When watercooling a computer the goal is lower temperature and/or better noise to performance ratio, while also allowing for much smaller footprint with quite high end parts. However, maintenance and special care is a must when housing electronics and water together. In all it is another interesting challenge, especially when building without chassis and parts actually meant to work together.
The chassis used here has seen multiple builds, all using micro-ATX motherboards while it only supposes to fit ITX-sized ones. Next as it does not support any radiators three of those have been fitted inside and outside to be able to cool a 12core CPU, a 280wattage GPU (6800xt) and the motherboard VRM, all serious heat generators on their own. But over time no matter how well the loop has been taken care of, growth will occur, if lucky some green algea minor corrosion cutting into the components. Necessitating this cleanup was a increasing temperature on the GPU die forcing the graphics card to self-downclock. A not unexpected event after some 20 months running since last clean and on the whole a 3 plus years old loop having seen many upgrades most fittings and radiators having stayed the same.
When looking at the blocks there are quite clogged parts, the GPU generally filled, the CPU had some very solid parts right in the ‘jet plate’ splitting the flow of water over the fins (see the rice-grain sized piece, that was a line across the centre).
Cleaning first with some soap and water, scrubbing with some isoproyl alcohol and chemically pure petrol does clean as much as possible without stripping the metal plating or tarnishing. Putting things together flushing the loop first with citric acid with then bicarbonate soda, both mixed in water, it gently cleans the tubing and fittings, and restore the loop Ph levels with soda at the end.
Filling the loop with good quality water I add a biocide (Benzalkonium chloride) to slow down any algea growth, as well as an anti corrosion addative, as nickelplating copper and brass are present, some corrosion will occur. This is also a good time to swap some fittings in, changing two suspect ones showing some signs of leaking. These old alpha cool ones have been nice but have far from the tightest tolarances. The ‘acool’ replacements are far superior seen as the smooth black ones installed in the pictures of the loop.
In short, the PC is made up of three dual fan radiators, as two did not suffice a third is placed on the back, in the way water cooling was done in 90’s and early 2000’s. A generic block for the VRM was cut to size and the EK GPU block was stripped of lighting and cosmetic parts cut short to make space for more airflow, CPU block is the, at the time, gold standard EK supremacy. Fans and pump is controlled dynamically, two fans by a separate PCB hooked up to a water temperature sensor the rest to CPU and GPU temperature mixed controlled in software. All really much more function over form. The GPU block was stripped of lighting effects and cut out the cosmetic parts of the black acetal cover to allow for more airflow for the fans closely mounted below over the bottom radiator.
It takes some work once a year or so, but strangely custom water cooling does work, seldom, if ever, leak, yes actually work very well when cared for in this quite minimal way.
PC water cooling: Maintenance
When watercooling a computer the goal is lower temperature and/or better noise to performance ratio, while also allowing for much smaller footprint with quite high end parts. However, maintenance and special care is a must when housing electronics and water together. In all it is another interesting challenge, especially when building without chassis and parts actually meant to work together.
The chassis used here has seen multiple builds, all using micro-ATX motherboards while it only supposes to fit ITX-sized ones. Next as it does not support any radiators three of those have been fitted inside and outside to be able to cool a 12core CPU, a 280wattage GPU (6800xt) and the motherboard VRM, all serious heat generators on their own. But over time no matter how well the loop has been taken care of, growth will occur, if lucky some green algea minor corrosion cutting into the components. Necessitating this cleanup was a increasing temperature on the GPU die forcing the graphics card to self-downclock. A not unexpected event after some 20 months running since last clean and on the whole a 3 plus years old loop having seen many upgrades most fittings and radiators having stayed the same.
When looking at the blocks there are quite clogged parts, the GPU generally filled, the CPU had some very solid parts right in the ‘jet plate’ splitting the flow of water over the fins (see the rice-grain sized piece, that was a line across the centre).
Cleaning first with some soap and water, scrubbing with some isoproyl alcohol and chemically pure petrol does clean as much as possible without stripping the metal plating or tarnishing. Putting things together flushing the loop first with citric acid with then bicarbonate soda, both mixed in water, it gently cleans the tubing and fittings, and restore the loop Ph levels with soda at the end.
Filling the loop with good quality water I add a biocide (Benzalkonium chloride) to slow down any algea growth, as well as an anti corrosion addative, as nickelplating copper and brass are present, some corrosion will occur. This is also a good time to swap some fittings in, changing two suspect ones showing some signs of leaking. These old alpha cool ones have been nice but have far from the tightest tolarances. The ‘acool’ replacements are far superior seen as the smooth black ones installed in the pictures of the loop.
It takes some work once a year or so, but strangely custom water cooling does work, seldom, if ever, leak, yes actually work very well when cared for in this quite minimal way.