first time water cooling. concerned with a few things in my loop (pics inside)

[atm743]

hey all. I'm a new water cooling user. 3 weeks ago got my loop up and running and i love it. temps are amazing and much quieter!!. i have my computer right next to me on a table. usually its on the floor next to my desk but i wanted to keep my eye on it for a few weeks just to be extra safe to make sure no leaks or anything. i tend to have OCD with a few things. if something is a little off or think its should not be, i kinda go nuts until i fix it or figure it out. i was taking a few pictures today and i noticed a 2 things.

1st: was my video card block. in the area's were the bottom plexi and top meet seems to have a build up of something. not sure if its just because there is a VERY thin gap between where the two meet or what but there is this film in that area. i dont see it in my res, my cpu block, or tubes. just on my gpu block.

2nd: was looking close at my cpu and i noticed a few very small dots. looks like just gunk or build up? i have no idea. im afraid its build up from my coolant or dye. i only see it in the middle where the inlet is on the microchannels of the block.

its hard to get a picture of this because i dont have a good camera and its very close up. i took pictures with my crap 6 year old camera and iphone.


before i post pictures, here are the watercooling parts in my loop.

cpu block- EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ - Nickel + Plexi
VRM block-EK-MOSFET ASUS for Asus P8P67 Motherboards - Acetal-EN (Nickel)
gpu block- EK-FC780 GTX Ti - Nickel pelxi
res pump combo- EK-D5 Vario X-RES 140 (incl. pump)
rad 1- Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 Full Copper 240mm
rad 2- Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 Full Copper 360mm
tubing- PrimoFlex Advanced LRT 10ft Tubing - 3/8in. ID X 5/8in. OD - Crystal Clear
coolant- Mayhems X1 Coolant clear
dye- Mayhems Dye - 15ml Dark Blue
fittings- all bitspower black sparkle 3/8in. ID X 5/8in. OD


what i would like to know is what is this and what is causing it? will i be ok if i leave my loop how it is or would it be highly recommend to tear down my loop and clean this? i really dont want to tear down the loop and have a chance to screw something up when taking apart the blocks and re installing but if this is a serious issue i guess ill have to. i added about 10 drops of the mayhems dark blue dye. not sure if i added to much?

pictures:

Cpu: issue (hard to see with my crap pictures but look at the fin away of the inlet you'll see a few dark clumps (what is this and should i be ok ? if it stays like that and not more build up?)




GPU: see the film / dust, around the middle. some on the fin away but looks like its only at the top of the fins where they meet and touch the top of the plexi,





Extra pictures: here is picture of my complete build. not the best pictures just a few i took to give people an idea how my tubing looks as well as my water in my res. (forgive the mess of cables and my hanging SSD in the back.)

 

[RnRollie]

did you do a thorough rad-dance?

looks like some residu and of course thats the first thing the dye sticks to.

you'll have to tear down, rince, flush, clean thoroughly and rebuild/refill.
This time stick to distilled water + killcoil

 

[atm743]

did you do a thorough rad-dance?

looks like some residu and of course thats the first thing the dye sticks to.

you'll have to tear down, rince, flush, clean thoroughly and rebuild/refill.
This time stick to distilled water + killcoil

i flushed the rads with close to boiling distilled water (10 times each). i didnt flush the tubing or the blocks im thinking its residu as well from the tubing. maybe plasticizer? either way, if its just residu or plasticizer, would i keep getting more and more of it or will it probably just stay the way that it is right now? if its not going to grow or build up (like algae would) i may just leave it the way it is. i dont want to have to tear the whole loop down if its not causing damage to my pump or parts , and or hurting my cooling performance.

 

[EarthDog]

Dye in a loop.. No!!!!
Use colored.tubing next time. Hopefully the dye won't gunk up that nice looking loop.

 

[atm743]

Dye in a loop.. No!!!!
Use colored.tubing next time. Hopefully the dye won't gunk up that nice looking loop.

i thought mayhems dye is good and does not gunk up?

also i updated the first post with updated pictures of the cpu block. when i cast the light around the block the gunk or whatever is not dark its really white / clear. i think its plasticiser from the tubing.

 

[rjb]

^^^6 Unless you notice a drop in your temps I'd leave it until your next service in 6 months time (or thereabouts)....and I agree, its likely plasticisizer or some leftover residuals in your tubing.....your coolant is fairly new?....so it aint that.....no reason to switch it all out to distilled n killcoil really.....
As far as I'm concerned the premix coolants are certainly not in the same league as they were 5 - 8 yrs ago .....I use a Feser 1 "Pure"...granted I use clear not colored and change at every 6 month service

 

[atm743]

yeah, i was talking with a few people and if it aint broke. dont fix it. As long as this **** does not like reproduce lol and more and more is being made, im keeping it as it. the coolant is only 3 weeks old. built it over memorial weekend.

here is an updated picture of the cpu block at full res (big picture) sorry for margin rape

 

[S_I_N]

Mayhems stinks bro. I used his dyes in a build once Never again, pretty much the same with any dyes. I now just use colored tubing distilled with a kill koil. Even after several warm water flushes and vinegar the mayhems dyes kept coming out of my rads.


edit: you ninja'd me lol thats not plasticizer thats residue from your rads/blocks. Who knows if any of it is in ur pump. I'd advise a tear down of all and a reflush of everything including tearing down the blocks and getting it all out of them Plus take the pump apart and make sure it hasnt gotten inside it.

 

[atm743]

Mayhems stinks bro. I used his dyes in a build once Never again, pretty much the same with any dyes. I now just use colored tubing distilled with a kill koil. Even after several warm water flushes and vinegar the mayhems dyes kept coming out of my rads.


edit: you ninja'd me lol thats not plasticizer thats residue from your rads/blocks. Who knows if any of it is in ur pump. I'd advise a tear down of all and a reflush of everything including tearing down the blocks and getting it all out of them Plus take the pump apart and make sure it hasnt gotten inside it.

ok. well give me i guess a mid week project. when you say residue from rads/blocks. like what is it? like just metal gunk? when i look at my res i just noticed that there is a line around the res where the top of the water just sits. like its film, (guess from the dye? or all the residue ?)

as for draining everything? any good tips on getting the last bit of water out. when water stops cycling threw the i dont want to run the pump dry do i just run it till it hits the bottom and just tilt the case around till it call comes out. i dont want to take a tube or move something and i get a surprise spash on my parts lol

 

[S_I_N]

yeah metal gunk flakes from something most likely the rads.

DO NOT USE YOUR PUMP TO DRAIN

When I tear mine down I pull the cpu block leaving the tubes on, have it hanging over the sink and pull the tube off. However I dont have a mofset/chipset block so the range over the sink is alot further for me. After that has finished draining I put them up out of the way on the high side and pull the lowest hose next, normally the tube off the lower gpu going to the lowest point on the rad. I hold that down until it stops draining. By this time most of the water is out. There is still some in the loop you'll just have to be cautious about removing components. As long as there is no direct power to any parts a lil splash is easily clean up and allowed to dry. I've had minor and major slpashes on mine before and normally I just wipe off what I can see then blow off with air, then I put a fan or fans (case fans powered by jumping psu) on part for a few hours and that has worked very well for me. But recommendation is to let fully dry for a couple days, I'm impatient so thats not an option for me lol.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

This tubing is a newer design from Primochill that doesn't have plasticiser unless it was a bad batch. They used to have an old design that had issues but thats all over with a way better line this time around.

This "stuff" could be from rads, blocks etc. I can already see from your recent pic the gunk is in the fins of the CPU. It even looks greenish to me but that could be the camera showing it as that color (Green = algae) or the debris has been "bleached" if you will from the dye.

You will NEED to do a full tear down and wash everything up. It can be stained already after 3 weeks of use believe it or not. I don't think I'd be running the rig if it was mine in that form but that's just me.

Running dye loops is a headache and a half. You'll need to tear down the loop every 2-3 months if you don't want the dye staining and glogging your tubing, blocks, rads and possibly damaging the pump with gunk, etc. This is why we advise distilled water + biocide and or kill-coil with color tubing. Its the best route. If you want color, you can stick RBG leds behind reservoirs or light up the tubing etc.

There's many ways to go with this but it seems you didn't know enough about dyes and maintaining along with adding a drain. I think dye rigs are show rigs but for 24/7 rigs I don't think it should be used, personally. Dye requires way more maintenance than distilled. Some rigs have gone a few years w/out maintaining anything (which I don't advise) with distilled water and looked crystal clear after. Plus straight distilled water will hold better thermal properties than dye.

I think you get the big picture now. Hope to hear from you and see what your next steps will be.

 

[RnRollie]

hmm ... so thinking aloud
Those things seem to be too irregular in shape to be mineral crystallisation...
then again
Those things seem to be too regular in shape to be organic growth...


I'm still guessing debris of some sort. If it isn't a trick of the light, then the "green" hue is either because the stuff IS greenish, OR it is yellow-whitish and the blue dye makes it look green.

If it were black, i'ld say its some leftover from the tapping/cutting of the ports on the (pump top) block.

If it were white-ish, i'ld say its some plasticiser from hoses OR something which was in the bottle of liquid/dye or something leftover from the tapping/cutting of the ports on the plexi covers

If it were yellow-ish, i'ld say its some copper or brass particles or worse nickel flakes which were dislodged, but not flushed out of the system.


Either way, you are looking at taking the whole thing apart, blocks included -keep the toothbrush nearby- before any permanent damage to pump or cloggin up too much. Rinse & flush -several times- the first of the cycle can be done with tap water, but preferably not. Finish with several flushed with liberal amounts of distilled water... a few gallons

Resist the temptation to attach the whole or the individual components to the tap/faucet with a short hose and slam the faucet to "full open". Domestic tap water can exceed over 30 PSI (in some unregulated areas over 50 PSi) and while this is great for "a shower massaging", your rads and some seals in your blocks are not gonna like that very much.

 

[DaaG]

In the gpu block picture. The coolant only passes thru the fins correct? Then why such residue/crud in the center portion where the coolant does not flow??

 

[atm743]

In the gpu block picture. The coolant only passes thru the fins correct? Then why such residue/crud in the center portion where the coolant does not flow??

i have no idea, thats one of the things i am wondering myself.

 

[DaaG]

Did you disassemble the blocks and clean prior to installing? Maybe manufacturing residue.

The center portion tho is not wet. Shouldn't look like that.

 

[atm743]

Did you disassemble the blocks and clean prior to installing? Maybe manufacturing residue.

The center portion tho is not wet. Shouldn't look like that.

before building the loop all i did was flush both rads with close to boiling distilled water. i put the water in the rads. let it is for maybe a couple of minutes, then shook them for a while. drained and repeated about 10 times for each rad.

as for the tubing and blocks i didnt rinse them.

from what i'm seeing, i think its part Plasticizer, part left over bits from the rads and blocks.

the block in person looks like white powder, with a blue hue to it (probably from the blue mayhems dye) as for the cpu block. when i tipped the case over and was able to get that one high res picture, the little things were a slight green loop but i think thats just staining and the light hitting it making them green (when they really are blue from the dye)

the only thing i dont understand is if its Plasticizer, why isn't my tubing cloudy? unless being that its only a 3 week old loop, i wont see the cloudy tubing for a while? who knows. or there was so little Plasticizer that all of it is settled in the gpu block and the cpu fin away.

either way, my cpu block is not like FULL of this ****, just a little bit. im keeping a close eye on it. (OCD talking) and i also checked my res, and i dont see a build up sitting at the bottom of the res so im not to rushed in stripping this loop down. plus im in the middle of moving. closing day of the house should be the end of the month or first week of july, a lot of work packing and getting crap together as well as closing on the house we are in now.

once i get moved into the new house in july, and get settled in, tearing down the loop and cleaning everything will be the first thing ill do.

as i dont see this being growth or corrosion, im not rushing in tearing down the loop.





as for the tubing, when i do tear this loop down, im going to rinse the tubing and re use it. being that its been over the barbs. would it be bad to re use it (not sure if it will cause leaks being that the ends will be loose and stretched from being on the barb ends?) dumb question just wondering. im kinda upset that i didnt get quick disconnects. i would love to be able to just take apart the cpu block, clean out the fin aray, and put it back in the loop and carry on.

 

[DaaG]

I don't think it's plasticizer, it looks to me like there was/is some sort of residue left over from the manufacturing/plating process of the gpu block, and most likely whatever it is has migrated to the cpu from the gpu.
Part that bugs me the most on it, is that what looks so bad in the gpu, is not in the water channels. May not be completely dry, but is not in direct flow path. My guess is there was some in the water channel too, which has been caught by the cpu jet plate.

 

[atm743]

I don't think it's plasticizer, it looks to me like there was/is some sort of residue left over from the manufacturing/plating process of the gpu block, and most likely whatever it is has migrated to the cpu from the gpu.
Part that bugs me the most on it, is that what looks so bad in the gpu, is not in the water channels. May not be completely dry, but is not in direct flow path. My guess is there was some in the water channel too, which has been caught by the cpu jet plate.

ah ok. if it was something with the gpu block then im shocked it got to the cpu jet plate. my gpu goes right to a 360 rad and the inlet and outlet are on the bottom so that stuff would have had to flow UP the 360 rad then back down then to the pump/res, then to the top mounted 240 rad then to the vrm block then cpu block.

well, ill find out soon what this stuff is. hope its not corrosion.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

It possibly isn't corrosion, imho and just debris me thinks. As long as you don't have aluminum in that loop you're good to go and looking at your parts list you don't seem to have aluminum in the loop. The corrosion process is always occurring in the loop but at a VERY slow rate when its just copper, brass etc. When aluminum is added its like adding gasoline to a fire.

 

[RnRollie]

re using tubing in the same setup is a bad idea. There is no problem in cutting a hose shorter to get rid of the end that have been barbed/compressed and then reuse it. But just re-attaching it at the same spot is not ideal.. sure, you'll get away with it a few times, but in the long run its just bad practice.
Better buy your hose in 30 feet lengths and store what you dont need in a dark & stable environment, but not for several years of course
Then again, its not that those hoses are in the Unobtainium price range and will break the bank if you order 1 foot too much

The savings of getting a complete roll or "just what you need" mount up to "free shipping" in best case scenario.... so.

2.75 for 1 feet for A-LRT vs 24.99 for 10 feet A-LRT