Flushing Radiator

[Chiobe]

Yeah I'm fine with replacing tubing, I think I will replace it in a few months for rigid. But apart from that nothing else that can be seen is see through so i'm fine as long as performance doesn't take a knock.

Its not the tubings thats the problem, when it comes to staining.

Its the blocks that will suffer, but its mostly a problem if you want to change liquid later on.

[GTX]

Its not the tubings thats the problem, when it comes to staining.

Its the blocks that will suffer, but its mostly a problem if you want to change liquid later on.

 

Ah ok, Ive got a full black EK Supremacy Evo ( i think ) Nickel and acetal block so I won't see staining. But i've just spent like £800 on a red and black themed PC so I hope I don't change in the next couple of years! 

[brandishwar]

For flushing your radiators, you can always do what I did. First an initial force-flush with a gallon of water using the pump to push the water through the radiator. For a 360mm radiator, I think I used 2 gallons of water. This gets most of the crap out. Just pour the water through the open top of the reservoir, start the pump and keep pouring while the pump is going -- it's easier to keep up with it than one might think -- and turn off the pump when you run out of water.

 

 

Then follow up by connecting it to a water filter system that circulates the water first through the radiator, then through the filter and back to the reservoir. All of this was with distilled water.

 

 

Leave this part running for at least 20 minutes and you should be good to go. If you have the counter space, you can also try to get all of your radiators into a loop when running them through the filter, but do an initial power flush of them individually with a gallon of water for each 120mm or 240mm radiator, two gallons for 360mm radiators.

[LeighPing]

Buy red hoses.

 

The colouring dye is basically food dye. You may as well squash a potato into your loop. It's not really about what you can see. It's about how some of those dyes become seperated by the waterblock channels on both the cpu and gpu and impede flow over time which potentially affects their temperatures.

 

The stained hoses can be replaced. However, you'll need vinegar or ketchup or some other cleaning agent to periodically clean those blocks.

 

This google images search will give you an idea of what may happen. Still, it's your trainset.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=red+stained+pc+hoses&biw=2048&bih=1186&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=XXvWVNizN8HOaP_mgugN&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg#tbm=isch&q=dye+stained+watercooling+waterblock&imgdii=_

[Chiobe]

However, you'll need vinegar or ketchup or some other cleaning agent to periodically clean those blocks.

Ketchup as cleaning agent?

Wont that just make the case worse?

[LeighPing]

Ketchup as cleaning agent?

Wont that just make the case worse?

 

It'll taste better at least. :lol:

 

Seriously, it's good for cleaning your loop and blocks. Go ahead, try it on a old penny and see for yourself. Obviously you'll need to flush it off the blocks, or out of your loop, when you've cleaned things up.

[smg4life01]

This is my loop finished and in my case wasn't such a hard thing

 

[paprikman]

Ketchup as cleaning agent?

Wont that just make the case worse?

Ketchup is a quite acid substanse, so it really helps to clean.

[Benji_w]

Boil a kettle and poor it straight into the rad, I do this and it works every time (just be careful as the RAD warms up but cools down quickly... duh its a rad  ) But be cautions of getting water all over the rad as this could rust the small fins and possibly cause a leak later on.

 

It won't rust, the fins are copper or aluminium. Water doesn't pass through the fins either.

[Benji_w]

Buy red hoses.

 

The colouring dye is basically food dye. You may as well squash a potato into your loop. It's not really about what you can see. It's about how some of those dyes become seperated by the waterblock channels on both the cpu and gpu and impede flow over time which potentially affects their temperatures.

 

The stained hoses can be replaced. However, you'll need vinegar or ketchup or some other cleaning agent to periodically clean those blocks.

 

This google images search will give you an idea of what may happen. Still, it's your trainset.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=red+stained+pc+hoses&biw=2048&bih=1186&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=XXvWVNizN8HOaP_mgugN&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg#tbm=isch&q=dye+stained+watercooling+waterblock&imgdii=_

 

Dyes don't gunk up anymore, Mayhems commented on this:-

 

 

Red doesn't gunk up blocks but anything UV red will stain quickly and anything red will stain eventually but they never gunk. The only things that gunks up system are crap tuning, uncleaned rads or people whom don't listen to good advice by people who have been doing this for a very long time and whom have lots of experience.

 

 

Dyes and coolants have changed massively over the last few years, so people finding images from 2003 and such are just circulating out dated information. 

[Benji_w]

I use this and it's actually 99p for half a UK gallon or 2.5 litres. Still cheap enough though.

 

 

Deionized water or DI water

 

Deionized water is deeply demineralized, ultrapure water with the resistivity close to 18 megohm-cm. It is used in microelectronics, printed circuit boards, instrument manufacture, pharmacy, washing liquids, etc.

In order to obtain the high quality pure deionized water, a multi-stage water purification process can be used. After pre-cleaning, the water is supplied to the reverse osmosis membrane, and then the water is filtered through a special deionization medium, which removes the rest of the ions in the water. The purity of deionized water can exceed the purity of distilled water.

 

99p where from? I have that in my loop at the moment (pictured) does just fine!

[smg4life01]

99p where from? I have that in my loop at the moment (pictured) does just fine!

I'm using a coolant that came  with my kit just waiting for all the little small bubbles to come out the reservoir 

[LeighPing]

I bought it when it was 99p in Tesco, Birmingham (the original one) not too long back. I bought 3 UK gallons for loop maintenance while it was cheap. You snooze, you lose.

 

It seems that the cheapest you can get it for now, in the UK, is £1.16. Still, pretty cheap though. Although the same amount on ebay can be bought for as much £7.99.

 

It's still less than a pound a litre here, if you're quick and need a massive amount.

 

http://www.spraygunsdirect.co.uk/product.php?tid=193&products_id=7467

 

The original poster queried the high prices of distilled water and I merely suggested a cheaper option, which he googled and found. Some of the prices of coloured coolant and even the same pure water are ridiculously inflated and do the same job as less expensive stuff. Unless of course, you know different.

 

 

Dyes don't gunk up anymore, Mayhems commented on this:-

 

 

'Mayhems' - Don't they sell that stuff? Anyway, the same guy also said this:-

 

Since dyes color things, they often get blamed for showing you things that are causing problems.

 

 

Your argument is therefore 'moot' and open to debate.

 

I don't like stuff that stains and clog things up. So I suggested that buying 'red hoses' might be a better option than dyed water. Although, it's his trainset and he can ultimately piss in his loop if he so wishes.

 

Dyes and coolants have changed massively over the last few years, so people finding images from 2003 and such are just circulating out dated information.

 

 

 

I'm happy for you to qualify that with a bit more than a forum post from somewhere selling the stuff mate. Go ahead, be my guest. 

[brandishwar]

Many of the well-known water coolers have also said that dyes can be problematic -- red being even more so than others for some reason. And if you know the ingredients in the dyes, then you'll know why they can be problematic. Look at the MSDS for Mayhems dyes. It's basically just food coloring. For example, compare the MSDS for Mayhems Red dye with the details for McCormick's red food coloring. The only difference is the latter has propylene glycol and a preservative, but is otherwise water and Red 40. Perhaps that's why some have said "just use food coloring" instead of the dyes. I mean when you can pay <3 USD for about 30mL of red food coloring, compared to 9 USD for Mayhems Red 15mL at Performance PCs, yeah I'd go that direction, especially if the dyes are essentially the same.

[Benji_w]

I bought it when it was 99p in Tesco, Birmingham (the original one) not too long back. I bought 3 UK gallons for loop maintenance while it was cheap. You snooze, you lose.

 

It seems that the cheapest you can get it for now, in the UK, is £1.16. Still, pretty cheap though. Although the same amount on ebay can be bought for as much £7.99.

 

It's still less than a pound a litre here, if you're quick and need a massive amount.

 

http://www.spraygunsdirect.co.uk/product.php?tid=193&products_id=7467

 

The original poster queried the high prices of distilled water and I merely suggested a cheaper option, which he googled and found. Some of the prices of coloured coolant and even the same pure water are ridiculously inflated and do the same job as less expensive stuff. Unless of course, you know different.

 

 

 

'Mayhems' - Don't they sell that stuff? Anyway, the same guy also said this:-

 

 

Your argument is therefore 'moot' and open to debate.

 

I don't like stuff that stains and clog things up. So I suggested that buying 'red hoses' might be a better option than dyed water. Although, it's his trainset and he can ultimately piss in his loop if he so wishes.

 

 

 

I'm happy for you to qualify that with a bit more than a forum post from somewhere selling the stuff mate. Go ahead, be my guest. 

 

Urm what are you talking about? Mayhems sell coolants yes, and they work with a lot of watercooling manufacturers, also if you went over to the sourced link and spoke with them you'd see they're as down to earth as you and me. Secondly yes they do stain, it's dye, well done... so what? Chances are you'll be running the same colour coolant for a long while anyway. And again lets go back to the clogging issue, it doesn't exist due to dyes, however if you have plastizer leeching and that gets dyed well I guess that would give the impression the dye is to fault? 

Piss in his loop? wow... mature there buddy. I gave you the word from the horses mouth, they don't clog, coolants have changed, there is plenty of reading material in their thread.

 

Your argument is therefore 'moot' and open to debate. 

 

 

No, I said they don't gunk, not they didn't dye. 

[Benji_w]

 

 

Lol, it's not food colouring. Food colouring is usually sugar based. Adding sugar into a loop would NOT be a good idea. Algae and microbes and what not. Anyways, coolants have a bad rep on many websites. Essentially most coolants are glycol based, and even a number of ultrapures contain 2% glycol. One of the most popular additives in the market is copper sulphate. Copper sulphate mixed with glycol creates the infamous gunk. Plasticizers, flux, etc. can also get caught in the gunk and make it... thicker for lack of better words.

Basically what happened is people would add copper sulphate to their loop, which already had a coolant, and then it would gunk everything up. Then, of course, blame the coolant. That went on for a long time, and there's a lot of crap coolants on the market, so coolants have a pretty bad reputation in many circles.

I've never had any issues with Mayhems coolants, and would recommend them any time.

-Z

 

 

 

 

I've used mayhem dyes for a long time and I can testify that they will not gunk up your system. This includes systems running the pastel product (which includes dye) for almost 2yr straight without any issues or adverse temperature effects.

Since dyes color things, they often get blamed for showing you things that are causing problems. Gunking is usually a result of improper maintained and or prepped loop. Common causes are plasticizer from tubes, rad flux or other nasties in rads, or putting chemicals together that don't go together (like CuSO4 based biocide used with ethylene glycol fluids).

[LeighPing]

So, what exactly is your point? Have you anything that you've personally experienced to add other than 'it just stains stuff' from third parties? Or will you just be drinking the koolaid forums spin again?

 

It's dye, it stains, it's koolaid and no better than pure water and a kill coil. So let's not confuse the original request by clogging that up too.

 

I don't care if he wants to buy it and use it, that's his choice. However, for him, cost was an issue. I'm sure that he seemed happy to be given a cheaper, cleaner option.

 

If all of the koolaid users are happy, I'm happy for them too. Someone's got to use it I suppose. Good luck with that.

[brandishwar]

So I link to a page showing the ingredients for a food coloring that is readily available off the shelf (at least here in the US), and a link to the MSDS for Mayhems dye and show that they have almost the same ingredients, and you're basically saying what I show is not true? The link to the page on food coloring doesn't mention anything with regard to sugar, so to say food coloring is "sugar based" is not entirely true. Are there food colorings that are sugar based? Yes. But there also are ones that are not.

 

The point is, though, that the dyes use the same coloring chemicals that are used in food coloring and food production. And those chemicals are typically distributed as salts, meaning they need to be dissolved into a solution. The possibility of that coming out of solution might be low, but it's not 0, meaning there is a chance, albeit slight, that the dyes will gunk up your loop should that happen -- and the more dye you use, the more chance you have of it coming out of solution because you would come close to the saturation point.

 

The interaction these chemicals may have with the metals and plastics in your loop when in solution is not entirely studied either to the best of my knowledge.

 

I wasn't trying to say the dyes are bad. I know tons of people have used them without complaint, otherwise Mayhems (hopefully) would not be selling them. I was merely pointing out their similarity to food coloring (not all food colorings are sugar-based) and pointing out that your experience is not universal.

[LeighPing]

What can I use to flush out my new radiator do I need distilled water or can i use regular tap water and let the radiator dry out for few hours.

 

Any Help Thanks Guys.

 

Just look at all the trouble you've caused! :lol: Next time, just blow out the dust. It'll save any arguments.

 

Seriously though, it's been an education and it would be interesting to hear more dye users experiences. Good or bad.

[paprikman]

 

Just look at all the trouble you've caused! :lol: Next time, just blow out the dust. It'll save any arguments.

 

Seriously though, it's been an education and it would be interesting to hear more dye users experiences. Good or bad.

Never used dyes by myself, but I've had a pc for a maintenance, which used blue mayhem's dye for 7 month: in full copper loop all waterblocks had dark blue bloom, which I had to clean with toothbrush and ketchup.

Idk what it was, just replaced it with distilled water + biocide + new blue dye, next time it was all fine.

So it happens. Don't see any reasons to risk with dyes.

[cCheeseCake]

On 7.2.2015 at 6:10 PM, LeighPing said:

 

Just give it a rinsing slosh around with a bit of distilled water then. It's just to remove any factory swarf (metal particles) and impurities. Maybe a spider or two if you're unlucky. Then it'll do the job it's intended for without too much trouble. Don't get paranoid over watercooling. Take your time and double check everything for leaks and you'll be fine. You don't need to dry it out after rinsing either.

 

With all this instant online help, there's never been a better time to do such things. Good luck.

let's go off-topic for a bit, have you genuinely experienced a dead spider inside your new radiator?