coolant questions

Adnan769 · 20 May 2006 at 21:20

I've been to a friends house and he showed me his 2 week old water cooled system. He uses a swiftech kit with dual fan radiator to cool his CPU and GPU. He told me that he used cars water coolant for the system. Now I'm not sure if this is ok or not but will this affect the cooling components as I heard that the additives supplied with kits provide sufficent lubrication for the pump.

the thing is, if this was possible then why would most people bother with mixing all sort of stuff :confused:

any info really appriciated.

daven1986 · 20 May 2006 at 21:38

as that provides less cooling ability than pure distilled water. people mix stuff to get the best protection for their watercooling system with the best cooling ability.

basically if you want the best cooling ability just use distilled water.

daven

Adnan769 · 20 May 2006 at 21:48

daven1986 said:
as that provides less cooling ability than pure distilled water. people mix stuff to get the best protection for their watercooling system with the best cooling ability.

basically if you want the best cooling ability just use distilled water.

daven

Thanks for the quick reply, I know that distilled water is the best and thats why I said most people wouldn't bother but the thing is that I wasn't sure that the components wouldn't get dameged due to the lack of the lubricating additives.

Brizzles · 20 May 2006 at 21:56

Apart from the impeller in the pump ( which water will " lubricate " ) , there are no moving parts in a water loop.

The only reason additives are added is to prevent algae etc. growing and clogging up your loop.

Cheers,

Mark

Adnan769 · 20 May 2006 at 22:10

Ok thanks guys... much appriciated

sablabra · 20 May 2006 at 22:11

Not to forget corrosion! Algae and corrosion is why I mix in about 10% blue anti-freeze in the battery water

daven1986 · 21 May 2006 at 12:36

you are ok if you only use copper waterblocks with distilled water. if you mix copper and aluminium blocks then you will need an additive to stop corrosion however mixing the two is generally thought of as a waste of time as it causes a lot of hassle and shortens the life of your blocks.
you don't need a lubricant for certain pumps e.g. the laing dcc as it lubricates itself with the water. im not even sure you ever need a lubricant for any pumps. i'd go with plain old distilled water.

daven

sablabra · 21 May 2006 at 13:44

daven1986 said:
you are ok if you only use copper waterblocks with distilled water. if you mix copper and aluminium blocks then you will need an additive to stop corrosion however mixing the two is generally thought of as a waste of time as it causes a lot of hassle and shortens the life of your blocks.
you don't need a lubricant for certain pumps e.g. the laing dcc as it lubricates itself with the water. im not even sure you ever need a lubricant for any pumps. i'd go with plain old distilled water.

daven

anti-freeze won't shorten the life of your blocks, it's to protect them you fool!!

Adnan769 · 21 May 2006 at 14:31

daven1986 said:
you are ok if you only use copper waterblocks with distilled water. if you mix copper and aluminium blocks then you will need an additive to stop corrosion however mixing the two is generally thought of as a waste of time as it causes a lot of hassle and shortens the life of your blocks.
you don't need a lubricant for certain pumps e.g. the laing dcc as it lubricates itself with the water. im not even sure you ever need a lubricant for any pumps. i'd go with plain old distilled water.

daven

well its not just the blocks as some people have aluminum radiators so will it be ok if some car coolant is added to the distilled water, if it provided corrosion and algae protection that is.

locutus12 · 21 May 2006 at 14:52

the oxygen molecules in water cause copper to corrode and / or grow algae on the rubber tubing. go look at the joins of any of your old copper pipes in your house or run your finger across the inside of that acryllic fish tank, you may notice they have gone a little green...

Anti Freeze prevents this.

daven1986 · 21 May 2006 at 15:06

anti-freeze in a 9:1 ratio is fine, and doesn't destroy temps.

daven

Adnan769 · 21 May 2006 at 17:17

Thanks for the info everybody.

cavemanoc · 22 May 2006 at 14:25

Sometimes the additives are even to stop the loop from freezing (and I'd dispute a blanket statement that distilled/de-ionised water provides the best cooling!)

Mikebert4 · 22 May 2006 at 14:48

I wouldn't use de-ionised Water, as it'll pull more Ions from the metal of the waterblocks. this = corrosion. not too great.

I'd say distilled water, possibly with some waterwetter if you want to increase performance a little. Antifreeze is good, as ther alochol content improves the thermal capacity of the water (pulls more heat) and you have the option of chilling the water in the future as well.

sablabra · 22 May 2006 at 15:30

Mikebert4 said:
I wouldn't use de-ionised Water, as it'll pull more Ions from the metal of the waterblocks. this = corrosion. not too great.

I'll call it ********

daven1986 · 22 May 2006 at 15:50

nah de-ionised water is not good for loops. use only distilled.

cavemanoc · 22 May 2006 at 16:17

what's wrong with de-ionised, AFAIK the only issue was cost.

sablabra · 22 May 2006 at 23:50

I always use de-ionised water, so I consider this bulldroppings

Adnan769 · 23 May 2006 at 02:31

Well in my opinion, if you play safe then you wont be very sorry if anything went wrong, but if you kept pushing it and you busted your system then just blame your own curiosity and fiddling habbits

. Personaly, I went for Gigabyte water cooling kit for my current rig as I wanted to try water cooling yet I was worried about messing it all up as it is potentially more devestating than normal air cooling in the event of things getting seriously wrong. For my next rig though, I plan to have a proper watercooled setup for the CPU and GPUs as I got to know things significantly better than I was 9 months ago.

More importantly, thanks for the replies guys.

cavemanoc · 23 May 2006 at 18:08

Adnan769 said:
Well in my opinion, if you play safe then you wont be very sorry if anything went wrong

Surely the fact that you had played it safe, and it still went wrong, would make you even more p***** off

May as well not have bothered