Coolant mixtures, water cooling

[HardWarrior]

I've read about MANY different potential mixes. Everything from 100% Fluid XP to 50-50 mixtures of coolant and distilled water to 5-94-1 coolant, distilled water, algacide. As near as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be much agreement on what's best. Short of spending $100 a gallon for a fill-and-forget option like Fluid XP, what will keep my all-cooper system at a PH of around 8 and otherwise running well for as long as possible?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Sorry I'm no help here, but that's why I'm sticking with fans and ducts for now.

I'd rather have the noise and power-draw than the surgical tube umbilicals, the acidity and coolant-mix issues, and the worry about leaks . . .

 

[Shimmishim]

all cooper system?

i go with 100% distilled water + a little water wetter to prevent algae growth.

the key to the water is to get something that is as pure as possible so that even if there is a leak, it won't damage your components...(i've had water on video card before but since it's distilled, i just dried my video card and everything was fine again.

 

[HardWarrior]

Actually it isn't bad at all, and for what I've gotten in return the small extra hassle is worth it. My baby is 32c at idle and 34c under load. Acidity is easily controlled by adding 4 ounces of water wetter per gallon and good barbs backed by vinyl hose clamps for insurance. AND the whole thing generates less than half the noise it did before.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
all cooper system?

Sure, all copper.

 

[futuristicmonkey]

Okay, I am going to grade 10 after summer, but I remember my grade 8 science fair project and it got me to thinking. My project was which citric fruit would conduct the most electricity. I knew that the more acidic something was, the more electricity it would conduct but I still did the project because it was easy. Anyways, wouldn't something like an acid be good if you had a copper waterblock and a zinc lined radiator, then like hook up a led to it to make the electricity flow. Wouldn't this help the heat to move through the acid itself from the block to the rad?

Now, I wasn't originally going to write this, but the thought came to me. It is pretty far out, I'd say, but could it work?

And what I was originally going to say was, add lots of salt to the water. It would prevent the growth of anything, and from what I learned from my grade 9 sci fair project, wouldn't it help conduct heat through the water itself to the rad? I mean, heat and electricity are both electrons, right? And I learned that salt made the water more electrolytic, so wouldn't this work?

I'm not really sure of what I'm thinking, but it sort of makes sense...doesn't it?

 

[HardWarrior]

Interesting idea, but it would take someone smarter than I to say whether this would work. Oh, and one thing to consider: LOTS of things can grow in salt water. Remember most of the fluids in our bodies have the same specific gravity of salt as sea water does.

 

[futuristicmonkey]

Oh, right, I forgot about that salt water deal. It's like how when doctors need to give you an injection of...something, or like when med students practice on live victims...lol...they use saline

 

[byosys]

Um...isn't increasing the eletrical properties of water that is used to cool a processor an extreamly BAD idea? People use distilled water to prevent any unwanted electric flow inside the processor and adding salt would compleatly defeat this. As for keeping the PH ~8: I don't have a clue.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: byosys
Um...isn't increasing the eletrical properties of water that is used to cool a processor an extreamly BAD idea? People use distilled water to prevent any unwanted electric flow inside the processor and adding salt would compleatly defeat this. As for keeping the PH ~8: I don't have a clue.

Not inherently, no. Because theoretically coolant never comes in contact with any components. Distilled water is prefered due to the fact that it doesn't have corrosive properties, sediments and spora that tap water does. But yeah, if I did spring a leak I sure wouldn't want it to concentrated salt-water. As far as PH, I think water wetter keeps the coolant between 7-8.

 

[Mday]

hard core guys even use antifreeze =P for those cold winter months.