Friendly reminder to clean yer loops

[Zerileous]

I remembered a few years ago that I found a small bit of gunk in my GPU block but it "didn't seem to me affecting anything" so I left it be. Unsure if it was related to my current woes I popped my phone camera in there and was a little grossed out.



I really did not want to un-mount and disassemble the block (although with 5 year old paste I probably should have), so I devised a method to back-flush the block.



The water bottle has a mouth piece that fit perfectly into the spare tubing, that ran into the outlet of the block and the inlet drained into the bowl. I forcefully squeezed the water bottle to flush water backwards through the block, dislodging the gunk.



Remembering my problems from 3 years ago, I repeated the process for the CPU block. All of this came out of the CPU block, I emptied the bowl in between.



Then I flushed the loop with a gallon of distilled water before adding in the coolant concentrate. Video of results here https://clipchamp.com/watch/E9g5kRzCalg (not sure how to host directly). I will know this evening if I have rectified anything, I decided to give a full 24h leak test and enough time to make sure everything dried out from the flushing.

 

[Nebulous]

I do a full loop maintenance at least once a year. I don't use any colored fluids/dyes/additives or preservatives. Only distilled water and for color, colored tubing. And when I do a tear down and refit, I use new tubing and fresh distilled water. Of course ya gotta scrub dem blocks!


Sometimes I use a pond pump running water from the tub through the rads to flush em out.

 

[Zerileous]

Yeah I am admittedly terrible at loop maintenance. I try to do a quick drain and fill at least annually, or near annually, and for coolant I only use cryofuel clear. Beginning to think I'm not cut out for custom loops lol.

 

[Al_bundy]

Hi, if u want to clean ur loop, then u can have a try.
I fill my loop with dishwashing liquid from the kitchen. Care that the water is around 50°C in ur loop and let it run for 1-2h.
The rest of the work makes the compressor 1.5bar.

If u want that ur copper is shinging again, u can use lemon juice. Iam sure u will find some tutorials in youtube.

 

[DaaG]

Yeah I am admittedly terrible at loop maintenance. I try to do a quick drain and fill at least annually, or near annually, and for coolant I only use cryofuel clear. Beginning to think I'm not cut out for custom loops lol.

Same here, heck, I have an issue where it will not gravity drain. Dual reservoirs, so I did what any non caring person would, took a deep breath and blew until lung air pressure emptied the reservoirs, along with top rad, vrm blocks, mid rad and bottom rad.

I am sure my lungs are not sterile.

To put everyone's mind at ease, I did refill with the poisonous stuff so no biological growth can happen after replacing the blown motherboard.

 

[Sologuy]

This is one of several reasons why I do not use water cooling. But to anyone who wants too, good luck!

 

[Zerileous]

Yeah it's awesome but it is a significant amount of extra time and expense.

 

[freeagent]

Yeah it's awesome but it is a significant amount of extra time and expense.

By this I naturally assume you mean it is a hobby within the hobby

 

[BugFreak]

I'm at about 2 years on my current loop and trying to convince myself to drain it. This thing was such a huge pita to fill I'm really dreading it.

 

[Auraka]

My upcoming loop will have a ball valve drain wye at the bottom at the radiator discharge, with either a barbed adapter/tubing or a cap when not in use. The reservoir/pump combo fills from the top. You can also vacuum the liquid out with an airtight container and a vacuum source (sweeper) which might be less messy than using a blower. Dual 360 in the front of a Torrent cooling a 7950x, I planned for easier maintenance.