cooling fluid

[JPotze]

Hello fellow watercoolers,

 

I have what i think a simple question. I bought the alphacool nexxxos kit for my cpu and gpu. Alphacool recommends distilled water for cooling fluid. The blocks are for what i can read made of copper. 

Should i buy the expensive water of alphacool for like 20 USD (€15 here) of can i just go to a hardware store and buy distilled water there for €2 per liter.

 

the site of alphacool doesn't say anything about additives for the water. Am i supposed to add something to the water? 

 

[Najuno]

I´m using either some additive from EKWB or just a simple silver kill coil and distilled water, that you can buy in every grocery store.

Maintenance every9 months to a year but just as a precausion from my side here. Never had any issues with bacterias or such.

 

EDIT: just to be clear I´m using Mayhem´s Pastel in the build you see as my profile pic just for the looks, but it has some additive in there as well.

[JPotze]

22 minutes ago, Najuno said:

I´m using either some additive from EKWB or just a simple silver kill coil and distilled water, that you can buy in every grocery store.

Maintenance every9 months to a year but just as a precausion from my side here. Never had any issues with bacterias or such.

 

EDIT: just to be clear I´m using Mayhem´s Pastel in the build you see as my profile pic just for the looks, but it has some additive in there as well.

 

I don't have a shop nearby that sells the silver coil. but i have a coin collection which has some silver coins. can i clean some coins and just drop them in my res?  

[Najuno]

10 minutes ago, JPotze said:

 

I don't have a shop nearby that sells the silver coil. but i have a coin collection which has some silver coins. can i clean some coins and just drop them in my res?  

Depending,

it needs to be pure Silver in order to work properly. The silver kill coil can be ordered through selected shops, i.e. in the US my favorite shop for watercooling parts is Performance PCs. Or even Micor Center has Silver Kill Coils.

[JPotze]

this silver coin is i believe to remember 99.95% silver. but before i dump my expensive silver coin in the res I will look further for a selling point of the kill coil in holland. 

[W-L]

1 hour ago, JPotze said:

this silver coin is i believe to remember 99.95% silver. but before i dump my expensive silver coin in the res I will look further for a selling point of the kill coil in holland. 

I would recommend to check to see if you can get silver coils or a biocide of sorts as silver coils but that coin would be pure enough. Just note that if there is any nickel in your loop you must use a biocide as silver is a borderline dis-similar metal with nickel in a loop environment. 

[shibbs]

1 hour ago, W-L said:

I would recommend to check to see if you can get silver coils or a biocide of sorts as silver coils but that coin would be pure enough. Just note that if there is any nickel in your loop you must use a biocide as silver is a borderline dis-similar metal with nickel in a loop environment. 

To emphasize what W-L said, even the nickel plating in most fittings is going to be enough nickel to worry about using a silver kill coil or coin. If that's the case, I wouldn't recommend using a coin, as it will get pitted.

 

Pick up some PTNuke and call it a day with your hardware store distilled water.

[Guest]

I'm partial to primochill clear coolant, it's about ten bucks on amazon.