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My last question (for a little while)

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Scary-MoFo

Member
Joined
Feb 15, 2003
A friend of mine was telling me that watercooling is high maintinance(sp?) and that you can't ever really "leave it alone" and that something always needs to be checked on. Do you disagree or agree with my friends opinion?
 
not really much at all

In a closed loop system i don't think you need that much mainaince. I'd turn the comp off if you're going away for a while, but other than maybe adding a little water every now and then, there shouldn't be much maintence. A critical temp shutdown can help to ease worries about pump / fan failure. If you're using a setup with an evaporative cooler then you're going to want to check on water levels daily, especially in warm weather with low humidity, but thats not really 'standard' water cooling either.

Almost forgot - The only other possible source for maintence is if you are mismatching metals in the system. For instance - an aluminum radiator and copper block. Ions will travel through the water and deposit on the block. You will need to clean out the block if this is the case. There are addatives such as water wetter and others (do a search for battery effect) that will reduce this chemical reaction, but the best way is to go all one metal (copper). I've never had a mismatched system, but my guess is that once a month or so you'd want to check the block out (more if u got a clear top) or when temps start going up and you can't explain it.
 
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im going to run inline... I have an aluminium(sp?) tranny cooler right now because i slipt while playing with my copper rad and punched a HUGE hole in it i then scrapped it because nothing was going to help that... ill talk to my dad and see if he has any coppper rads laying around at work(hes sleeping right now) and maybe i can go with that... but i may stick with the aluminum rad because its the perfect size to mount on the top of my case and i guess i could deal with running anti freeze and or water wetter to reduce the battery effect
 
Higher maintenence than a HSF... yes. I worry about pump failure, but I bought a cheap pump.

I think once it's up and going, changing the fluid about once a year would be good.

Clean out the rad quarterly or better.

Use temp monitoring software with a shudown utility.

Overclocking has it's risks, the more you push the envelope, the more risk you take on.
 
im not doing this for overclocking at this moment but im trying to build a preformance block so when i get a decent cpu and ram ill be ready! so does your maxiJet run hot? the (bigals) online retailer ****ed up and tried to charge to the wrong experation date for my dads credit card so the creditcard company stopped funding etc... now today the order has to be redone. Im hoping that my dad will tell bigal's that this is a project that is going to end up being late because of the pump not being shipped quick enough... maybe they'll give us free overnight shipping
 
It gets quite warm. When I re-plumb my system, I'm going to put the pump in front of the fans for the rad. Make sure you use water wetter with these pumps as they have steel impellers and will die a quick and noisy death if don't.
 
Some say yes, some say no. The only 2 addatives I trust completely are Zerex supercoolant and Water Wetter simply because I've seen actual tests with these products.
 
do you think i should just solder my block or should i go with the screw and O ring way?
 
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