Algae in Water Cooling Loop and Prestone Radiator Flush

[ihog]

Hello, all.

Due to negligence on my part for not remembering to put biocide in my loop often enough, there has been an enormous build up of algae in it. Now, I've removed most of it, but some still persists in the rivets of the CPU block, the radiator (since I can't get in there to scrub), and likely inside of the pump (I have a pump/reservoir combo, and I removed the pump from the res, but I don't think taking apart the pump is viable).

I have the XSPC Raystorm 750 RS240 kit. The CPU block is copper, the rad is a mix of copper/brass (I believe), and the barbs are brass.

If I were to put my loop back together outside of the PC and run it with Prestone Radiator flush (http://www.prestone.com/enca/prestone_radiator_flush_cleaner), would I be making a mistake? If not, how long should I run it for? Should I dilute the rad flush? I think the answer is yes, since the instructions for a car rad say to do so, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Thanks in advance.

 

[synphul]

Something else you might try first is using distilled vinegar. Pretty safe and you'd be surprised the crud it can clean up. You might need to let it soak for a little while, then run it. For most of the parts I'd assume the auto radiator flush to work but I'm not sure how the pc water pump would handle it. Auto water pumps are metal and quite a bit more robust. Pc water pumps are often plastic and not sure how they'd handle the prestone. It might not make any difference, I'm just trying to err on the side of caution.

http://www.ekwb.com/support/index.php?act=article&code=view&id=23

 

[ihog]

So what I might do is use the flush only with the rad and run tap water through it after. Then, I'd rebuild the loop and run vinegar through it.

How much should I dilute the vinegar and how long would be safe to run the loop with the vinegar?

 

[synphul]

You could try a dilution of 50/50 vinegar/water or even more vinegar. I doubt it will hurt anything. If you can, try and use distilled water. It might be over cautious but tap water isn't pure and any minerals and things in tap water could cause corrosion potential down the line (not near as much as running tap water as the coolant). Maybe flush with tap and give it a quick flush/rinse with distilled before reassembling the radiator. Vinegar should be pretty safe, it's recommended for a lot of various plastic parts from coffee pots to shower heads to vaporizers to get rid of any fungal growth or things like lime scale. I'm thinking running the loop for a few minutes, shut it off and let the vinegar sit and do it's job for around 10min, then maybe another 5-10min of running before flushing the vinegar out. Doubt any longer than that would be beneficial.

 

[ihog]

Thanks. I'll report back after I try.

 

[ihog]

I've yet had the time to do anything, but I was wondering that if sodium citrate and water are the only ingredients in the rad flush, wouldn't it be safe to run through the entire loop?

 

[synphul]

That I don't know. It sounds harmless enough, but I don't know what properties sodium citrate have or how it reacts with the various parts of a cooling loop. Not just the metal in the waterblocks and rad (would likely be harmless), but the plastic in the tubing or the plastic that the pump impellers are made of. I'll never try to recommend anything to anyone like 'sure, go do this or that' without knowing for sure just in case for some weird reason it did cause damage.

For that reason alone a lot of my advice may be lacking or ineffective since I'm overly cautious when it comes to other people's stuff. If I don't know for certain and did something to my own system and made a booboo, messed something up well then so be it. I'll know better next time. Just don't want that to happen to someone else.

I'm not trying to push people elsewhere for advice, but have you tried asking like on overclockers? Those folks do a lot of cooling loop work and may have better experience as to what works and doesn't and what's safe or not. My cooling loop experience is more limited to automotive and it's not really the same as a pc (other than theory) - different equipment, materials, temps etc. I can't say for certain since I don't watercool my pc. (Don't want ppl to think oh you gave advise and haven't even done it personally? I'll disclose that bit up front.)

 

[ihog]

In the end, distilled white vinegar with 5% acidity was far better than the rad flush. Almost immediately, the vinegar turned bluish and after about 15 minutes of running it through, I drained the loop, as well as many algae chunks. The rad flush did absolutely nothing.

Thank you, synphul.

 

[synphul]

That's great, glad it worked so well for you. Interesting comparison too, I would have thought the rad flush would have done more than that. I used to do radiator flushes on vehicles all the time, maybe it's different when the heat is higher (than a pc)? Engine blocks get hotter than a cpu, but thermostats are still designed to open around 180-190f which isn't too far off from max safe limits of a cpu core (180f is 82c). The chemicals weren't overly cheap either, maybe would have been better off using vinegar lol.

 

[IamTimTech]

In the end, distilled white vinegar with 5% acidity was far better than the rad flush. Almost immediately, the vinegar turned bluish and after about 15 minutes of running it through, I drained the loop, as well as many algae chunks. The rad flush did absolutely nothing.

Thank you, synphul.

I wish I had found this thread when you originally posted it. That's because a automotive radiator flush is designed to remove different debris and contaminants such as salts, metal and other engine grime. It's not meant to flush algae and is probably not a good thing to put in your system as it is far more caustic than vinegar.

I'm glad the vinegar worked.

 

[ihog]

The rad flush was only $3 for 22 oz, so it wasn't too bad. Thanks, all.

 

[synphul]

Oh well that's not too bad then. I was thinking of the cost of bg products (not available in stores) used in the shop I worked at. It was a 2 part system with one bottle of flush/detergent and another bottle of conditioner added after performing a flush. The service ran around $140 but that included the chemicals plus labor and the use of a powered flush machine with extraction and a refill with new coolant. I think the chem kit portion was around $28-30.