudiness in the reservoir is (I think) more tiny tiny bubbles, as it also clears up after a couple of hours.

I've been looking around and I've found the water cooling group on Reddit, and the wiki there says that using tap water for a flush is fine. As I've got to virtually disassemble it to make the changes I want, I'm going to go ahead and rinse it through at the same time. I've got a couple of silver coils in among the spares I have on order, so I'm going to use those in preference to the dye.

One of the main issues is that any bubbles that are in the system are coming into the reservoir at such speed, they end up going straight down the mouth of the pump. The kit reservoir/pump is only about 15cm in height all in. Would a taller reservoir prevent that?

 

[moogthedog]

It sounds like you've introduced more air into the system by running the pump whilst opening the Res cap to add more dye!
You can try and rock the case back and forth to dislodge any stuck bubbles in the rads etc... It might take a little more time as more air has been introduced, watch the levels in the fluid in the Res and top up as needed

Looking around elsewhere, it's also possible I'm suffering from 'two day newbie panic'... Now I know some more keywords, I'm finding threads from others in almost exactly the same situation.

When I reconfigure, I'm going to add a filler pipe to the top of the res so I can keep the level up above the top of the inlet pipe so I can hopefully (eventually) completely fill the loop when I set it all going again. In the meantime I'm going to let it be for a bit, and occasionally pinch a pipe to make it look like I know what I'm doing Reduces flow rate, y'know.

No, it wouldnt prevent it...
What is needed is a flow diverter or return tube in the res, so that incoming water is slowed/diverted upwards and the feed from the pump has to draw water that is seperated from the return.
Any bubbles that come in go upwards with the water, bubbles seperate off and head further upwards in the res, pump feed is drawing bubble free water.

I've seen some reservoirs that have a little extension tube inside, and I've also seen that those are sold separately.

Do most reservoirs come to bits? I admit I didn't try with this one. New toy an' all.

I think the one I have is one of these

Depending on where you are in the UK if the water is hard then I wouldn't recommended letting it anywhere near your loop. In London there is so much limescale in the tap water that you'll end up using more distilled to flush it out afterwards. Be careful with advise from Reddit since it's likely global. In Australia the water tends to be soft so it's much safer to use to flush your loop. I actually put tap water in my loops back in the early days when I was in Australia.

Small bubbles can take up to two weeks to fully flush from a system even when using plain distilled (+kill coil or biocide). Larger bubbles should be gone after a few days at most. Each time you turn the system on and off they should shift around a bit and eventually be pushed out.

Glasgow, and it's as soft as a freshly washed puppy. No fur in kettles or anything else.

Except on the puppies.

Puppies. So soft.

 

[moogthedog]

'two day newbie panic', never heard of it but it does make sense!

Mixing water and electricity was nerve-wracking enough at first! To have it all smooth out and *then* get noisy and bubbly is an annoyance. But one that seems to happen a bit

If its been leak tested and isnt leaking and temperatures look sensible then just use it and keep an eye on it. Pinching hoses does work, as does leaning/rotating the PC (careful NOT to suck air from the res into the loop! I also resort to knocking it/shaking it (Its a FULL enthoo primo, heavy bugger) to get the bubble moving.

In some loops it can take weeks for the bubbles to fully go away.

I ran it for a full 8 hours without the MOBO powered, with just distilled water, and there was nary a drip.

The case is FULL - hence the need for water cooling, as the airflow to the CPU was minimal. Midi tower with 3 HDs and a CD drive in the front, and a full-width graphics card in the top PCI slot below.

The cooling apparatus is just perched on top at the moment (The res/pump held in place with a couple of brackets. The rad is heavy enough to look after itself), but the aim is to tidy it all up and make it all properly secure. I've got a nice big square of MDF to chop up and make a slot affair for the rad and fans that I can secure to the top of the PC, and then add another layer to put the res/pump up alongside it. It's not going to win any design awards, but it'll look a lot less like the frankenstein sneeze than it does at the moment

Adding a filler pipe is a good idea, G1/4 ports on the top of the res from the look of it, wouldnt need a drain down... So simply prepare a g1/4 to suitable hose length, and then at the top add a fill port/cap.. Unscrew the existing g1/4 bung from the top of the res and screw this in its place. Might get a small amount of spillage when you do it so lots of kitchen roll tucked all around. If you do it with the pump running it will prevent it trying to drain the loop out the now open hole.
If in doubt drain it down and do it that way, far 'safer'.

I use a large syringe (250ml I think) with a 1ft length of narrow hose to fill/empty my loop as needed.. Works really really well and is zero spill.

The aim of the reconfiguration is to have the exit from the CPU block as the lowest point on the system, leading straight up to the inlet to the res as the highest. Then, if I do need to break into it again, I do it there (up top) and gravity will be my friend and keep the majority of the fluid inside the system.

That's the plan at least.

After time you get rather comfortable with it, I have been watercooling since before bits were available, using motorcycle heater cores, aquarium pumps and knocking up our own blocks on a lathe How times have changed, these days its just too easy!

I was just thinking the same about general PC builds these days. I was making PCs out of bits in the 8086 days, when you had to know about interrupts and DMAs and stuff. It's like Lego these days.

-feels old-

 

[moogthedog]

Just a quick note to say thanks guys. The system settled down a lot on its own, after being allowed to run for a couple of days continuously. Spares arrived this afternoon, and the flush went well.

With a couple of 90-degree fitments to make the upper tubes horizontal, there's no tall loops, and I've added a fill tube with a port so I can completely fill the res.

Having reassembled it about three hours ago, it's sat running almost silently already - a huge improvement on last week. I constructed a holder out of wood, so the rad and pump sit securely on the top of the PC. All that's left to do is a little bit of securing of the tubing so that it's not all just hanging limp out of the back of the PC - there's a bit of structure to it.