Ive brought my watercooled twin AthlonMP gaming rig out of mothballs. By modern standards shes a dinosaur but she still runs like new and shes fast enough for anything Ive got.
She has been sitting idle for about 8 months with her standard operating mixture of ~20% anti-freeze 80% de-ionised water, with the pump being turned over periodically just to move things around (this hasnt been done since I moved out ~4 months ago).
Now I come to start her up and there is some sort of deposit on the inside of the tubing. It looks and flakes like limescale, although Im not sure where limescale would have come from given that she has always used de-ionised water. It is flaking off in fairly large (~2mm square) pieces and flying around. This doesnt seem to be causing an instant problem but I dont want it to get lodged somewhere and cause a blockage.
I have flushed the system through with loads (we are talking galons) of water and there are now very few large pieces breaking off, but the deposit remains on some of the straighter tubes.
Does anyone have any ideas of what I could use to get rid of it? Im concerned about damaging the piping if I use anything too agressive.
Pipes are PVC and all blocks and rad are copper. Pump is an Eheim 1250
I remember having a nasty Algae years ago and no amount of flushing would get rid off, I got rid of it by flushing the system out with Radflush (I forget the exact name) from a car shop.
I left it running threw for a few days and then a few hours with clean water, I tied a old cloth to the exit tube of the loop to act as a filter, so any little bits wouldn't be reintroduced into the loop :)
I once had a system crash on me a few times... took it apart and there was next to zero waterflow... the tubes and blocks were all FULL of algea... so i took it outside and use a hosepipe in the place of the pump... and that cleared it right out :-) ...remember to take the pump out of the system... mains water pressure will blow them appart...(I know from experience)
id think if theres flakes of stuff floating around it would get stuck in your blocks.... :(
I also once used hot water and bleach to clan through a system.... that worked great and I didnt notice any problems with the tubing blocks etc... used a bucked full of hot (almost boiling) water and bleach in place of a res and left it going for 20 min..... warning tho, when the rubber hoses get hot theyll be soft and will pop off if you dont use hose clips !
Heh dread to think what my system would be like up in the loft back in Shrews, pretty sure thats still full of water / anti-freeze and hasnt been used for mmmmmm 2-3 years?!
mmm have just noticed that CPU1 is running significantly hotter than it used to, 17 degrees above water temp where it used to be more like 10.
I have an exposed res so can keep an eye on the waterflow, which seems ok.
shes running fine, just a little hot under the collar.
Sure its not the connection between the block and the CPU? the block might not be seated very well or using some other form of thermal paste which isnt as good :)
are the blocks in series or parallel ?
I can remember talking about series vs parallel on here when you were building the system !
(but cant remember what you decided to go with.... iirc i was championing the series idea!)
Id try the hot bleech idea.... see what happens ;)
Awww I miss the techy geeky projects we used to do here... what happened, its as if we all grew out of it at once :P
I tried both, Series worked better overall so thats the way they are now.
I might have to have the side off and re-seat the blocks.
Quote from: DoomsAwww I miss the techy geeky projects we used to do here... what happened, its as if we all grew out of it at once :P
yeah !
the good old days of waking my parents up at 4am by taking up floorboards so i can run water cooling hoses down through a wall cavity into the cellar !
Quote from: DoomsAwww I miss the techy geeky projects we used to do here... what happened, its as if we all grew out of it at once :P
Powerful enough machines are now available from off-the-shelf parts. No need to dig out the conductive paint, scalpel and start playing with a CPU while praying you dont mess it up. Also I think most of us just got fed up of constantly fixing stuff. Who was it on here that used to rate motherboard reliability on how long it used to take him to fry them?
Quote from: BeakerQuote from: DoomsAwww I miss the techy geeky projects we used to do here... what happened, its as if we all grew out of it at once :P
Powerful enough machines are now available from off-the-shelf parts. No need to dig out the conductive paint, scalpel and start playing with a CPU while praying you dont mess it up. Also I think most of us just got fed up of constantly fixing stuff. Who was it on here that used to rate motherboard reliability on how long it used to take him to fry them?
IIRC that was Big Steve.
Basically I think youre right, most people here started out as pennyless teenagers trying to play the latest games on a tiny budget. Also at that time game technology was advancing faster than hardware and the latest stuff just didnt run well unless you were overclocking.
In recent years most of us have got jobs and can now afford to actually buy top flight kit, so dont bother overclocking anymore.
I currently find myself unable to afford a decent upgrade, so am considering a return to my old ways.
I still OC but nowhere near the level I used to do, I simply don't have the time or interest anymore,
but if I can get some free Mhz out my CPU with little effort I will, but I don't want anything I need to keep an eye on tbh like when I had the Prometeia or watercooling.
If the pipe is flexible then squeeze/roll it gently, that should break off a good bit. Otherwise a suitable commercial descaler and a pipe or bottle brush.
Mine to :)
Still overclock but cannot afford to do it as much as i used to.Still running watercooling on both my rigs.
Was great fun pushing to & above a rigs limit.
As for gunk in watercooling i have never had it so cannot comment besides reverse flushing & taking the tubing off
& cleaning it away fron system