My lazy guide to cleaning CPU block.

[Pierre3400]

I have just finished cleaning my newly bought second hand EK LTX water block.

I thought i would share my process with you guys.

Items you will need.

Small container
Vinegar
Old toothbrush (or new if you want to use that)

First off, take apart the water block.


You can see the block is pretty dirty and will cause performance loss and flow restriction in your loop. The dirt is hard, and stuck into the ripples of the block.


Ready to get to work.


The copper part of the block submerged in vinegar. The vinegar will soften up and loosen the dirt.


I left the block in the vinegar for about 20 to 25 minute and then got out the tooth brush so that i could really get into the ripples in the block. You can already see the dirt has started to disappear on its own.


After this, i ran the block under a tap and dried it off.

Sparkling clean!


As a small bonus, the face of the block is also fully clean now, the vinegar takes almost everything, also left over thermal paste.


I hope someone can find this guide useful

 

[Infinite66]

Pretty straight forward. Thanks for the guide.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Don'tchya just love the gleam from that mirror block?

Nice

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Good stuff pierre. Thanks for sharing.

 

[BobbyBubblehead]

Simple and effective idea
Advice thats been typed out a 100,000 times over
Good stuff

 

[bob4933]

If you haven't put it back together, o - rings aren't intended for multiple compressions. See if you can get some new o rings for it, should be dirt cheap insurance for you. It'll probably be fine as is, but just good idea to replace when possible.

 

[Techjesse]

Great Stuff Pierre

 

[Skippio77]

Great Stuff Pierre

Vinegar works great and surprising ketchup is also good for polishing the surfaces and getting old tim off

 

[EarthDog]

Thanks for another effective guide!

 

[Nebulous]

Tried and true. Thanks for that quick guide Pierre!

 

[Carlitos714]

I really wish it was more "lazy". Pretty much the norm

 

[caddi daddi]

what? this is great! you should have seen me looking like a monkey the first time or two i cleaned mine out!!!

 

[Carlitos714]

what? this is great! you should have seen me looking like a monkey the first time or two i cleaned mine out!!!

Very true but never said it was not. I guess I looked it up before I even got into H2O cooling.

Really need to do this to my blocks, but just been lazy as hell

 

[BruceUSA]

How often do you guys recommend cleaning the GPU/CPU block? once a yrs? . I don't use any dies on my loop. Only distill water and a kill coil. 6 months into it, my water still look clean as it was first filled. So, if my loop look clean in a yrs, should I still tear it down for cleaning?

 

[Woomack]

You clean it when you see that temps are much higher than they supposed to be Like my brother is cleaning his water loop when system is showing blue screens

Thanks for the guide Pierre

One more tip. You can polish waterblock surface and remove stains using some ... thermal grease/paste. MX2/4 or anything similar is good for that. When you replace TIM just polish the surface with leftovers that you have on your block or heatsink instead of using any liquid to remove it.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

You clean it when you see that temps are much higher than they supposed to be

+1 and or when you see your flow decrease.

I have both issues and fixed the temps a bit but too lazy to break apart the rig. Its heavy dammit.

 

[RnRollie]

Nice

However, only a B+ because of the underachievement in laziness.

To achieve a better score, you should use following phrase:

"Woman Domestic partner, go make me a sandwich! Then clean that WB... chop,chop"







.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Nice

However, only a B+ because of the underachievement in laziness.

To achieve a better score, you should use following phrase:

"Woman Domestic partner, go make me a sandwich! Then clean that WB... chop,chop"







.

 

[Pierre3400]

Nice

However, only a B+ because of the underachievement in laziness.

To achieve a better score, you should use following phrase:

"Woman Domestic partner, go make me a sandwich! Then clean that WB... chop,chop"







.

Doing will leave with having to do it myself, cos she would leave instantly

 

[caddi daddi]

I would come out ok telling suga bee that, she'd just blacken my eyes.