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Murky Res Water w/silver & PTN??

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In case this helps, this is the res after the water has had time to settle and then re-aggitated. WAY more particles than I thought just in this part of the loop alone.
I'll definitely be breaking this loop down and cleaning it all out - any tips/words of warning?

Suspended Particles.jpg
 
That is some weird looking material in your loop, I hope it's not so bad that you have to take your blocks apart to clean them, might be advisable though. I really want to know what that is in there, I won't be using my PC for weeks at a time so I'm hoping this is some oddity and not related to your system sitting for periods of time.
 
I'm most likely going to pull the blocks apart to clean them and have a look. I took a ton of pictures that I'll be posting soon, but the rust material (whatever it is) has coated most the inside of the loop. I think it's this rouging that happened in the QDCs/fittings, but I'm not sure yet. Whatever it is, it's going to require a complete disassembly of everything to clean out. Hopefully putting vinegar through everything will shield the loop from having anything like this happen again. Luckily(?) nothing looks/smells biological, so at least it's corrosion and not organic :shrug:
 
To me its a sign of some type of galvanic corrosion going on. Your best bet is to do a complete tear down and start over again, unfortunately.
 
Curious to see what the cause is.

BTW don't use any vinegesr. People sometimes use it for cleaning rads etc but it is aggressive and more than likely will not help in any way for your particular issue.

As Jack stated tear down the system and clean all your individual components to find the culprit.

As for the rads, connect a hose from a hot water tap. Flush and shake them thoroughly for 20mins or so with hot tap water and then immediately flush 2 to 3 times with distilled.to prevent any tap water deposits.
 
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Curious to see what the cause is.

BTW don't use any vinegesr. People sometimes use it for cleaning rads etc but it is aggressive and more than likely will not help in any way for your particular issue.

As Jack stated tear down the system and clean all your individual components to find the culprit.

As for the rads, connect a hose from a hot water tap. Flush and shake them thoroughly them for 20mins or so with hot tap water and then immediately flush 2 to 3 times with distilled.to prevent any tap water deposits.

+1 :thup:

Just in case it is galvanic corrosion, I wouldn't add any acids in the mix to clean for the time being till you know what the case of this is. I'm not a chemist but if my memory recalls correctly, we usually use vinegar to clean out oxidation.
 
I was talking with my passivation guys and vinegar will not work. It is not a strong enough oxidizing agent. My bad.

The stainless spring will not be an issue. The passivation would only be an issue if you had welded stainless parts.

Take some pics when you do your full tear down..... I'm interested to see.
 
Thanks guys, I will be continuing to work on a full tear down over the next few days and will post pictures as I go. I'll avoid vinegar then - thanks for clearing that up.

The one biggest thing I'm worried about it disassembling my GPU block and reassembling it. Not only am I concerned for the disassembly (not damaging anything on the actual card), I'm also concerned about my TIM reapplication when I'm done and the rest of the remounting. Other than TIM, will I need to redo anything on the remount (VRAM thermal pads or anything)?
I've never messed with GPU blocks before, so any tips there would be greatly appreciated.
 
You know I had a silver kill koil in my loop and had some beige sludge build up on it similar to what you have in color, but my water was clear. I took everything apart, washed it all out with white vinegar and distilled water, then rinsed with pure distilled and rebuilt. Filled with distilled and added a few drops of PTNuke. Been about 3 months and evrthing is still clean as the day I put it back together.
 
Some pics from the initial stages of the breakdown:


This is why (one of the reasons) I'm afraid to remount the GPU block - my TIM app. amount needs some work :eek:

Block TIM.jpg CPU TIM.jpg


Here's the outside look into the CPU block, as well as close-ups of the QDCs

CPU block 1.jpg QDC 1.jpg QDC 2.jpg


A whole bunch of pictures looking into the fittings from the blocks

Fitting corrosion 1.jpg Fitting corrosion 2.jpg Fitting corrosion 3.jpg Fitting corrosion 4.jpg Fitting corrosion 5.jpg


The color of some of the drained water as well as a paper towel with the particles caught from dumping the orange water (and the black gunk is what wiped off the edges of the fittings)

Dirty water bowl.jpg Dirty water cloth 1.jpg Dirty water cloth 2.jpg
 
Two little side questions:

1) I was shopping around on Performance PCs for a silver plug and some tube cutters (scissors are just no fun), and came across water temp sensors like this. However I realized I only have 1 extra plug (in the res) and I'd probably rather use the spot to put in a silver plug. This isn't an extreme build or anything, just 120x5 worth of rad cooling a single CPU and single GPU overclocked, so I doubt I'd really gain anything from monitoring the water temp and should probably just put the silver plug in. I do already have a silver coil I can continue to use, along with biocide, so maybe I should throw the sensor in instead just to have - any thoughts?

2) If this is some sort of corrosion (most likely), I know doing this full breakdown and cleaning will start the whole thing from scratch, but I don't see how that'll keep it from happening again. Won't I need to add a little bit of something like ethylene glycol to keep it from corroding again? Maybe i'm speculating too early here, but I thought I'd mention it.
 
Don't add too many ingredients to the cake mix. Stick with the basics : Distilled water and/or silver kill koil/plug or PTN. Not both. Just use one or the other along with the distilled water and all should be well.
 
Sub'd.
The more info I get on taking care of loops the better since I'm a WC newb :p

Rust it does look like but from where?
Somehow i don't think it's the stainless steel springs. They are called stainless fora reason...
 
I would still do a tear down and open up the CPU block and pumps. The GPU block is a pain to open, depending which manufacturer and most of the time will void warranty. It could be bad plating on something, idk. Without tearing it all apart and investigating you won't know and yes stick with the simple basics that have worked for most of us. My loop's flow, temps and looks, look good as new.

Also, if you don't have an extra port in the back of your reservoir since you're putting a silver bullet through, try one of these. I use two bitspower temp probes no problem.
 
I would still do a tear down and open up the CPU block and pumps. The GPU block is a pain to open, depending which manufacturer and most of the time will void warranty. It could be bad plating on something, idk. Without tearing it all apart and investigating you won't know and yes stick with the simple basics that have worked for most of us. My loop's flow, temps and looks, look good as new.

Other than the GPU (undecided), I'm definitely cracking everything open. I want to get this right. That's a good point about the difficultly/warranty. I'll wait till pics of everything else cracked open are posted before I make a call on the GPU block.
Mmk, for now I'll just plan on a good clean and then distilled + silver and/or PTN. I might not add PTN this time around.

Also, if you don't have an extra port in the back of your reservoir since you're putting a silver bullet through, try one of these. I use two bitspower temp probes no problem.

Oh yeah, I saw those, actually. So with one of those I'd basically split one line into two lines with that sensor in the middle?
 
Oh geez, and I just remembered I need to RMA my reservoir while I'm at it due to that crack in the bottom. I hope they don't deny the RMA due to all the orange crap in/on it (or the length of time since i requested the RMA) :chair:
 
Oh yeah, I saw those, actually. So with one of those I'd basically split one line into two lines with that sensor in the middle?

Nope. You just add that in into the line and either have fittings on each end and continue the route. I have two of them as female to male to a radiator's in and out. I only got two so I can get a average as these things aren't particularly on the money but with in +/- within the margin of error unless you get one that is way off. I just wanted to keep tabs and that has helped me in the past as well as a flow meter but again all these things aren't needed but they did help me notice my deteriorating loop and give me a general idea of the loops health and what my delta temps are at.
 
Nope. You just add that in into the line and either have fittings on each end and continue the route. I have two of them as female to male to a radiator's in and out. I only got two so I can get a average as these things aren't particularly on the money but with in +/- within the margin of error unless you get one that is way off. I just wanted to keep tabs and that has helped me in the past as well as a flow meter but again all these things aren't needed but they did help me notice my deteriorating loop and give me a general idea of the loops health and what my delta temps are at.

Ah, that's what I meant: a compression fitting on either side of the probe in the middle of the line. "Split" was the wrong word to use on my part.
I'll see if I can't fit a flow meter in for kicks, but I'll definitely be throwing in one of those in-line temp probes while I'm at it.
 
Other than the GPU (undecided), I'm definitely cracking everything open. I want to get this right. That's a good point about the difficultly/warranty. I'll wait till pics of everything else cracked open are posted before I make a call on the GPU block.
Mmk, for now I'll just plan on a good clean and then distilled + silver and/or PTN. I might not add PTN this time around.



Oh yeah, I saw those, actually. So with one of those I'd basically split one line into two lines with that sensor in the middle?

I don't know of any manufacturer that voids warranty on opening of blocks. The first thing any support will tell you to do is open blocks and clean them.
 
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