Why is my loop so bad?

I jumped the gun. Brasso brought the EK block up pretty well fine.

Cpu block has lost lots of plating. There was a large buildup in the cpu fins and only a couple of blocked fins on the gpu.

Everything has a build up of corrosion and the ice dragon coolant. Cleaning what I can.

Edit: off to bed now. Let us know if you have any wisdom on cleaning stubborn coolant residue out of rads.
 
Don't put that block back in your loop unless you're positive all the plating has been removed or you've had it replated.

Run hot tap through the rad in reverse of your normal flow. Then flush the rad with distilled and a bit of vinegar. When all is said and done, run distilled and a kill coil. That should be all you need.
 
Also, the bottom radiator fans, blowing down, outside of the case, isn't really optimal. I'd bring air inside the case, and set everything else as exhaust.
 
do us a favor, when you have it apart and clean get with the macro on your camera and get us some real close ups of the fins

I will withhold the expletives I am feeling for one European cooling products outfit right now

Welcome to the club
 
JayJapanB said:
Edit: off to bed now. Let us know if you have any wisdom on cleaning stubborn coolant residue out of rads.
Click to expand...

The best thing to use is ketchup, believe it or not. It works wonders on tough build ups..If it is really thick in the pins, I would fill the block up with Ketchup and let it sit for 10-15 minutes or so..I would then use a cheap but EXTRA SOFT bristled toothbrush to gently scrub things away..

Rinse and repeat until all the heavy buildup is gone. Once you are at that stage, what I would do is use a mixture of distilled water and vinegar(as mentioned) and run it through the loop with the return that normally goes back to the reservoir disconnected and dumping into a bucket..

You will have to sit there and add more vinegar+distilled since the reservoir you don't want it cycling BACK through the loop at first..Once the water coming out into the bucket starts to look clean, (as in no FLAKES you can see etc), I would reconnect the return and refill the entire loop with Distilled and Vinegar again, and let it run for a day, then drain and make sure its all clear..

I know it is a lot of work, but you have a lot of nice blocks, and that means lots of hiding places, and I would want to be 100% sure you get everything out or you will damage the impeller in your pump and it might fail and take all your hardware with it if you do not have thermal protection turned on..
 
ccityinstaller said:
The best thing to use is ketchup, believe it or not. It works wonders on tough build ups..If it is really thick in the pins, I would fill the block up with Ketchup and let it sit for 10-15 minutes or so..I would then use a cheap but EXTRA SOFT bristled toothbrush to gently scrub things away..

Rinse and repeat until all the heavy buildup is gone. Once you are at that stage, what I would do is use a mixture of distilled water and vinegar(as mentioned) and run it through the loop with the return that normally goes back to the reservoir disconnected and dumping into a bucket..

You will have to sit there and add more vinegar+distilled since the reservoir you don't want it cycling BACK through the loop at first..Once the water coming out into the bucket starts to look clean, (as in no FLAKES you can see etc), I would reconnect the return and refill the entire loop with Distilled and Vinegar again, and let it run for a day, then drain and make sure its all clear..

I know it is a lot of work, but you have a lot of nice blocks, and that means lots of hiding places, and I would want to be 100% sure you get everything out or you will damage the impeller in your pump and it might fail and take all your hardware with it if you do not have thermal protection turned on..
Click to expand...

I can clean the blocks (barely) the radiator can't be scrubbed is the issue.
After seeing the state of my motherboard block (lost the screws to the original heatsinks) as well as my Cpu block I've kinda become disinterested in fixing this properly. I know if I start spending money that I will go overboard and I'm trying to save to travel.

I'm just going to cut my losses, clean what I can and setup the loop. See if all this scrubbing has paid off at all. I've learnt a fair bit from this and will take everything into consideration when building my next rig.

Thanks again for your help.
Everyone's input has been very much appreciated. <3 [H]

Edit: I'll give it a quick non-looped flush of vinegar and distilled before bleeding as well.
 
JayJapanB said:
I can clean the blocks (barely) the radiator can't be scrubbed is the issue.
After seeing the state of my motherboard block (lost the screws to the original heatsinks) as well as my Cpu block I've kinda become disinterested in fixing this properly. I know if I start spending money that I will go overboard and I'm trying to save to travel.

I'm just going to cut my losses, clean what I can and setup the loop. See if all this scrubbing has paid off at all. I've learnt a fair bit from this and will take everything into consideration when building my next rig.

Thanks again for your help.
Everyone's input has been very much appreciated. <3 [H]

Edit: I'll give it a quick non-looped flush of vinegar and distilled before bleeding as well.
Click to expand...

I can certainly understand the costly investment it would be to replace everything, but I would do exactly what you are now..Even if you weren't saving to travel, it would make little sense to drop a bunch of money on a new MB block, since it can't be reused like a CPU block could..

As far as your radiators, that is why I stressed the cycling of distilled and vinegar solution the way I did..It would cost you $3 total for a gallon of Distilled water and a big bottle of white vinegar..
 
Temps at ~75 load(prime small fft for a while) and 50ish idle with the i7 950 back in at 1.36v

Bad coolent/corrosion buildup I cleaned. This was why I thought my block was screwed.
8199403730_566408a84a_c.jpg

8199403700_099f38afb1_c.jpg

8199403678_243755f5ed_c.jpg


Pics of current config
Much less frosty tubes than before. Any cloudyness is probably from what I couldn't clean from the rad.
8199403802_651325bb7e_c.jpg

8199403792_eb4593efa2_c.jpg


I'm just probably going to leave it now.
 
not enough rad in my opinion. that's less area than a 3x120 and you have the gpu, cpu and the board cooling on it. i'd change the rad to push-pull if you have the room and or swap cases and run a 3x140 like an sr1 that's optimized for low speed fans. i run a 3x140 sr1 and cooled a 4way classy board, 980x @4.5ghz and triple 6970's. it was more than enough.
 
nuttcase21 said:
not enough rad in my opinion. that's less area than a 3x120 and you have the gpu, cpu and the board cooling on it.
Click to expand...

...In thickness? Or low cfm fans?

2x180x180=64800cm2

3x120x120=43200cm2?

It has more fan surface area than a 480rad

nuttcase21 said:
i'd change the rad to push-pull if you have the room
Click to expand...

Yeah, unfortunately the motherboard gets in the way.

nuttcase21 said:
swap cases and run a 3x140 like an sr1 that's optimized for low speed fans.
Click to expand...

Nah, I've dropped enough $K for at least a year or two.
 
my bad, i thought those were 140mm fans, not 180's. then maybe you do have enough rad. are the fans blowing down out of the case or up into the case? either way, try switching the flow around. i'd also try some brasso brand silver/copper cleaner. comes in a gold plastic bottle. stuff works amazing, you just have to let it work. you could pour that into your rad with some water to dilute it to a 50/50 mix and let it sit for a few hours. then wash out with hot water. i used the stuff on a test block that's years old and it came out looking like brand new. after cleaning as much as you have, id start looking at the components of the loop itself, mainly the rad. the blocks and pump you're using at top notch and they all transfer hot water to the rad. if it's still not cooling enough after you soak the rad then i'd first change the airflow direction, and then remove the rad and let it hang outside the case as a simple test. if your temps drop then you have an indicator of whats killing you. if they don't drop after you move it out, then you may want to try spacing the fans off the rad a little bit (that always helps with temps). lastly, if none of that works, look at another rad. your rad could have a few blocked core tubes or it's just not a perfect fit for what you need. look at others that are 180 degrees different than yours. meaning if you have a high fpi rad now, look at lower fpi rads to replace it with. a second rad i the case front is another option too. hope the advice helps.

**edit**
come to think of it, that rad does look awfully thin, that's what could be killing you. the surface area is good, but your rad thickness is just as important. i only run rads that are 38mm thick or more. and to keep the fan speeds required to cool it down at a lower speed i choose lower fpi. after years of water cooling and countless rads under my belt thicker is better with a low fpi and as big as i can get in my case. you can't ever have enough rad in my eye. on the other hand, if oyu have too small a rad you have high temps.

**2nd edit**
do buy a bottle of that brasso cleaner, i'm telling you it works great. it's only a couple bucks at the supermarket in the cleaning aisle. also, when you clean the blocks out, use a cheap HARD tooth brush the scrub the nooks and crannies out. it took me about an hour to clean a cpu block, but it came out looking like it was polished. don't spend more money on gear, just invest some elbow grease. it's free after all.
 
Last edited:
nuttcase21 said:
my bad, i thought those were 140mm fans, not 180's. then maybe you do have enough rad. are the fans blowing down out of the case or up into the case? either way, try switching the flow around. i'd also try some brasso brand silver/copper cleaner. comes in a gold plastic bottle. stuff works amazing, you just have to let it work. you could pour that into your rad with some water to dilute it to a 50/50 mix and let it sit for a few hours. then wash out with hot water. i used the stuff on a test block that's years old and it came out looking like brand new. after cleaning as much as you have, id start looking at the components of the loop itself, mainly the rad. the blocks and pump you're using at top notch and they all transfer hot water to the rad. if it's still not cooling enough after you soak the rad then i'd first change the airflow direction, and then remove the rad and let it hang outside the case as a simple test. if your temps drop then you have an indicator of whats killing you. if they don't drop after you move it out, then you may want to try spacing the fans off the rad a little bit (that always helps with temps). lastly, if none of that works, look at another rad. your rad could have a few blocked core tubes or it's just not a perfect fit for what you need. look at others that are 180 degrees different than yours. meaning if you have a high fpi rad now, look at lower fpi rads to replace it with. a second rad i the case front is another option too. hope the advice helps.
Click to expand...

It's fairly low fpi. 13 vs an SR1 which has 9


nuttcase21 said:
**edit**
come to think of it, that rad does look awfully thin, that's what could be killing you. the surface area is good, but your rad thickness is just as important. i only run rads that are 38mm thick or more. and to keep the fan speeds required to cool it down at a lower speed i choose lower fpi. after years of water cooling and countless rads under my belt thicker is better with a low fpi and as big as i can get in my case. you can't ever have enough rad in my eye. on the other hand, if oyu have too small a rad you have high temps.
Click to expand...

35mm thick. I initially wanted a rad in a 180mm fan size and Magicool seems to be the only one to make them and only in 35mm thick.

nuttcase21 said:
**2nd edit**
do buy a bottle of that brasso cleaner, i'm telling you it works great. it's only a couple bucks at the supermarket in the cleaning aisle. also, when you clean the blocks out, use a cheap HARD tooth brush the scrub the nooks and crannies out. it took me about an hour to clean a cpu block, but it came out looking like it was polished. don't spend more money on gear, just invest some elbow grease. it's free after all.
Click to expand...

I've done that already. I'm not putting that stuff in my rad though.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm just going to leave it. I've cleaned what I can from the coolant and corrosion as well as placed a kill coil and liquid utopia. 75deg temps in prime isn't going to kill my pc and currently I don't want to spend the rest of my holidays soaking rads and draining loops. Thanks for the help though :)
 
I just want to chime in that Brasso and Neverdull are the s***, those two products will clean/polish just about every metal man kind has produced.
 
darkstarcow said:
I just want to chime in that Brasso and Neverdull are the s***, those two products will clean/polish just about every metal man kind has produced.
Click to expand...

the army helped me discover how good brasso is. i polished a pair of steel garbage cans with the stuff to almost a mirror finish. it really does work wonders if you leave it sit long enough and then take some q-tips and a toothbrush to it. i had a d-tek fusion block that was solid green and white with corrosion, 3 years of solid never change the water use. after an hour of cleaning it came out looking like it was just machined. it's made a believer outta me when it comes to cleaning my blocks.
 
I think that this could be a combo of flow restriction and not enough radiator for everything being cooled.
 
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