Identify This Condensation

DocGolem · 05-26-2005, 02:51 PM

After a few great months with my chiller, my computer suddenly locked up on me the other day, so I decided it was time to take off the insulation and search for a problem.

I think I found it:

So, it looks like some kind of deposit left after some water has evaporated, right? I'm thinking that the bolts going through the waterblock got cold and, being uninsulated, started collecting water. Then after I shut down the computer, it started evaporating back into the air, leaving the mineral deposit behind.

What do you guys think?

Frozendeath · 05-29-2005, 12:42 PM

Yea, condensation is a problem...

I insulated and greased and sealed and ....... still got condensation

You are correct, air is getting in there, more than likely freezing and then evaporating after the chiller is off. I cannot stress enough that you need to take care of that asap. Once it gets on the board (and we all know it will get on it somewhere) It will start corroding. Water + High frequency electronics do not like each other. I killed my IC7 with corrosion. Mosfet was all green and brown, was going on for months and I had no clue, until the mobo shut off and never worked again.

Quick ways to deal with this: Get a desk fan, or a utility blower

and open your case, turn on the fan when you turn off your comp. Ideally you should run the fan with your comp on as well. I know it gets kind of loud and messy, but 24/7 chilling is hard to condensation proof.

Long term suggestion:

Air tight mobo box, mine is almost finished (in testing at the moment). I got: mobo and all associated parts sealed up airtight, along with powersupply, hard drives.

I now run totally un-insulated inside the box, condensation free. This is at -20 c cpu block temps, chilling my gpu as well with no insulation there either. Silica Gel is the best condensation proofing material

Good luck, I will have to post a project log of my box sometime (no pics at this time since I was too stupid to take some while making the thing lol)

DocGolem · 05-29-2005, 05:11 PM

Thanks for the reply Frozendeath.

Condensation is quite a problem. I followed most of the guides that have been posted in the Vapor Phase section, to no avail. This is the 2nd motherboard that I've had die due to condensation problems. I'm not sure if it is my mounting solution or if it is the close proximity of the capacitors.

I'm thinking about getting a P4P800 Deluxe to replace my current board because the socket area is going to be infinitely easier to condensation proof.

The mineral deposits on the mounting bracket makes me lead to believe that the condensation didn't form from around the block, but rather inside of the mounting holes where the bolts went through the block. I'm guessing throwing a lot of dielectric grease in these areas would stop the condensation cold.

I'm thinking of different ways to mount the block so that I don't have to worry about those condensation spots.

Thanks again for responding.

Frozendeath · 05-30-2005, 11:48 AM

Heres a question, what temps are you running at? The colder, the harder it is to insulate

Yes more grease will help, also conformal coating , or basically a non-acidic Silicone seal really helps.

Best way I have found to stop condensation on the mounting hardware (I actually managed to stop condensation totally around my mounts, but condensation directly on the board is another issue...) was to fill the whole area with silicone grease and then push the waterblock into the insulation.

Coat the entire outside surface of the waterblock with grease (of course only thermal paste the area where it contacts the cpu) and then test fit it. You want to see grease push out of all / any cracks or holes in the insulation. If after test fitting you still see dry insulation (neoprene most likely) apply grease directly onto that spot and test fit again. Basically after thats all greased, and sealed you have made a solid airfree housing around the block.

That will stop the condensation at the spots you have shown.

The only other enemy then is condensation forming on the mobo as the cold will travel through the traces past insulation. I was 3 full inches away from the cpu socket and still got condensation. But thats a different issue.

Seal that waterblock with grease and you will eliminate what you had happen in the pictures.

Good luck

DocGolem · 05-30-2005, 11:55 AM

I usually only bring the liquid down to about 0 C before I turn the compressor off. I knew that my insulation job wasn't up to the task of having it run all the time, so that's why I did that.

I think my main problem is the mounting solution that I have. It's pretty difficult to use since I have a big piece of metal between the block and the motherboard. This makes it really hard to seal and insulate. Do you think a new block or better mounting would help?

I'm interested in your air-tight case. Do you have any pictures, guides, or examples that I could look at to get an idea?

Thanks.

unixxx · 05-31-2005, 06:56 PM

I don't know if anyone has tried this, but you could always just Plasti-Dip the entire area around the socket and a few inches away from it and then apply dialectric grease. Then as long as the condensation evaporates before it starts to drip onto other parts of the PC it shouldn't matter if it forms slightly in this area. Plasti-Dip is really easy to remove as well, it just peels off and takes the messy dialectric grease with it. I don't know about it's chemical properties though, if it contains corrosive substances it might not be a good idea. Anyways, after directly coating a drive with it and submerging it under salt water I can testify to its being water proof (the drive did eventually leak around the IDE cableafter 4 hours).

eva2000 · 06-02-2005, 06:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unixxx

I don't know if anyone has tried this, but you could always just Plasti-Dip the entire area around the socket and a few inches away from it and then apply dialectric grease. Then as long as the condensation evaporates before it starts to drip onto other parts of the PC it shouldn't matter if it forms slightly in this area. Plasti-Dip is really easy to remove as well, it just peels off and takes the messy dialectric grease with it. I don't know about it's chemical properties though, if it contains corrosive substances it might not be a good idea. Anyways, after directly coating a drive with it and submerging it under salt water I can testify to its being water proof (the drive did eventually leak around the IDE cableafter 4 hours).

got any pics to share ?

unixxx · 06-02-2005, 07:16 PM

Yeah:

It would have worked perfectly if I had epoxied the end where the cables came into the drive. Maybe I'll make another one and throw it in my chiller when it's done, LOL (and let condensation form inside).

eva2000 · 06-02-2005, 07:22 PM

wow cool.. i meant pics of the pasti-dip cpu board socket area on top side of board though

unixxx · 06-02-2005, 07:24 PM

That was just a suggestion, I've never tried it, but I'm assuming that it would keep the immediate area around the socket very waterproof.

(sin)morpheus · 06-02-2005, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unixxx

Yeah:

It would have worked perfectly if I had epoxied the end where the cables came into the drive. Maybe I'll make another one and throw it in my chiller when it's done, LOL (and let condensation form inside).

Condensation wouldn't form inside the drive since it's sealed airtight. Also, if the temps of the water were below zero, you'd probably get lots of errors. The closed a/c box project is a great way to make sure no condensation forms. I wouldn't recommend putting your psu and hds inside the box though, as they tend to have issues with the cold temps.

Frozendeath · 06-03-2005, 03:56 AM

No issues with HDDs and PSU here

unixxx · 06-03-2005, 10:56 AM

Hard drives come from the clean room with fine airfilters in them so that they can equalize with the outside world. I wasn't quite sure how sealed they were so I searched Wikipedia and this is what I found:

Quote:

Hard disk drives are not airtight. They have a permeable filter (a breather filter) between the top cover and inside of the drive, to allow the pressure inside and outside the drive to equalize while keeping out dust and dirt. The filter also allows moisture in the air to enter the drive. Very high humidity year-round will cause accelerated wear of the drive's heads (by increasing stiction, or the tendency for the heads to stick to the disk surface, which causes physical damage to the disk and spindle motor). You can see these breather holes on all drives -- they usually have a warning sticker next to them, informing the user not to cover the holes. The air inside the operating drive is constantly moving too, being swept in motion by friction with the spinning disk platters. This air passes through an internal filter to remove any leftover contaminants from manufacture, any particles that may have somehow entered the drive, and any particles generated by head crash.

(sin)morpheus · 06-07-2005, 04:58 AM

Ok, not exactly air tight, but close enough. The poiint is, condesation won't form inside your HD for the same reason that condensation won't form under your IHS or between the shim and core on your video card.

Yeah frozendeath, your box has a temp that's not nearly as low as mine. My box is gets down to -29.9C unloaded -25C loaded. I can run it with the PSU inside, but if I stop running prime the caps will freeze and so does the comp.

HDs can still work well at -2C, when you go past around -7C then you start getting alot of erros and problems with the drive, so I wouldn't try it unless you feel like ruining a drive.

unixxx · 06-07-2005, 08:28 PM

Why won't it form; there's moisture in the drive and it's cooled to sub zero temps.

(sin)morpheus · 06-07-2005, 11:15 PM

There will be moisture, but not nearly enough to affect anything, I don't think even 100% humidity would provide enough moisture. Condensation forms when whats around an object is warmer than the object itself. If the harddrive is warmer than the cold water, the hard drive will cool down and nothing more.

Like I said, the biggest issue with chilling a harddrive is the contraction of the platters, since the head works on coordinates, when the platter's size changes too much, it will be going to the wrong place.

Frozendeath · 06-08-2005, 04:08 AM

Sin, got any pics of your setup? How are you getting -30 C ambient .... I would guess your chilling with a more powerful chiller, but I would be interested to know.

Thanks

unixxx · 06-08-2005, 07:32 AM

Ok, so you need a heat differential for condensation to form. Thanx

(sin)morpheus · 06-08-2005, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frozendeath

Sin, got any pics of your setup? How are you getting -30 C ambient .... I would guess your chilling with a more powerful chiller, but I would be interested to know.

Thanks

Yeah, I'm chilling the air directly with a 5100btu air conditioner as opposed to your waterchiller to rad setup.

I'll star a thread, give me a few min.

edit: here you go http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...699#post901699

unixxx · 06-08-2005, 03:58 PM

I just thought it was a funny coincidence that after this discussion I just came across the new Seagate EE25 series of hard drives for extreme environmental conditions. According to the datasheet they can withstand -30 to 85C and 2.0Gs of vibration. Here's a link if anyone's interested: http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/marketing/PO-EE25.pdf

(sin)morpheus · 06-08-2005, 04:32 PM

Looks cool but theyre laptop HDs and probably expensive. I'll stick with running IDE cables outside my box.