conductive or non

[pie_uk]

right , just wanted to ask everyone do you use liquid that can conduct or do you use non-conductive fluid in your set ups?

i am using de-ionized with zerex. hopefully no leaks will occur. reason i ask is because i am looking into this stuff >> http://www.coolercases.co.uk/acatalog/Anti-Corrosion_Additives__.html#a300

but i am sure i'll be fine with what i had. i read the leak test guide and followed it properly

[ziddey]

I hear that stuff is a gimmick. Not really sure of anything beyond that though. I'm running distilled water and 5-15% propylene glycol+whatever additives are in it

[serialk11r]

Actually the non-conductive mixes on the market (alien xp, mct, pc ice) perform really well and look really cool but they cost a TON of money. I'd go cheap:D unless you found a super good deal for that stuff.

[pie_uk]

£12 a bottle, as aposed to wrecking £xxxx of cash...

[Patriote]

I use PC Ice UV Green and it's wonderful ... Not like that Fluid-XP Crap... Don't get it unless you want to drink it...lol Jk...Don't ever drink that kind of stuff.

[Durus]

Why do you think Fluid-XP is crap?

[Eastcoasthandle]

I've used distilled water. I've read post of people buying tinted/colored tubing in other forums a while back.

[Patriote]

Why do you think Fluid-XP is crap?

It turned to be not really good as they said it would be. Not actually talking about it's Non-conductivity... just it's thermal proprieties. Temps were awful whit that stuff. Also if you read what they say about it... " best for low-flow system" and i was using a high-flow system. It stained all my stuff and had to completely clean all my watercooling stuff (Rad, pump and BLOCKS!) whit White vinegar and a tooth-brush.. I bought an Extreme Performance UV Blue. Wasn't really Reactive... actually not at all. It also clouded my tubing and there was some kind of white stuff that formed over some time into my res... imagine in my rad and blocks. At that time i was using an Apogee and all the copper fins inside the block were all covered whit that stuff! It was insanely stuffed whit white\blue stuff. As soon as ive cleaned all the watercooling parts i tried this: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2109/ex-liq-08/PrimoChill_ICE_Non-Conductive_Liquid_Cooling_Fluid_32_oz_-_UV_Green.html?tl=g30c103s183

Now i can't tell you how the Non-conductivity is whit any of those 2 Product as i never got a Single drip onto any of my components (apart from my MCP355 but thats another story...) but i can tell you that even if the Fluid-XP was better at it's non conductivity i wouldn't use that anymore. The difference between Idle and Load temps are quite big whit those Coolant if you ask me. Hell next time i might just try some G11 with some Distilled water as i feel now enough confident in myself whit watercooling to use only distilled water.

PS: I tried resetting the Apogee a few times on my CPU and temps never improved... Until i cleaned the parts and used PC ICE.

Thats just my own experience. Maybe it could turn better for you, who knows ?

Heres some pics i took after 2 weeks running the system ( Not running 24h on 24h...)

Look at the top of my res... http://xs411.xs.to/xs411/07033/IMG_2151.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs411&d=07033&f=IMG_2151.jpg)

As you can see not a single second UV reactive... http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/7751/img2153aq4.th.jpg (http://img204.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img2153aq4.jpg)

PS: Pics were taken 2 weeks after i build it. Imagine a month later when i cleaned my parts...

[beanbag]

I use DI water. I spilled water on my mobo twice, and survived. It leaves no residue!

[Durus]

Thats just my own experience. Maybe it could turn better for you, who knows ?

Thanks for the heads up...I don't think I'll be trying it.

[welshtom]

If you build the watercooling system correctly, the fluid will never touch your components.

[Eastcoasthandle]

But accidents do happen. I have dripped water (nice puddle) on my video card (faulty barb on Storm). While the computer was running. When it went into 3d mode I was having some slight problems so I took a look with a flash light and received a little shock/horror and immediately turned the PSU off from the back. The barb was replaced, the water removed and the VC runs fine. Call it a fluke, 1 in a million or whatever but I'm sticking to Distilled Water!!!!

[lokitexas]

Fluid XP worked great for me. No issues, fine in UV light, and after 2 months no stains...go figure.

[epion2985]

While most of these coolants are dielectric from the factory as soon as you open the bottle things start to change.

At work we have a deionizer for water as thats what our machines need. A tech was trying to convince me its ok to leave the water in a bucket after its pulled though the deionizer. I told him if he thinks its still deoinized after sitting in the bucket for a few days he should drop in the 115v wires from the wall in to it and stick his hand in the bucket, as deionized water is non conductive. He promptly refused and said I win and he wont be lazy anymore.

What starts non conductive doesn't always stay non conductive.

As for things that do, well they don't offer waters cooling performance. Dont be fooled by "gimick" coolants that promise you the world.

Be smart, use distilled water with maybe some biocide. Thats all you will ever need. If you look around at what the pros and veterans use no one uses the bling bling coolants and sticks to water and a very small amount of boicide-like additive, case and point pentosin.

The coolants are all advertising and fluf. No matter what they tell you they will never perform as good as water. And most of the time the once that promise to be non conductive do not stay that way.

[serialk11r]

Its not completely advertising. For example, one guy got a sh*tload of mct-5 on his motherboard, video card, and nothing went wrong. He didn't even notice anything, until the mct-5 dried up and caking. MCT-40 performs well. PC Ice I'm not sure of, and Fluid XP is total BS. Fluid XP is "edible" but its not like anyone is going to buy a 34 dollar bottle of stuff that probably doesn't taste good and drink it like a coke or something. Distilled water is really cheap, and works well for its price, and with a couple bucks, you can get enough purified/distilled/deionized water to fill your system like 10 times.

[IanY]

I'm going to start changing my water every month from now on through a simple drain, flush and refill method. I'm going to use plain distilled water and some iodine. That's all. I'm tired of additives and the risk of ethylene glycol around pets and children.

[serialk11r]

Its not just pets and children. Adults too. And if IanY were to use mct-40 or pc ice instead of water, he would be bankrupt because he has 8 WCed PCs at home I believe? Normal water is most budget friendly. Unless you seriously are not able to mix some iodine/copper sulphate/etc., water, and perhaps dye, or if you have way too much money to waste, then don't get any premixed coolant.

[MaxxxRacer]

Stick with distilled water. Its safe for sentient beings, cools the best and is cheap.

and if you keep a super clean loop (make sure to get all vinegar out because its conductive) with distilled water you are unlikely to kill any components during a spill unless the water gets under a BGA chip.. and at that point even the non conductive solutions wont usually help you.

[epion2985]

Case and point http://www.vulomedia.com/images/26039up.jpg

[serialk11r]

The thing is, mct performs well and looks cool:D Well if I could avoid it, I would always try to save the 20 bucks you have to spend to get a small bottle of that stuff. And hence PURIFIED WATER!!! 0.3$ per gallon, bottle your own water and save! as it says on a machine next to safeway. "carbon filtered, reverse osmosis filtered...." add some petra's pt nuke and dye, and woo hoo, cheap coolant! Not to mention for 20 bucks you can get like 10 liters of it:D compared to 1 for a bottle of premixed. Oh and there may be stuff inside premixed coolants that make it have certain properties favorable for watercooling but that still doesn't justify the extra money. Not to mention when you refill your system with coolant you buy, you might freak out because the small 1L bottle just wasn't enough and you might have to go order another 20 dollar bottle. Oh oops, I did something wrong. Looks like I have to drain my loop...(15 bucks gone down the drain)

[MaxxxRacer]

serial.. I have some MCT-5 and MCT-40... its slightly less conductive than distilled water and is incredibly thick for a non-conductive solution. Temps wise, there are no real reviews of it, so i cant say how much worse it is compared to water, but just the extra viscosity alone would hurt your performance. At ambient temps it has the appx. viscosity of 40weight motor oil.

dont use the stuff from the machine. Use true distilled water. It isnt designed for drinking as it can give you the runs. (not anywhere near as bad as deionized though)

[serialk11r]

The water from that machine has no minerals. Its filtered so that all minerals are removed. It says so on a sticker. And the bottled version is 1 dollar/L I think, compared to 0.3$/gal??? were looking at a huge price difference here. It is filtered with a 5 stage filtering process which include reverse osmosis. I saw someone use similar water in their pc. Why not? Some people use tap water!!!

[Curtybob]

I have always said that non-conductive fluids are hype. Read the labels. Aside from the water being de-ionized (compared to just distilled), it is basically water and the main ingredient of anti-freeze. So, I just save my money.

On a side note, someone mentioned just running distilled water and biocide. I also like to toss a little (10% or so) antifreeze in to help keep corrosion to a minimum. It'll help keep the inside of those acrylic topped blocks looking shiny and clean.

[serialk11r]

I was thinking of adding a tiny bit of alcohol so nothing gunks up. I think there isn't anything too bad about those premixed fluids besides the fact that they are total ripoffs... I like to save money too, high five!

[Curtybob]

I always wanted to try that myself. The only thing that holds me back is that I have no clue what the alcohol would do to the tubing and O-rings in the waterblocks. One of these days, though, I'll get the cajones to try it.

[serialk11r]

I always wanted to try that myself. The only thing that holds me back is that I have no clue what the alcohol would do to the tubing and O-rings in the waterblocks. One of these days, though, I'll get the cajones to try it.
I filled a section of tube with alcohol. Its been a week, no clouding yet. I'll try it on rubber soon.

[MaxxxRacer]

I retract my thinkness statement on the MCT-5. I was just testing it and its not as thick as I thought (been a while since i last played with it) but its still quite a bit thicker than water.
Test equipment = Fluke 189 DMM
So i got the distilled water out and the MCT-5.. i taped my DMM's leads to gether and fully submurged the metal contacts on the leads into the water. I used a small Pyrex bowl which i cleaned with distilled water and dried first to avoid contamination. The results?

MCT-5 = 1.2 Mega Ohms (and slowly climbing as it would not stay entirely steady)
Distilled H2O = 1.63 Mega Ohms and holding steady.

so you tell me.. Is MCT really worth it?

[serialk11r]

nope. I think water+something of your choice is best because its cheap:D lol I'm just a cheapo.

[Curtybob]

So the MCT-5 has less resistance? Wow. I would have at least guessed that they have a slight advantage over water in that respect. Guess not, though.

[serialk11r]

Summary: Fluid XP is plain stupid, MCT is also pretty dumb but looks nice, and PC Ice is a cheap version of Fluid XP, still not a good deal, coolant-wise or drinking-wise(non-toxic). Yay!

[IanY]

serialk11r,

Honestly, MCT-40 or whatever its called is ok and its not the most expensive stuff around. Computers are an interesting hobby and is still relatively cheap compared to autos.

Don't believe me, try paying for an oil change using ten quarts of Shell Rotella T Synthetic :)

[serialk11r]

serialk11r,

Honestly, MCT of whatever its called is ok and its not the most expensive stuff around :) Computers are an interesting hobby and is still relatively cheap compared to autos.

Don't believe me, try paying for an oil change using Shell Rotella T Synthetic :)
Well with your idea of refilling a system once a month to prevent clogging or other bad stuff, you'd be looking at a yearly WCing coolant expenditure of probably 120 dollars per system if not more. So if every computer in your home used this stuff, you'd be paying 1000 dollars a year to change coolant and you'd be killing a lot of fishies by doing so too. And all that green stuff going down the drain would scare the hell out of anyone lol.

[MaxxxRacer]

So the MCT-5 has less resistance? Wow. I would have at least guessed that they have a slight advantage over water in that respect. Guess not, though.

i was a bit surprised by this as well.

[Budwise]

i used the MCT stuff when i first started in watercooling. It left a nice layer of gunk all over my blocks and tubing. I then switched over to distilled with Pentosin. It runs about 1C cooler and i really dont feel any less safe with my components. Once you get good with watercooling, you wont feel the need for non conductive stuff, but for the guys starting out for the first time it may be a good idea...

[epion2985]

What it all comes down to is:

water is cheaper
water has greater heat capacity
water conducts heat better
water flows better
water is easier to clean up as it leaves no residue
water is more environment friendly
water is safer health wise
water performs better period

So all in all there really is no reason to use anything but water. And if you do you are just buying in to the advertising. There is a reason no self respecting experienced overclocker etc uses those coolants. Because we have all been there, we have seen what they have to offer and we all realized that really there is nothing better then water (metals fluid at room temperature aside, but that raises many issues on its own about price, safety, practicality etc).

[Patriote]

What it all comes down to is:

water is cheaper
water has greater heat capacity
water conducts heat better
water flows better
water is easier to clean up as it leaves no residue
water is more environment friendly
water is safer health wise
water performs better period

So all in all there really is no reason to use anything but water. And if you do you are just buying in to the advertising. There is a reason no self respecting experienced overclocker etc uses those coolants. Because we have all been there, we have seen what they have to offer and we all realized that really there is nothing better then water (metals fluid at room temperature aside, but that raises many issues on its own about price, safety, practicality etc).

Well, said. Im about to order a new pump so i can hook up my X1950's and CPU on water and ill probably order some G11 to go whit Distilled water and ill be done whit PC ICE.