CoolIT ECO ALC leaked!

Cake

Cake

Cake

Associate
Joined
7 Oct 2006
Posts
76
Location
London
Hey all,

I came back from a weekend away to find that my CoolIT ECO ALC had leaked at some point during the weekend. My motherboard is soaked in the coolant fluid, some dripped down the front of my GPU where the power plugs in just behind the hard drive cage and I think there's a tiny amount in the back of the heatsink of one of my twin Velociraptor drives. In short, it's a disaster.

I've been in touch with CoolIT and they've been very quick to respond. They've advised me that if I clean the motherboard and GPU with distilled water and let them air dry for a few days I might be able to get it all functional again.

I seem to have one big problem though. I can't find anywhere that stocks distilled water in the UK! Has anyone had to do something similar before? Would de-ionised water work? I read that the "distilled" water you get in most places, e.g. Halfords is only suitable for topping up car batteries and for steam irons. Would those be pure enough for me to submerge my motherboard in them?

Any advice/help would be appreciated.
 
For the intended purpose the difference between distilled and de-ionised won't matter.

There have been threads about drying out PCs before if you have a search. A wet PC isn't that uncommon with 'real' watercooling.

You shouldn't need to submerge anything. You just need to remove any residue left by the ALC coolant.
 
bremen1874 said:
For the intended purpose the difference between distilled and de-ionised won't matter.

There have been threads about drying out PCs before if you have a search. A wet PC isn't that uncommon with 'real' watercooling.

You shouldn't need to submerge anything. You just need to remove any residue left by the ALC coolant.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

Unfortunately, so much of the stuff dripped down the motherboard that submerging might be the most thorough option for me, but I'll use that as a last resort.

If I don't get the residue off straight away (tomorrow evening would be the earliest I can do this now as everywhere is closed and I have to sleep soon since I have work in the morning too) would that in any way decrease the chances of me getting my machine working again or does it not matter as long as I get it cleaned up and dried at some point?
 
Cake said:
If I don't get the residue off straight away (tomorrow evening would be the earliest I can do this now as everywhere is closed and I have to sleep soon since I have work in the morning too) would that in any way decrease the chances of me getting my machine working again or does it not matter as long as I get it cleaned up and dried at some point?
Click to expand...

I can't see it making any difference.

There may not be any reason to remove the residue at all. Any idea what ALC put in their coolant?

Alcohol (industrial, not good Scotch) is often mentioned as a good way to clean up these sort of problems. It does at least evaporate much faster than water.
 
Tesco extra sell deionised a reasonable price. I imagine if Coolit have recommended removing the residue then it must be conductive or have some undesirable electrical property.
 
Yeah, I saw mention of people using alcohol for cleaning when I searched earlier too. I'll just stick to what the tech support guys say though.

Not sure what's in the coolant. Felt like gel. Thought it was sticky at first, but after trying to clean some of it off I found it comes off quite easily.
 
One tip:

Sounds obvious, but you need to make sure the board is ABSOLUTELY dry after cleaning with de-ionised water as it can get under capacitors and will cause a short if slightly impure.

When I did it I turned the fan oven on low, opened the door and put the motherboard on a clean towel on the open door for a couple of hours, then moved to a dry place for a few more.
 
I would lightly cover the mobo in rice after cleaning it to absorb any moisture, just be careful not to get any rice stuck in the PCI(E) or RAM slots, then I would leave the components to dry for atleast two days.
 
you don't need to cover the mobo in rice... the best thing to do is put a container of rice inside a cardboard box with the mobo

even better than rice would be to get some packets of dessicant, or as mentioned above, don't use water, use IPA (isopropyl alcohol) 70/30 as the cleaning agent and this will evaporate on it's own much quicker than water
 
get it in the Electric oven (don't use gas oven) on 40c, oven door open a tiny bit and it will be sorted in two hours. place in drying cuboard when finished and leave for a day or two, sorted.
 
Thanks all for your suggestions.

I finished reassembling my machine today and despite all my praying it didn't work. I had cleaned the motherboard and GPU using isopropyl alcohol. Everything's completely dried since I've been procrastinating about doing the reassembly. The fans are all whirring, the replacement cooler from CoolIT seems to be doing it's job, the northbridge heatsink is getting warm, the drives are all spinning, but no BIOS screen and the machine just shuts off after a bit.

I can't help but shake the suspicion that something is overheating as when I switch the machine back on soon after it shuts off it shuts itself off again almost straight away or in less time than the first power on.
 
Odd. If the system was switched off when the system leaked, and the power supply remained dry, rinsing it off under the tap should have sufficed.

Did you pull out the CPU and clean the socket? What beeps do you get if the GPU and/or ram are unplugged when you switch it on (match the beeps to a table in the motherboard manual).

edit: heatsink off the gpu before washing it?
 
JonJ678 said:
Odd. If the system was switched off when the system leaked, and the power supply remained dry, rinsing it off under the tap should have sufficed.
Click to expand...

It was suspended.

Did you pull out the CPU and clean the socket?
Click to expand...
Yep.

What beeps do you get if the GPU and/or ram are unplugged when you switch it on (match the beeps to a table in the motherboard manual).
Click to expand...
Haven't tried without RAM, but taking the GPU out made no beeps.

edit: heatsink off the gpu before washing it?
Click to expand...
Yep.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom