Does antifreeze work well for watercooling loops!?

[Mussels]

How does that work, vinegar being an acid and all? I thought fluorescein was used.

It results in corrosion, I bought second hand stuff and the previous owner had done this

So much corrosion, even the rubber seals on the fittings seem to have been damaged from it

I don't use PC coolant. I use car coolant - antifreeze which on the bottle I use is good for 100,000 kilometers.

If it's good for 100,000 kilometers of combustion, then I'm pretty sure it's going to be good for many years in my PC water cooling loop.

Like I say, I've already had issue's using straight distilled water and not one in close to 20 years of using car coolant regardless of the miniscule temp difference.

different metals and materials
Cars dont use nickel plated heatsinks

 

[Outback Bronze]

nickel plated heatsinks

Still no issues with nickel plated blocks.

This system was used for roughly 4/5years with car coolant with nickel plated blocks. I like using Nickel Plexi blocks.

I did you the liberty of pulling the CPU block apart to show the nickel.

Please be aware this machine has been decommissioned and the blocks have been sitting in the open air for 2+ years with small amounts of coolant still inside them. I did not rinse them out. The cpu block had some blue car coolant I was tryng at the time but only just now cleaned it up so you can better see the nickel that was exposed from using car coolant.

Been just sitting here collecting dust like this.


One of two GTX 1070's. See the Nickel is pretty clean under neath the plexi.








Even all the seals are fine.

 

[Mussels]

Mine sure didnt look like that, it went to absolute shite

Heres what the tubing looked like after running a bunch of distilled to flush it out on loop overnight

My entire point is that what works for one person wont work for another, that vinegar mix the previous owner used had all sorts of crap stuck in the radiator, and then as it slowly got cleaned out it damaged a few fittings (eating away at the rubber in them) so they all began to leak

Pretty much everything i got from him fell apart, and it's depressing AF because he was a close friend who passed away not long after i bought the stuff off him

 

[Dr. Dro]

those ultra clean/deionized waters (lab grade) are counterproductive.
because its missing "everything", guess where the fluid will "pull" from?
yes, your loop/parts.
much higher chance of problems like corrosion/galvanic reactions. made that mistake once,
had to take whole loop apart and clean all parts.

after flush and use of (generic supermarket) distilled water + biocide, the same parts worked fine
for almost 1y without any trouble, so i know it was the "clean" water causing it.

again, short of some not so good part selection (mixed metals etc), your best of with dist. stuff and a biocide,
liquids tend to work better than coils/silver hw.
but do try and get distilled water that was UV (or similar) treated, to destroy any bio stuff.

did use a 1gal water jug for res in 2006, just the sheer vol of coolant allowed for around 30 min of fanless operation.
but before i would do a vodka loop, id rather have 10gal of (non-conductive) cooling fluid in an aquarium and drop the parts in it

That actually makes sense, I suppose I didn't take an eventual galvanization that into account.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Still no issues with nickel plated blocks.

This system was used for roughly 4/5years with car coolant with nickel plated blocks. I like using Nickel Plexi blocks.

I did you the liberty of pulling the CPU block apart to show the nickel.

Please be aware this machine has been decommissioned and the blocks have been sitting in the open air for 2+ years with small amounts of coolant still inside them. I did not rinse them out. The cpu block had some blue car coolant I was tryng at the time but only just now cleaned it up so you can better see the nickel that was exposed from using car coolant.

Been just sitting here collecting dust like this.


One of two GTX 1070's. See the Nickel is pretty clean under neath the plexi.


Even all the seals are fine.

Your CPU block does look tarnished and the CPU and GPU block do look to have lost some nickel as the copper color looks to be protruding. I'd say your choice of coolant is a no go.

 

[freeagent]

Dexcool is shit

 

[Shrek]

Why are people using vinegar?

 

[damric]

This thread is inspiring me to put little plastic fish in my reservoirs

 

[A Computer Guy]

Why are people using vinegar?

From my understanding typically you would use vinegar/water mix to clean radiators (prior to special cleaners available today) although you would need to make sure you rinsed and flushed thoroughly so residual vinegar that might be trapped in the rad won't harm your nickel plated blocks later. The low acid vinegar would clean the copper, dissolve minerals, and kill microorganisms. Not sure about how well it does dealing with residual flux.

 

[Waldorf]

@Dr. Dro
you might get a way with it if all parts are non-metal or properly painted/coated,
but virtually every single time i ordered LC parts in the past 3y (no matter the brand) at least one part had brass/alu etc exposed to the coolant.

you could test run distilled water with some H3O added and see if it starts to foaming,
but i havent had a single time where (lab grade) water in my loop didnt go bad within 3-6 month.
ignoring that for most it will be harder and more expensive to get, so i personally stick with UV treated distilled water and some (liquid) silver/copper based biocide solution.
just make sure to stick to the lower end of dosage (e.g. if 1 drop for 1L, dont use 2 drops for 1.2L)
so to not affect ph too much, and DEFINETLY dont mix any other coolant with it, or you risk gunking up the loop quickly.
dead water

 

[Shrek]

dead water

Copper sulfate; might as well just buy the soild?

 

[Waldorf]

FrozenCPU is going away, but i lived in a neighbor state, and 5-10y ago it was cheaper and quicker than amazon seller shipping from asia.

 

[Mussels]

This thread is inspiring me to put little plastic fish in my reservoirs

To be fair it's a fake/desk item, but i do intend to place it inside my ITX rig and pretend it's a res

Why are people using vinegar?

Because it's "recommended" and "was totally safe" for a long time
Until commonly used metals changed

 

[A Computer Guy]

This thread is inspiring me to put little plastic fish in my reservoirs

Do a test first with the plastic fish and the liquid to try and determine they won't dissolve and/or particulate in the fluid you use.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Your CPU block does look tarnished and the CPU and GPU block do look to have lost some nickel as the copper color looks to be protruding. I'd say your choice of coolant is a no go.

You don't think its because the block has been sitting in the open air for more than 2 years? I can open the GPU block if you're really keen, but they look mint underneath the Plexi.

Also, wouldn't the fins on the CPU block be the first to show signs of wear as they would be the thinnest? They don't look too bad either.

In all honesty they look in pretty decent condition to me after 4/5 years of use! They def don't look bad.

 

[A Computer Guy]

You don't think its because the block has been sitting in the open air for more than 2 years?

From what I saw not really. Give em a good scrub with soap and water and rise and repost picks of CPU and GPU blocks if you don't mind.

I can open the GPU block if you're really keen, but they look mint underneath the Plexi.

Yes please do.

Also, wouldn't the fins on the CPU block be the first to show signs of wear as they would be the thinnest? They don't look too bad either.

I can't predict what parts would wear first. I assume where the plating is the weakest would first be hit.

In all honesty they look in pretty decent condition to me after 4/5 years of use! They def don't look bad.

Yea open up the GPU block let's take a closer look.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Yea open up the GPU block let's take a closer look.

Yeah ok no worries but please give me some time to do so. Im going away as of tomorow and wont be back until Sunday.

 

[mmomega]

I remember using anti-freeze back when I began watercooling, early 2000's when you could barely find parts.
I went to the auto parts store to get a heater core for a 82 chevette or something along that to be the small radiator to fit inside the case.
But yes, I used Antifreeze way back just because my brain said if it works in a vehicle to keep it cool it would work in a PC but, the main point of antifreeze was to raise the boiling point of plain water, and lower the freezing point, neither of which a computer ever gets close to, so a jug of distilled water and a couple drops of iodine, which is an anti-growth additive and call it.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Yea open up the GPU block let's take a closer look.

Here:

Freshly opened


Sunlight


Bit of a wipe clean. Noting too fancy.


Looks pretty damn good to me matey!

Please remember this was used for quite some time and on every day during the 2017 mining boom.

I think it's fair to say the car coolant I use has done its job. I have no use for these cards/blocks any more except for a retro build. The fluid has outlasted the build, and everything is still in pretty sweet condition.

If I could open up the rads I would too.

Like I say, not one issue.

Cheers.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Here:

Freshly opened
View attachment 302326

Sunlight
View attachment 302327

Bit of a wipe clean. Noting too fancy.
View attachment 302328

Looks pretty damn good to me matey!

Please remember this was used for quite some time and on every day during the 2017 mining boom.

I think it's fair to say the car coolant I use has done its job. I have no use for these cards/blocks any more except for a retro build. The fluid has outlasted the build, and everything is still in pretty sweet condition.

If I could open up the rads I would too.

Like I say, not one issue.

Cheers.

Well that last photo definitely looks better. In the original photo before this post under the plexi it looked like copper discoloration of the nickel like in your sunlight photo. Unfortunately the clean photo captures the reflection of your hand where I thought the discoloration existed so it's hard to compare the coloration with the rest of the block but think it's fair to say your blocks nickel looks intact and the chemical sheen of the dried coolant was creating an optical illusion in the original photos.

After seeing those photos though if I were to use car coolant and had to decommission a block for long term storage I would clean it first.

 

[Outback Bronze]

I'd say your choice of coolant is a no go.

BTW I beg to differ. I have proved otherwise.

 

[A Computer Guy]

BTW I beg to differ. I have proved otherwise.

Why bother to reply to that quote like this? It was made with limited info that was available at the time.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Why bother to reply to that quote like this? It was made with limited info that was available at the time.

Limited info? I was saying I've been using the stuff for close to two decades and you tell me it's a no go. cmon mate.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Limited info? I was saying I've been using the stuff for close to two decades and you tell me it's a no go. cmon mate.

In the quote you omitted. "Your CPU block does look tarnished and the CPU and GPU block do look to have lost some nickel as the copper color looks to be protruding."
Context matters at the time of the original comment.

There was a reason I asked if you could show a cleaned block and to that effect I think it proved your point after looking at those new photos.

Anyway it's moot if you read my reply to your new photos.

 

[Outback Bronze]

In the quote you omitted. "Your CPU block does look tarnished and the CPU and GPU block do look to have lost some nickel as the copper color looks to be protruding."
Context matters at the time of the original comment.

There was a reason I asked if you could show a cleaned block and to that effect I think it proved your point after looking at those new photos.

Anyway it's moot if you read my reply to your new photos.

Yes, I agree and I'm sorry If I upset you, but I honestly didn't like it when you tell me "It's a no go" yeah, after sooooo many years of experience using it.