Water cooling concerns; Coolant, nickel/copper blocks and additives?

[Snapdragon]

I am getting quite close to buying all of my components for a water cooling setup, to the point where I am currently slightly modding a Corsair 750D to hold it all in.

I've now come across heavy discussions on the facts that EK Nickel plated products have a tendency to flake, discolour or corrode(?!). Is this simply due to people using additives/not using additives? or simply because their could be several metals in play between the blocks and radiators?

I was initially hoping to get an EK Nickel waterblock for an Asus 290X DCUII (To be released in february) and pair this with another Nickel block from their range for the CPU along with Mayhems Pastel Orange (with included additives).

Now I am not feeling very confident... Advice would be welcome.

 

[Remmy]

I believe the flaking problem with EK blocks was confined to certain nickel plated products during about 2011, and I've not heard of any problems recently, so I doubt you would have any issues. I see that you are going to be cooling a current generation GPU, so the block for it shouldn't have that problem now, as they are now manufactured better.

The article here http://www.ekwb.com/news/142/19/ states that the flaking was due to the use of coolants lacking anti-corrosion additives, such as using solely distilled water. Premix coolants contain anti-corrosive additives, so you wouldn't have to worry about it anyway if you're using one.

 

[Snapdragon]

Thank you for the prompt reply, I was a bit stressed out to hear this news as a new PC like this is a significant investment of time and money! (I'm a student, I don't get much of those ha!)

Glad to hear it's probably phased out now, I look forward to ordering them soon and providing you guys a build log if I can

Thanks again!

 

[Remmy]

Great, looking forward to seeing it

I'm a student too, and I spend way too much on my PC lol. Thought process: "Well, if I starve for a week, I can afford this.. hmmm... YEAH!"

 

[Snapdragon]

Exactly! hah , oh the life of a student...

 

[Warchild]

yeah but if you are like me. I lived that way for 4 years then got a good job.

My concern now is that I dont get fat while constantly tweaking and modding my pc

 

[SuB]

Don't get mayhems pastel orange. It turn into awful looking brown crap after a few months. AVOID

Metals that screw with each other are Alluminium and Copper typically, if you stay all copper/nickel you'll be fine.

But again, don't get that coolant... I'll take a picture of how mine looks, later, compared to how it went in and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Snapdragon]

Oh :/ How about Mayhems Gigabyte Orange? It has to be orange as that's the colour scheme >.<

 

[Warchild]

Well if you are willing to replace the coolant more frequent than usual to avoid brown s**t in your system, I guess any pastel orange is fine. Otherwise you can check out some of the orange theme rigs in the rig gallery section of this forum. Find out what they are using. I replace mine every 12months just to keep my UV colour strong.

 

[SuB]

Oh :/ How about Mayhems Gigabyte Orange? It has to be orange as that's the colour scheme >.<

That's the same thing, and trust me, it's more pinkish than orange. It looks trash. I don't know how they get away with calling it 'Gigabyte orange' considering it doesn't match any other orange on the market out of the bottle and within months just looks like waste water from a dirty sink.

Well if you are willing to replace the coolant more frequent than usual to avoid brown s**t in your system, I guess any pastel orange is fine

I've had a rig running a coolant for 5+ years that didn't need replacing or topping up, ever. Mayhems pastel has gone to crap in under 3 months.. it's not 'more than usual' it's "unacceptably fast"

 

[Snapdragon]

Ack... is there X1 Orange Coolant any longer lasting? (Or anything from Feser One, Nanoxia or whatever?)

 

[Remmy]

I use X1 Blue, and that's been fine for just under a year now so far.

 

[SuB]

I believe the X1 stuff is 'better' but after my experience with pastel, I'll be going back to Feser One (probably clear)

 

[Snapdragon]

If I'm not mistaken, I read that you can mix any of Mayhems products?
Would topping up the Pastel Orange (Or any coolant for that matter) keep its colour for longer?

 

[Remmy]

I think it says you can mix any products within the same product line, pastel with pastel for example, or any coolant with one of Mayhem's dyes so that you can tune the colour to your liking.

I personally think it's better to use a good quality coolant that doesn't require frequent maintenance just to keep the colour constant.

 

[Warchild]

I disliked Mayhem Pastel. Not because it performs bad, but mainly because discolouration happens fast.

I stuck with EK coolants in the end.

 

[Snapdragon]

What tubing did you have in both systems Remmy? Seems it's pretty hit and miss according to everywhere I read...

I will probably try out Mayhems X1 Orange and hope it stays nice for a year...

 

[Remmy]

I have Masterkleer 3/8"-1/2" Tubing. It's odd though, I've seen a couple of threads where people had major plasticising issues using it; perhaps I got lucky.

Edit: Though they were old threads from a couple of years ago, so they may have changed their formula.

 

[SuB]

Tubing should never, ever be the cause for something changing colour. Example: Tygon used to be the best tubing out there but somehow Mayhems leeches stuff out of it and discolours very quickly.

Mayhems blame the tube, personally, I blame mayhems.

You definitely cannot mix non-pastel with pastel, you can dye pastel with the colouring dyes but it's very hit and miss for the results, and again may lead to long-term discolouration.

Pastel doesn't seem like a 'long-term' coolant, it performs well enough but it's Toxic as fuck and doesn't play nice with a lot of things, notably the very tube you'll be depending on to move it around your system, the list of 'safe' tubing for it seems to chop and change and never really settles down. As there is always one case where it's reacted with it for one reason or another, all of which Mayhems blame on the tubing/manufacturer instead of their crap mixing/choice of chemicals.

I'll definitely be rebuilding my loops to get rid of it asap.

My blue seems 'okay' but evaporates quite quickly, my orange looks, frankly, disgusting now.

Definitely ditching it and going back to tried and trusted Feser One.

 

[Remmy]

...

I'm not sure why I get excited when you swear, but I do, I really do :lol: