Cleaning up coolant, and other stuff.

So, it came to my attention that my waterblock had been leaking and quite badly as of recent. That on top of a melted fan mount on my northbridge cooler gave me an interesting weekend.

Now, I have done a little research on ethylene glycol and found out it boils at about 387F. That temp reminded me of what some people have been doing to fix "broken" video cards. The oven method right? Well, this got me thinking a bit.

Is it safe to put my motherboard in the oven at 390F to boil off any ethylene glycol? The fact that I had a fan mount melt when the fan stopped working kind of leaves me puzzled.

Here are pictures of the carnage, the green **** on the heatsink, yes its ethylene glycol.



Now, to the other stuff:
I cleaned the motherboard to the best of my ability, inside the pci slots were a *****. But my computer does boot. Fails to initialize video, but boots. If it does not happen to be my video card that is the problem here, where should I look next?

You can drown the mobo in alcohol, and use teeny toothbrush items to help scrub it. Blow it out with compressed air, do again. Ack.

Even run hot water over the mobo for a while, then douse in alcohol, blow out, use a hair dryer on medium, let sit a day or two.

I can't say if it's not the GPU except the mobo could be a goner.

So sad.........

Why were you using antifreeze in the loop?

It won't boil off, it will cook to a hard gunk forever stuck, like molasses on a table for 3-4 weeks.

Ouch. I think I died a little inside remembering my first foray into watercooling. Lost a GTX 295. That is a bummer.

Conumdrum said:

Why were you using antifreeze in the loop?

It won't boil off, it will cook to a hard gunk forever stuck, like molasses on a table for 3-4 weeks.

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1. Read the ingredients of the coolant you get from the likes of Thermaltake of Swiftech. Its Ethylene Glycol. If it is good enough to cool an engine, its good enough to cool a computer.

2. Have you cooked antifreeze before? in an oven at 400F or did you light it on fire?

LOL, okay buddy. Since I get better results using distilled water and a biocide I should use it in my car engine.

LOL, no comment.

Don't cook it. You do not want to breath ethylene glycol. Don't drink it, either


Wash it in rubbing alcohol then blow it dry if you're in a hurry.
If you aren't, give it a good shower in hot water (literally, take it in the shower with you) then let it dry in the sun for a couple days. Or bake it at 160*f, or plop it on a heater vent.

Ethylene glycol is water (and alcohol) soluble, not hard to clean off at all.

There is nothing wrong with using distilled water, and you misread the analogy. It doesn't work too well both ways now does it?

I have been using combinations of the two going back and forth here or there for a while. I had just recently drained my radiator and had pure ethylene glycol in at the time.

I didn't misread anything. I use whats best for watercooling. And it won't work in a car, like antifreeze is not needed in a PC, and increases temps.

Pure antifreeze?

Well, anyway, welcome to our forum, I guess.

Cars and PCs are almost identical cooling wise, if you use mixed metal loops you have to have antifreeze or something like it.

Cars by and large do, even if just aluminum and iron.
You can run pure water, and your temps will be much better (up to the point the thermostat regulates them, at least), but your cylinder head will slowly disappear if it's aluminum.

Too much antifreeze is bad, just like in computers.
In cars you want ~50/50, in computers it's more like 20/80 if i recall correctly (antifreeze/water).

Bobnova said:

Cars and PCs are almost identical cooling wise, if you use mixed metal loops you have to have antifreeze or something like it.

Cars by and large do, even if just aluminum and iron.
You can run pure water, and your temps will be much better (up to the point the thermostat regulates them, at least), but your cylinder head will slowly disappear if it's aluminum.

Too much antifreeze is bad, just like in computers.
In cars you want ~50/50, in computers it's more like 20/80 if i recall correctly (antifreeze/water).

Click to expand...

Yes and no. In cars aside from mixed metal (aluminum heads, iron block, steel bolts) a 50/50 mix is used for raising boiling point of the coolant. The system is also pressurized to raise the boiling point even more. That's why if you open a rad cap on a hot car it blows up.

From a cooling perspective, running straight water in your car is a bad idea, the boiling point is too low unless you have a very high pressure rad cap, and there's no lube for the water pump.

In computers raising the boiling point of the coolant isn't neccessary and a mix of 10/90 or 20/80 (I forget which one too) is all that's needed to prevent corrosion in a mixed metal loop.

What happened to Mrblah is one reason why distilled, PT nuke and silver is best for computers with non-mixed metal loops. With distilled a light cleaning and drying would be all that's needed.

Mrblah - Sorry, I can't help you I've never had glycol leak on a mobo. Bobnova and Conumdrum have you covered.