Why are dyes bad for your system????

Why has no one addressed why dyes are bad, other than to refer to countless horror stories floating on the internet. I mean I have seen nearly all the pictures of what looks like algae growing in loops, clogged blocks and stained rads, reservoirs and tubing. What was the cause of these problems, it wasn't simply putting the dye in there loop, most said it was fine for a few months then they have this (insert horror story). I mean I know how the parts get stained (most likely). I even have a hunch as to why the clogging happens, and algae is easy to answer.

The wealth of knowledge on this site is tremendous, the articles' written for the website or informative and actually fun to read, so why hasn't anyone answered this other than to tell people "Because I say so", I know that not how it's actually said. You can't save everyone from making mistakes, sometimes people need to learn from their mistakes. The wealth of knowledge here is tremendous, and I'm surprised no one has added to the "Beginner guide to water cooling" a list of causes/reasons that lead to the answer of dye's are bad, just spouting about internet stories is lame really , I mean read once I was the most popular person in the world, it was on the internet so it must be true... right

My reason for not using dyes are simple, I will shut down my PC when go out of town for work, which is often, that will lead to the settling of dyes which can then start to form clumps in the loops mostly in the cooling fins and begin to restrict flow, which will allow more dye pigment to clump until my loop is blocked and the pressure builds up to the point it starts to leak somewhere. I mean it's pretty simple. I would like to discuss solutions (if there are any) to the causes and problems or using dyes in cooling systems.

Would be an interesting topic to discuss, make an informed sticky for the beginners guide to water cooling, what do you say guys? Think you can have a rational discussion on something most of you avoid?

Well, at a high level dyes are typically not a solution so parts of it separate from the suspension it is and sticks to your parts. Not scientific, but quite logical... as you already mentioned those points you know that, LOL!

Personally, I don't need to go any deeper than that with seeing the pictures of what happens to a lot of them.

That said, I am interested to see if someone can come up with something scientific to add to the existing article/sticky threads.

EarthDog said:

Well, at a high level dyes are typically not a solution so parts of it separate from the suspension it is and sticks to your parts. Not scientific, but quite logical... as you already mentioned those points you know that, LOL!

Personally, I don't need to go any deeper than that with seeing the pictures of what happens to a lot of them.

That said, I am interested to see if someone can come up with something scientific to add to the existing article/sticky threads.

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But the particles that make up the dyes', do they stick to the lining cause of the porous nature of the parts in general, or is there an underlining reason, not enough rad space and water temps increase which in turn increases the porousness (in that even a word ) of the parts (being all the components of the loops)? or could poor cleaning of the parts prior to installation aid in this? It seems this is (if the not the only) one of the biggest problems for algae growing in loops.

Thanks for seeing (I'm assuming this of course) the merit to my query.

Edit: had to add to some information I found while searching for information. All I can say is WOW, this was the most boring read I have ever attempted, bit over my education level. I did realize dyes are not designed to color water, they are designed to coloring something else and water (in the case of water cooling) is the medium. So scratch staining from getting solved unless you got the mullah to drop on that endeavor. That being said, depending on the chemical structure of the dye used, staining can be mitigated for some time, but the coloring of parts is inevitable. And for the people who are reading this that are thinking "I could of told you that", you forgot to explain why stain is inevitable The fact that it is isn't the issue, why does it stain parts is.

t1n... its a good question. I am just not sure that anyone here can answer it with facts. One would need to know what the dyes were made of, what is exactly sticking to the tubing and the same goes for the tubing. I am just not sure a member here could do that (but is certainly worth asking!). To me, it is a question that really should be asked to those that make the dye and tubing.

I would email the companies that make the products too and see what they say.

You need someone with a hardcore scientific/chemist background to really do it justice otherwise the experience and horror stories with pictures will have to suffice.

If someone got's deep pockets, head to a laboratory and get tests done.

EarthDog said:

t1n... its a good question. I am just not sure that anyone here can answer it with facts. One would need to know what the dyes were made of, what is exactly sticking to the tubing and the same goes for the tubing. I am just not sure a member here could do that (but is certainly worth asking!). To me, it is a question that really should be asked to those that make the dye and tubing.

I would email the companies that make the products too and see what they say.

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I guess I was thinking with the knowledge in this community we could come up with some rather good reasons, maybe not scientific, to avoid Dyes. The internet stories as true as they are have other issues with there loops, the dye is the just the easiest fall guy. I'm not dismissing the fact that dyes add more problems than solutions to cooling loops, but they aren't the devils hand at work here (just had to find a reason to fit that emote in).

GTXJackBauer said:

You need someone with a hardcore scientific/chemist background to really do it justice otherwise the experience and horror stories with pictures will have to suffice.

If someone got's deep pockets, head to a laboratory and get tests done.

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Like ED said, I'll try writing a couple of companies to see if they actually make something that doesn't stain parts. I doubt I'll get much from any of these companies as water-cooling pcs is a niche market and not much profit for the manufacture of designer fluids, but as my dad says, "they can't say yes if you don't ask."

Besides staining? I don't see why duyes are bad.

Most say they gunk up the blocks and stuff.
I think it's actually the plasticizer in the tubing leaching out and the dye stains that, which ends up on your blocks and what not.

If the latter were true, why is there little to no clogging from plasticizer in a loop that doesn't use dyes? Perhaps the dyes stick to the plasticizers more??

@ t1n - the community has come ip with rather good reasons...we both mentioned them already. While I'm sure some horror stories have other things going on,the vast majority are solved by running distilled. Some dyes ARE the devils hand at work... hence the warnings, and the Abudent horror do stories for the gluttons for punishment.

EarthDog said:

If the latter were true, why is there little to no clogging from plasticizer in a loop that doesn't use dyes? Perhaps the dyes stick to the plasticizers more??

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I dunno.

Anyone want to test this? Run some cheap home hardware pvc tubing with dye then without dye?

I'm thinking about doing that. but I leave tomorrow so it will be a bit before I can sit down and do this right. Wonder if taking the heat generated from the PC would affect the results? While I'm away don't let this die to quickly, there might be something to learn from this, can't learn anything if you don't step out of the box

Most people fail to realise that 'staining' is not a problem with the dye it is usually due to the material absorbing the dye itself ie. having a porous surface to some degree.

Many users may have all sorts of chemicals running in their loops which can cause all sorts of issues with dyes precipitating out of suspension and the like when they mix their coolants/dyes with other biocides and/or corrosion inhibitors and the like which are usually not compatible with each other. They just end up with a chemical soup in their loop with unkown reactive properties and 9 times out of 10 strike a problem.

Safest option is to run with the minimum of chemicals so that is why straight distilled works fairly well. However running just distilled water does not afford the user any form of protection against corrosion so it is not 100% foolproof and you do see issues where people run straight distilled yet still have a problem....this is usually just corrosion based though.

I myself use a diluted mix of auto based coolant which I have never had issues with. It is interesting in that this coolant must utilise some form of dye as it is red but in years of using it I have never had any problems with it. Only reason I use auto based coolants is that they provide my loop a form of proven protection against corrosion.

I've run cheap home depot tubing and had build up in the microchannels of the block, no dye required. With good tubing it has never been a problem.

if you want to run dyes then your best bet is to run an older or very high flow design waterblock. The way modern blocks use what amounts to a high pressure jet over microfins in the block makes the block act like a filter for what's in the water. It doesn't even have to be dyes, antifreeze can have the glycol sat to separate out, too.

What it all boils down to is that if you are running something other than plain water, eventually whatever else is in the water will get trapped in the tiny channels of the block. You can avoid this by using older blocks like some of danger dens old pin matrix style blocks like the mc-tdx. Since the area around each pin would be much larger buildup is less of a problem.

Most anything you add to the water will also raise your temps because anything remotely affordable and non toxic will be worse performing than water, though this is pretty minor all told.

The only cooling system additive I have ever found that doesn't degrade the cooling performance of plain water is called Water Wetter. It breaks down the surface tension of water and allows greater thermal transfer between the water and the metal. Found in race shops and some bike shops. It's all they allow in cooling systems on race tracks. I wouldn't put ethylene glycol in any of my radiators , bikes or cars. I can't imagine trying to clean that gunk off a motherboard in case of a leak.

I have used Water Wetter back many years ago (old socket 370 era) and found that it results in problems in the long run. It was all the rage at one time but fell out of favour with the PC water cooling crowd when problems appeared.

If you do a search on it from a PC cooling perspective many others have had the same issue I had with it.

Whats wrong with cleaning up an Ethylene Glycol based coolant if it spills onto a board etc? I have never found it to leave a mess.

EarthDog said:

If the latter were true, why is there little to no clogging from plasticizer in a loop that doesn't use dyes? Perhaps the dyes stick to the plasticizers more??

@ t1n - the community has come ip with rather good reasons...we both mentioned them already. While I'm sure some horror stories have other things going on,the vast majority are solved by running distilled. Some dyes ARE the devils hand at work... hence the warnings, and the Abudent horror do stories for the gluttons for punishment.

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Well quite simply, there are examples of plasticiser clogging when using nothing but plain water. I used Primochill tubing for a long time with no dye and always had to regularly remove goop from the CPU block.

Coloured coolant is not the devilish loop destroyer some believe, if it was nobody would use it, it is really that simple. It is just true that coloured coolant of any type will require more maintenance and more cleaning. For some that isn't a problem and for some it is.
The real problems only occur when you combine inexperience with laziness or an unwillingness to maintain.

There are examples of that, unless you use the right tubing really. The Primchill LRT shows very little signs of this when I used it (always). So, with the right tubing, it is much more rare to see a plasticzier clog than it is to see a dye clog as I alluded to earlier. Hence the advice we give to generally stay away from dyes and to use the right products.

As mentioned earlier there are some dyes that do not clog. But those that do, handle the devil's work.

People can use dyes, but vigilance in maintaining your loop goes up exponentially depending on the products used.

If you really want to avoid potential problems with dyes, why not use colored tubing? Primochill Advanced LRT is probably the best bet. Plasticizer leeching is minimal with this stubing.

This is why
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/745573-Colored-stains-in-Water-cooling-setup

ATMINSIDE said:

This is why
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/745573-Colored-stains-in-Water-cooling-setup

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or this.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...Confirmed-Feser-1-Blue-Premix-GTZ-do-NOT-want

There are numerous examples on the net. As ED said u can't answer why it's happening unless if you're some really experienced chemist that would have to break down the chemical formula of the dye and analyze with which of the parts of your loop it's reacting that way. No one knows if it's the tubing plasticize leaching or if it's the blocks or or or... It would take a lot of research to find out.

Flat-6 said:

I have used Water Wetter back many years ago (old socket 370 era) and found that it results in problems in the long run. It was all the rage at one time but fell out of favour with the PC water cooling crowd when problems appeared.

If you do a search on it from a PC cooling perspective many others have had the same issue I had with it.

Whats wrong with cleaning up an Ethylene Glycol based coolant if it spills onto a board etc? I have never found it to leave a mess.

Click to expand...

I wasn't aware of any issues in computer cooling systems. That's good to know. Cleaning up anti-freeze is a pain. Just getting the sticky feeling off my hands was always a pain and takes considerable scrubbing. I just imagined getting it out of the nooks and crannies on a mobo would be at least as troublesome. Avoiding dissimilar metals would also go a long way towards deterring corrosion.