Condensation Question

[Gravity Man]

I was talking to one of my friends the other day, and the electrical conductivity of water came up. He claimed that distilled water was an insulator, and that he had tested this in a science class. Being the sort of person who likes to prove these sorts of things myself, I purchased a jug of distilled water from the local grocery store, and proceded to probe it with my digital multimeter, and again with my dad's very high precision analog multimeter. It was not at all conductive.

Now, the condensation that everyone is worried about in pelt cooled systems is distilled water, so why bother spending so much time protecting against it?

1) Has anyone here actually run a pelt cooled system without protection from condensation, or knows someone who has?

2) If so, what happened?

3) Was my testing method flawed? If so, how was it flawed, and what were your results?

[flounder43]

Water is not conductive...however, many things are readily disolved in water, and that will make it conductive...

Salt water, for example, is very conductive.

[ButcherUK]

Here's the deal: Distilled water falls to mobo, picks up ions from the tracks, *BOOM* *ZAP*, nice keychain :)

[Gravity Man]

I was thinking along those lines, but I wasn't sure how much of an effect it would have. I know the tap water here might as well be copper wire with all the stuff it has floating around in it. I have also noticed that ice is non conductive (even when made out of my highly conductive tap water). If I could only freeze my computer in a solid block of ice...

[Tiger]

This what I thought too - until yesterday! As you can see from my sig I am running refrigerated cooling and while the proc is well insulated there is a very small area around the inlet/outlet section on the water block that is leaking air and a tiny amount of condensation is forming there. A drop of water fell on to my AGP card and the result - instant no display. No damage done - just dried it off and re-inserted and all was fine. But now it must all come apart and be re-insulated.

[KILLorBE]

Originally posted by Gravity Man
If I could only freeze my computer in a solid block of ice...

They forgot the CPU and V-card :p

[iggybaseball]

cool, i think it would work bbut you would have to probablydo it with everything plugged in.

[Diggrr]

Ice expands as it freezes, what do ya think made gravel out of boulders in the ice age?
I'd be willing to bet there's 30% broken solder joints/sockets on that board.
And just like ice on a lake, as soon as the chips started producing heat, the ice would melt against them, and do the same bad things it does when a block leaks. The outside would stay frozen, and the chip's side would be a lake.

However, reality aside (as is usual at my house) that would be fun to pull a couple of pizza's off the mobo to put in the oven. :D

[Colin]

Originally posted by Gravity Man


1) Has anyone here actually run a pelt cooled system without protection from condensation, or knows someone who has?

2) If so, what happened?



Many folks have tried this, always with problems. Sometimes the system can be salvaged, worst case is catastrophic failure of multiple components.

[RoadWarrior]

Let's see, high precision multimeter, with 1.5V battery in it, tryna push a few milliamps......

Take one AT supply, used, old, not quite dead, hang an old HDD off a drive connector so it starts up. MAKE SURE IT HAS A GOOD GROUND CIRCUIT. Then stick some probes on the 12V line, and immerse about 1mm apart in distilled water...... see steam yet? Trip the PSU?

hmmmm

Road Warrior