Question on Water Cooling

[SquaredPit5]

How do you clean liquid cooling system? I was wondering.

[MiracleMan]

Disassamble the waterblocks to clean the inside and wash out radiators and reservoirs for a couple minutes with clean water.

Tubings you can't really clean, just buy new ones, they are not that expensive.

[Dave :)]

Drain it, then clean it. Usually the coolant contains chemicals which prevent build up of 'gloop' and dirt which saves people have to completely dismantle their loop to clean it.

[dav1257]

I would say u might wanna use deionised water or distilled instead of tap water.

Tap water will have contaminents in it just like ur cooling water so filtered water will do a better job

[Mentalguy]

drain the loop, then put a 25%/75% alcohol/water into the loop, run for an hour, repeat if needed. Then do the same thing a few times with pure water.

[Charlie]

You might wanna check this lovely article on Maximum PC on how to clean and maintain the water cooling loop.

Click here to go to the article

[Ghost]

If you buy good coolant and nickel plated parts you will very rarely need to maintain your loop. Unless you see gunk in your loop its fine.

[Dragon_Cannon]

Nickel plating is just for show it doesn't do anything. It is silver which is the stuff that kills of all the bacteria inside of the loop.

[Metallurgico]

Nickel plating is just for show it doesn't do anything. It is silver which is the stuff that kills of all the bacteria inside of the loop.

Nickel prevent oxidation of the copper below, so does prevent copper particles to be released in the coolant and damage every block. It's basic chemistry.

[Ghost]

Nickel is an unreactive metal it prevents corrosion in your loop.

[Whaler_99]

But - a lot of the nickel plating out there is crap. EK have been notrious for having aweful jobs on their blocks. I would say just don't add in aluminum into the mix. :) As long as you run a good inhibitor, which is is a lot of pre-mix, you should be good for a year without needing maintenance....

[Dragon_Cannon]

As a rule of thumb you shouldn't be using anything where the water comes in to contact with aluminum as copper is a much better heat dissipator.

[Fordox]

But - a lot of the nickel plating out there is crap. EK have been notrious for having aweful jobs on their blocks. I would say just don't add in aluminum into the mix. :) As long as you run a good inhibitor' date=' which is is a lot of pre-mix, you should be good for a year without needing maintenance....[/quote']

this has been revised. There was a oxidation problem on their nickel plating, but it's fixed now.

And yes, clean your set-up by draining it, fill it with distilled water, run it for a few hours, drain it again, take your blocks and pump apart, clean them with a toothbrush, set your components back into your rig, use new tubing and you are good to go.

[douchecanoe]

How often would one need to clean a basic loop? (CPU block, res, rad)

[Jokrik]

personally I would clean it once a year,

but the thing is once you get into the watercooling world, you would drain it every couple of months

its just so addicting and you would want more and more

I'm on my 3rd upgrade in a year for now :( help me.......

[Christian]

Omg i was just trying to clean mine out before, as the tubes became cloudy. Turns out the water was pretty clear, and it was the inside of the tubes that turned like that. But i filled her back up and have contacted Primochill. I had significant trouble getting the water out. How do you people do it?

[Jokrik]

I've a draining line in my loop though I still have to do the old blow thing to remove all the water

Primochill hey?

I'm planning to get a new tubing which is the primoflex advanced LRT, I've heard good reviews about it

which one did you use?