Howdy water coolers, I DIY'd a dual CPU AIO out of 2 single AIO coolers, and i noticed lately that there's a fair bit of coolant missing(?) from the loop. Do i: a) Top up the loop with dionised water? b) Find some similarly colored coolant to avoid a horror show in the clear tubing, and top up with random coolant? c) Top up strictly with the coolant that is in there? d) Dump the lot, and put a fresh batch of something in? Or something else that i haven't thought of? Cheers, Nasha
AIO loops have mixed metals. (Rad being aluminium) the only exception are bequiet and alphacool aios that uses copper rad I know of. Because of that, you must use corrosion inhibitors otherwise the copper block will be gunked up real quick.
So there's a chance I'm funked up already? I'd say no, it's flowing pretty well...? Is it something I'd notice? Is there corrosion inhibitors in most coolants?
I'm assuming you reused the coolant that was originally there? The original coolant has corrosion inhibitors. Regardless, mixed metals (really just aluminium that needs to be exclusive. Brass, copper, Nickel have similar electrode potential) should be avoided when running with just distilled/deionised. If your block and rad actually doesn't have a common ground, the galvanic reaction actually cannot happen. But thats very difficult to archive unless you mount your radiator with plastic. So if you are not using original coolant or anything with corrosion inhibitors, the galvanic corrosion would have already begun and will continue to take place. IMO, I would just grab a copper based rad, then you can use distilled/ demineralised water.
No I used fresh coolant from day 1, something from PCCG. Copper rad, sounds expensive? Or are most brand name rads.copper for that reason?
Then I think you are fine, PCCG only sells EK and TT fluids recently, and if you used EK's cryofuel or the Tt C1000, its got some form of corrosion inhibitors. But the C1000 is pastel and can cause a host of other issues with mixed metals. Regardless, I'm interested in how your DIY AIO loop is set up, I'm taking a stab in the dark here since I really don't know what components you are using, you may already have copper rads, or that your block and rad are both aluminium. And yes, copper rads will be more expensive, but the reason most name brands produce copper tub and brass chamber rads so that galvanic corrosion is minuscule and can be ignored with brings compatibility. You really can't avoid brass as most fittings are made of brass.
It's not pastel, so we're in a good scenario! As for setup, it's not very exciting... It's 2x Deepcool Maelstrom's; a 120T and a 240T, ditched the 120mm rad, and using the 240mm rad for both CPU blocks, copes without a problem. I've got it setup cool water out, into CPU0, out into CPU1, out into rad heated. I can run it with a single pump with no issues, so i do - Doubles my lifespan, when that pump dies, i plug the other one in No additional hardware in my cooling loop.
Looks like you are set. if you can find your original bottle then thats good. I would run both the pumps at the same time because the AIO pumps are weak, but hey, if it works and you get great temps, you do you
I threw it out... I was done with WC, so down the sink they went (they said they were fully biodegradeable). Currently running both pumps as im having issues with a VM locking up and pegging a core or 2 at 100% and it wasn't handling that with my uber slow rad fan speeds and single pump, so it's humming along at 7deg below ambient at the moment
