Cleaning Water System

[NAiLs]

I've got my friends rig back at my house (the one I built a year ago) and the water system is gunked up with algae and just straight up gunk. I used ThermalTake's coolant and it seems to have worked like crap. I have more that my friend bought and need to put it in the system. I'm going to be replacing the one tube that is really plugged up, but the rest look like they're new.


Now, he went ahead and "drained" the system as much as he could. In the process, he got some liquid on the motherboard, in a PCI-e slot, and god knows where else. I only found the PCI-e slot because I had to take one of his video cards out to replace the CMOS battery.


I'll clean that up to the best of my abilities before it gets turned on, but my big question, how on earth do you clean a water cooling system? I'd like to clean it before I go ahead an put more coolant in the reservoir.

I'm using the cooling system that came in the ThermalTake Tai-Chi case.

[dicecca112]

jump the PSU and run some vinegar deluted with water. Pinesol works too. Nothing that has a corosive element in it like chlorine though. You can also take each component out and let them sit in a bath of vinegar

[DMB2000uk]

Flush it with plenty of boiled or preferably distilled water.

Lots of people used to use vinegar to clean the blocks and stuff, but leaving it in too long corrodes your copper (as it is an acid after all) so if you want to use vinegar, just pour it into the thing, and give it a good shake about inside then rinse it out with plenty of boiled or preferably distilled water afterwards. It might be an idea to take apart blocks to better facilitate cleaning them before rinsing with vinegar, a good stiff brush will help to remove stuck on stuff from the inside.

As to cleaning pipes, try pipe cleaners!

Dan

[NAiLs]

I like the sounds of using just distilled or boiling (distilled) water. My question though, how do you "jump" the PSU so that it only powers the cooling system and nothing else? I obviously need to remove the ATX connector so it isn't powering anything on the board, but if that's not connected, how does the PSU get the signal to turn on?

[DMB2000uk]

With your PSU off and everything but your pump unplugged (provided that your pump is ready with water to pump), use a paperclip or similar and short a green and black wire on the 20/24 pin atx connector. Turn back on your PSU and it will be on. If its unloaded, i.e. no pump then don't have it on for more than a couple of seconds. But with the pump, and maybe a fan for 'extra load' you will be fine.

Dan

[NAiLs]

Any of the black ones I would assume is fine? How do I control the power flow? Just flip the switch on the PSU and that's turning it on and off, correct?

I've probably got a paper clip laying around here somewhere that I can use.

[DMB2000uk]

Yeah thats pretty much how it works.

Dan

[Bio-Hazard]

A nice mix of white vinigar and distilled water (makes the copper nice and shinny too), fill and let run for a half hour or so, drain and flush with plenty of distilled water, refill with your favorite mix, done.

I use a old AT PSU when draining and flushing a loop, makes life so much easier that way, but if you have to just the one you have, be careful and just jump the green and any of the black wires together...............

And a pic of a few simple to make tools for safer jumping.

[Nein]

Any of the black ones I would assume is fine? How do I control the power flow? Just flip the switch on the PSU and that's turning it on and off, correct?

I've probably got a paper clip laying around here somewhere that I can use.

Be prepared in case the PSU would turn on and immediately shutting itself down. Don't try to force it on in that case without minimum output loadings.

Most newer hi-power 12V single-rail PSUs are idiot-proofed enough to turn on but some won't.

[NAiLs]

I do have an old ATX PSU laying around that I could probably use. I guess it's better to be safe than sorry! I've also got tons of copper wire laying around from various car projects, so I guess that would be a smarter idea than a paper clip! I'll give this a shot later tonight. Relaxing comes first!

[Major_A]

I wouldn't boil that distilled water and mess with it. That is unless you like 2nd/3rd degree burns.

A popular myth about distilled water is that it has the dangerous property of being more easily heated above its normal boiling point without actually boiling (as seen in "Mythbusters") in a process known as superheating. When superheated water is disturbed or has impurities added to it, a nucleation center for bubbles form. These bubbles are then new nucleation centers, and a sudden, explosive boiling can occur, possibly causing serious injury to those nearby. However, distilled water and tap water do not differ in their ease of or danger in being superheated. The dissolved impurities in motionless tap water do not present enough disturbance to inhibit superheating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distilled_water

[NAiLs]

If you boil anything or heat up something to the extreme, and decide you want to touch it, you'll get burned regardless. You also do realize that what you quoted, is a myth! ;)

Myth [mith] - Noun
1. any invented story, idea, or concept: His account of the event is pure myth.
2. an imaginary or fictitious thing or person.
3. an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.




Anyway, it's working just fine. I'm using plain old distilled water and rigged up my servers PSU (didn't want to fry his on accident) to power the pump and fans. I found some 18 gauge strand wire and it's working just fine. I would prefer to have solid copper, but whatever.

[Major_A]

I saw the test on Mythbusters. They microwaved distilled water and hit the surface with a spoon and the water basically exploded. Myth confirmed.

[stev]

A nice mix of white vinigar and distilled water (makes the copper nice and shinny too ...

B-H has the right answer here. Make sure you use White Distilled Vinegar to flush out the cooling loop. Regular vinegar is apple based that will regrow the nasty stuff again.

Usually it's a 1/3 Distilled White Vinegar to 2/3 Distilled Water. A 50/50 solution works well on a hard to clean slugged up loop.

When the flush is done, rinse the loop through with distilled water.

[DMB2000uk]

B-H has the right answer here. Make sure you use White Distilled Vinegar to flush out the cooling loop.

Heh, I picked that up as I wasn't sure whether to use that or the regular. Looks like I made the right choice then ^_^

Dan