question on upgrading in watercooling

Quick question guys. When do you know when you're in need of upgrading the equipment such as the waterblock, rad, or pump? Is it from visible wear or higher temps or something or when they break and the system dies.

HHmmm, when you have a bunch of money burning a hole in your pocket and Cathar announced that he is interested in finding out who wants a silver block

I try to keep enough money around that when something breaks I can buy something better, unschedualed upgrade of sorts. Too bad I am broke.

I would use temps as your main guide.

When you first setup the system you should run for at least a week with pure distilled water to gain a baseline cooling value. This will probably be the best possible cooling you can achieve since no additives that I know of actually increase the heat capacity of the water. Once you have a good baseline temp (the reason for the week is to allow the bleeding to complete and most air to get out of the system).

Once that is done you can move on to additives to get a feel for how you want to handle anti-corrosive and anti-growth or even if you want to do so.

Once you have a pretty solid feel for the system watch your temps. If they begin to rise make sure you havent had any other changes like increases to ambient temps (winters coming here in the US, heaters will be going on soon) or restrictions to airflow (back of the case too close to a wall?). If there have been no other changes and temps continue to rise its time to start looking inside the case and your cooling system.

Visual wear and tear really shouldnt be much of a factor. Possibly corrosion or listening for a pump beginning to labor would be a clue as well. Lastly according to several of the vendors for WCing parts they suggest draining and replacing the coolant every 3 months. Thats a good time to do some system cleaning while you are at it, cleaning the rad, waterblock, etc.

Bugsmasher said:

I would use temps as your main guide.

When you first setup the system you should run for at least a week with pure distilled water to gain a baseline cooling value. This will probably be the best possible cooling you can achieve since no additives have lowered the heat capacity of the water. Once you have a good baseline temp (the reason for the week is to allow the bleeding to complete and most air to get out of the system).

Once that is done you can move on to additives to get a feel for how you want to handle anti-corrosive and anti-growth or even if you want to do so.

Once you have a pretty solid feel for the system watch your temps. If they begin to rise make sure you havent had any other changes like increases to ambient temps (winters coming here in the US, heaters will be going on soon) or restrictions to airflow (back of the case too close to a wall?). If there have been no other changes and temps continue to rise its time to start looking inside the case and your cooling system.

Visual wear and tear really shouldnt be much of a factor. Possibly corrosion or listening for a pump beginning to labor would be a clue as well. Lastly according to several of the vendors for WCing parts they suggest draining and replacing the coolant every 3 months. Thats a good time to do some system cleaning while you are at it, cleaning the rad, waterblock, etc.

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Awesome tips! Thanks. I guess i don't have to upgrade (yet) since my temps are around 40-45C on load and never have idle temps (folding!).

When my air cooling displayed better temps with a 7 volted cheap fan on an SP97 at the same OC, I thought something needed to be upgraded.

Temps are your best gauge, like Bugsmasher said. He has some good ideas there.