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Can the water in CPU water coolers freeze?

Appleboy45
By Appleboy45
in Custom Loop and Exotic Cooling
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My gaming PC has a Corsair H75 water cooler. I never thought of this before, but can the water freeze if it gets too cold? Does it freeze at 32 F, or does it have anything that decreases the freezing point. Last year, it got so cold, my heater froze up and the condensation wouldn’t drain so I had no upstairs heat. It got really cold in my computer room. When I went to go turn on my computer, it made an awful loud noise that sounded like it was coming from the fan, but I don’t know for sure.

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it could, if they use water + anticorrosive. Some use different coolants like propylene glycol with melting point below -50C.

CPU: i7-2600K 4751MHz 1.44V (software) --> 1.47V at the back of the socket Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4 (BCLK: 103.3MHz) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 RAM: Adata XPG 2x8GB DDR3 (XMP: 2133MHz 10-11-11-30 CR2, custom: 2203MHz 10-11-10-26 CR1 tRFC:230 tREFI:14000) GPU: Asus GTX 1070 Dual (Super Jetstream vbios, +70(2025-2088MHz)/+400(8.8Gbps)) SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB (main boot drive), Transcend SSD370 128GB PSU: Seasonic X-660 80+ Gold Case: Antec P110 Silent, 5 intakes 1 exhaust Monitor: AOC G2460PF 1080p 144Hz (150Hz max w/ DP, 121Hz max w/ HDMI) TN panel Keyboard: Logitech G610 Orion (Cherry MX Blue) with SteelSeries Apex M260 keycaps Mouse: BenQ Zowie FK1

 

Model: HP Omen 17 17-an110ca CPU: i7-8750H (0.125V core & cache, 50mV SA undervolt) GPU: GTX 1060 6GB Mobile (+80/+450, 1650MHz~1750MHz 0.78V~0.85V) RAM: 8+8GB DDR4-2400 18-17-17-39 2T Storage: HP EX920 1TB PCIe x4 M.2 SSD + Crucial MX500 1TB 2.5" SATA SSD, 128GB Toshiba PCIe x2 M.2 SSD (KBG30ZMV128G) gone cooking externally, 1TB Seagate 7200RPM 2.5" HDD (ST1000LM049-2GH172) left outside Monitor: 1080p 126Hz IPS G-sync

 

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Cinebench R15 Single thread:168 Multi-thread: 833 

SuperPi (v1.5 from Techpowerup, PI value output) 16K: 0.100s 1M: 8.255s 32M: 7m 45.93s

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Yes it can freeze. The freezing point of Ethylene Glycol, the mixture most commonly used in AIOs freezes at 8.78f. That is pure, its different when mixed with water.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_glycol

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7 hours ago, Skiiwee29 said:

Yes it can freeze. The freezing point of Ethylene Glycol, the mixture most commonly used in AIOs freezes at 8.78f. That is pure, its different when mixed with water.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_glycol

The antifreeze will only drop the freezing point of the water by a few degrees. (I know, I literally taught this stuff in college.) 

 

OP: Why not just... keep the computer running? No way for the liquid to freeze then. 

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18 hours ago, corrado33 said:

The antifreeze will only drop the freezing point of the water by a few degrees. (I know, I literally taught this stuff in college.) 

 

OP: Why not just... keep the computer running? No way for the liquid to freeze then. 

Sorry for the long reply. I actually just started considering that anyway. I hear many who work on computers for a living find it better to leave desktops running all the time anyway.

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