Refilling an AIO

[Dave65]

Hey all, I searched for the answer but could not find it. I have an Enermax LIQMAX 360, ran great for over two years but wanted to try something different so I went to air.
I decided to drain the AIO to see if it had any crap built up inside like the older ones did, it was bone clean, nothing at all except the liquid was a bit cloudy. Now Id like to refill. Question is, is there a ready made solution that I don't have to add water to?
Something I can just fill it and put back together to use again..

Thanks so much!

 

[Nebulous]

There's a whole bunch of pre-mix fluids;

Premixed PC Coolant for Liquid Cooled PCs | Water Cooling Coolant

Shop Premixed PC Coolant for your Liquid Cooled PC at TITAN RIG. EKWB EK-CryoFuel, XSPC EC6, clear PC fluid and other pc coolants

www.titanrig.com

It's pricey to refill just an AIO. I would use a little anti-freeze and distilled water. Like a 10/90 mix will do.

 

[Zerileous]

I'm guessing most of the off the shelf coolants would have issues unless they were specifically made for mixed metals. I have no idea if 10% antifreeze enough to stave off galvanic corrosion, but I believe the cause of a lot of the early failures was related to the coolant and galvanic corrosion.

 

[Dave65]

There's a whole bunch of pre-mix fluids;

Premixed PC Coolant for Liquid Cooled PCs | Water Cooling Coolant

Shop Premixed PC Coolant for your Liquid Cooled PC at TITAN RIG. EKWB EK-CryoFuel, XSPC EC6, clear PC fluid and other pc coolants

www.titanrig.com

It's pricey to refill just an AIO. I would use a little anti-freeze and distilled water. Like a 10/90 mix will do.

Wow ok, I will try that, thanks..

 

[Niku-Sama]

I'm guessing most of the off the shelf coolants would have issues unless they were specifically made for mixed metals. I have no idea if 10% antifreeze enough to stave off galvanic corrosion, but I believe the cause of a lot of the early failures was related to the coolant and galvanic corrosion.

actually you'd be surprised.

I know GM dexcool (orange), Mercedes/BMW (blue) and Ford (gold) are for mixed metal engines.

the orange dexcool is probably the easier to get ahold of, blue isnt too bad but costs a little more. also dexcool had an issue with gumming up but the formula has changed since that happened in the 90's so dont use old dexcool coolant aka dexkill.

most of the cars these OEMs make have mostly aluminum engines but some have steel sleeves pressed into the block and others are cast iron blocks with aluminum heads. alot of them have copper in the cooling system it self plus different metals that make up the water pump impeller and other miscellaneous parts the coolant might touch

i narrowly avoided the dexkill threat in my truck, when the rad cracked i found some of the gunk, its kinda like the older enermax gunk that GN hacked a bunch of AIOs for. can kill engines but i caught it soon enough and replaced it with something a little heavier duty.

 

[Zerileous]

Indeed, however my concern is more about the concentration required for effective corrosion inhibition, of which I have no idea. Cars use 50/50 or 60/40 up North for freeze protection, obviously (usually) not a concern in the PC, but what concentration is required to inhibit galvanic corrosion?

 

[Voodoo Rufus]

75/25 water to coolant is good enough to kill organics. For metal protection, it looks like 70/30 will do.

Minimum coolant for corrosion protection?

Hello everyone, I am wondering what the minimum percentage of coolant required for effective corrosion protection is. I live in the south and good cooling is much more important here than freeze protection since it hardly ever gets below freezing and I park my car in my garage overnight, so I...

bobistheoilguy.com

 

[Niku-Sama]

if you do 50/50 you could probably go sub freezing if you wanted to use your system outside

 

[Zerileous]

At 30/70 you'd be good down to like 10F. http://www.magers.org/handy/antifreeze.html

I wonder how well this stuff would do https://www.redlineoil.com/waterwetter?

In smaller cooling systems, use 4-5 caps per quart

https://www.redlineoil.com/Content/files/tech/WaterWetter Tech Info.pdf

Looks like this question was examined nearly 20 years ago as well: https://www.overclockers.com/forums/threads/how-does-water-wetter-prevent-corrosion.164864/

 

[Niku-Sama]

i actually think that the water wetter linked in that thread might have been a different formula.
It used to be a bright yellow, almost like highlighter yellow but not quite green like the regular antifreeze.
some racers will use this alone with water with out issue but i dont know about long term since most of the ones i knew would tear down their engine every winter if not more.

i would say it'd probably be ok to run it and water, or maybe just it

 

[Voodoo Rufus]

I think I'd stay away from Water Wetter these days.

 

[Niku-Sama]

I think I'd stay away from Water Wetter these days.

reasons?

 

[Voodoo Rufus]

It's just unnecessary for computer cooling purposes. We're not dealing with high enough coolant temperatures to likely notice any difference in performance compared to race engines trying to reject massive amounts of heat.