cleaning my waterblock

upgraded my vga card recently. as the old card with the waterblock mounted was lying around on my desk i decided to open it up to have a look if there is anything inside the block and obviously in my whole loop so that i have to revise all my blocks.

the block was used for about 12 month now with the system running almost 24/7 powered off just for a few weeks throughout the year when i was out of town. i used pure destilled water no additives at all. have not changed the water during this time as the water was still clear an there were no signs of life (alge).

here are some pics:

the upper part of my block where water is coming and going out:
Attachment 72748

the center part, connecting the vrm cooling base:
Attachment 72749

finally the gpu base of my block:
Attachment 72747

as you can see there is some sort of grey, may be slightly green coating on the parts in contact with water. all blocks in the loop are pure copper. not sure what material the black ice gts360 is made off. afaik its made off copper and brass parts.

i thought i can live with pure destilled water in an all copper loop. did not realize the brass parts used in my gts360!

may be i should add something to the distilled water in the future?

any ideas how to clean this and probably what to add to the water?

clean with ketchup and an old toothbrush. flush out your system (esp. the rad) really well, and refill with distilled + some Pentosin. Should be able to find it at a VW or Porsche dealership no problem.

I think it is more like algae or organic growth. It looks like a slimey film (corrosion will look more like mineral deposits that I don't see in your case). It's not corrosion.

Just use ketchup or a mix of vinegar and salt to clean them off, rinse them very thorougly. After refilling the loop with distilled water, just add 1-2 drops of biocide (like PT Nuke or anything containing copper sulfate) to kill algae.

Oxidized copper.
When this mess dries it will turn darker, almost black.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by largon

Oxidized copper.
When this mess dries it will turn darker, almost black.

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Had some what the same thought. As you all know, copper becomes blue/green when oxidizing, and maybe the brass has reacted with the copper somehow, creating this coat.

pretty sure now it was oxidation! got the tip from another forum to use salty water and lemons acid against copper oxidation! so from looking what i can find at home i used water, added same ordinary salt and squeezed a lemon into it. left the parts in there for about two hours now.
you would be surprised how this works! the black coating is almost gone without any manual intervention. ok, there are some spots left where i might use a toothbrush but after all this mixture works perfect to get rid of this oxidation.

Attachment 72754

Attachment 72755

good as new :)

Glad you got it all cleaned up. :D

Out of curiosity, how has your cooling performance fared over the year? Did it degrade slowly or was there any difference at all?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rincewind

Out of curiosity, how has your cooling performance fared over the year? Did it degrade slowly or was there any difference at all?

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i did not notice any degradiation in cooling performance at all. i was told if its just oxidation like in my situation it should not have any impact on performance.

opened the block out of curiosity as i had removed this vga card from the system anyway.

i like that cleaning combo better the ketsup, I need to clean some blocks but i hate to work with ketsup..... yuk!

Good that you got it cleaned up. Don't think it was harmful to your loop anyways, but It certainly feels better to have a clean loop :)