Leaking watercooling system?

Dooom

I'll shortly be getting a new system that I'm going to build myself. Here are the specs (only thing that's changed is the dual Leadtek cards have been changed to dual XFX versions ). Anywho, as soon as I get all my money in one place, I'll get all the parts and put them all into one.
But there's one thing that's nagging at the back of my mind - what are the odds that the watercooling could leak? I really, really don't want that to happen considering the price of this thing, so I was just wondering if anyone could give me a bit of clarity on the issue, or advise me on some sort of "leak testing" procedure or something.

Thanks a mil.

jessy

Water cooling is safe enough, provided you follow all instruction in assembling it, you should spend maybe 1-2 days testing it for leaks before putting it in to your system, me & loads of people involved in this forum have water cooling, and I haven’t heard any complaints on this forum about leaking. But there are no guarantees so take care.

Jammer

very little risk. even if it does leak, the de-ionised water doesnt conduct electricity. So chances are your components should be ok.

BabyEater

the de-ionised water doesnt conduct electricity

This is true when the water is put into the system but it will immediately start to pick up ions from the metal i.e. copper in the system.
The chances of a leak are slim once you check all connections and leak test for a day without components installed.
I have had leaks a couple of time when me homemade block come apart and hade no problems the PC just shut down. This was with normal tap water.

gline

Jammer wrote:

very little risk. even if it does leak, the de-ionised water doesnt conduct electricity. So chances are your components should be ok.

Where did u hear this from? AFAIK it does conduct electricty.
Basically to make sure u dont get a leak, test the watercooling outside of your system for a day or two just to be on the safe side, but as was said if u follow the instructions exactly there shouldnt be a problem

Jammer

Do a search on google..alot of sites (some overclocking and some scientific) have info about it. H2O doesnt conduct electricity, its the ions in it which do, so if its deionized then theres no conduction...

http://overclockers.com/articles769/index06.asp

One more note: Use distilled water when mixing coolant. YES, distilled water at a buck a gallon from your grocery store. It'll conduct less electricity if you accidently spill it onto your motherboard or electronic parts. It may save your system, speaking from personal experience Unless you can afford to get deionized water, then go for it. It won't conduct electricity much or any at all, but costly.

unklerosco

U can buy non conductive coolant on the web, allot of pre filled WC kits have it installed... It works too, i know someone who had a leak on the FX55(1 day old €700 cpu!!!) n its grand, condisering it was soaked...

gline

unklerosco wrote:

U can buy non conductive coolant on the web, allot of pre filled WC kits have it installed... It works too, i know someone who had a leak on the FX55(1 day old €700 cpu!!!) n its grand, condisering it was soaked...

yeh id recommend stuff like that, non conductive cooling fluids, they also cool better than water and are much safer for expensive rigs

rsynnott

Jammer wrote:

Do a search on google..alot of sites (some overclocking and some scientific) have info about it. H2O doesnt conduct electricity, its the ions in it which do, so if its deionized then theres no conduction...

http://overclockers.com/articles769/index06.asp

Deionised water doesn't conduct electricity in the real world; however, once it flows over some nice metallic components it will become ionised.

BabyEater

Found the articles I was looking for they explain all
http://www.overclockers.com/articles993/
http://www.overclockers.com/tips1153/
It will tell you that deionised water will conduct electricity as it will pick the ions of the metal.
Just use distilled water

Dooom

Cool, thanks for the info.

padraigf

distilled water basically = deionised water

No matter which you use your computer will be fuxored if it spills on it while its turned on.
No other way of looking at it.

IF you're worried just use fluorinert or something

BabyEater

padraigf wrote:

distilled water basically = deionised water

No matter which you use your computer will be fuxored if it spills on it while its turned on.
No other way of looking at it.

IF you're worried just use fluorinert or something

Your compouter might still work I have had 2 major leaks when on and the PC still ran with no problems after I dried it out at the fire. You might be unlucky tho.

Jammer

padraigf wrote:

No matter which you use your computer will be fuxored if it spills on it while its turned on.
No other way of looking at it.

Thats just not true.

Hugh

My Zalman Reserator's cooling block leaked today, about 800 euro in damages. Couldnt possibly have been anything to do with my installation, the actual block leaked.

WizZard

Ow, hard luck man. What happened?

gline

Hugh wrote:

My Zalman Reserator's cooling block leaked today, about 800 euro in damages. Couldnt possibly have been anything to do with my installation, the actual block leaked.

oh man, bo*lox, what happened, sorry to hear that. Its like every pc builders/modders worst nightmare.

What did you lose man??

jessy

Ya that sucks man, especially cos you were a bit worried about it before hand. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Hugh

After a month of use the CPU block itself leaked, between the blue part and the copper part, not much came out, enough to get onto the AGP port, which corroded and went green. I guess if I had some anti corrosive stuff in it, it may not have happened. So basically I lost my motherboard and graphics card, I'm not sure where I got 800 from I may have thought more was damaged, I lost my graphics card and my motherboard, im in the process of getting peats to get zalman to re-imberse me, so far so good, peats have been great about it, it takes time to get stuff to germany though. Meanwhile I struggle to view boards.ie on this 166mhz machine.

Still though, it was a very good cooler, although most heatsinks will get it a few degrees lower it kept my graphics card cold and didnt make a noise at all.

Lump

Isn't there an oil type thingy you can use....

John