how to clean water cooling tubes??

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Stemz

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Nov 27, 2013
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so i was tearing down my water loop to clean it and i noticed that my tubes looked a little darker. i have blue tubing i swabbed the inside of a tub with a qtip and it came out dirty. it looks like build up idk from what maybe from the loop in general. whats the best way to clean that out i let it soak in hot water with vinegar it seemed to have cleaned it a little but not all that great. any ideas??
 
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im thinking that my pump is causing that dust. thats what it looked like when i opened it the first time after i refilled it and it did the same thing i re opened it and there was the dust again. im trying to get a rma on it since it hasnt been a year yet.
 
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I still think it could be plasticizers leaching from the tubing. If that stuff clogs up the pump, it will certainly kill it dead. I also thought I read that you had Blue Tubing. If you changed to different tubing, there could still be a boat-load of residue hiding in the radiator and pump compartment resulting in the buildup of the new tubing.
 
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plasticizers are what essentially makes PVC tubing soft and flexible. They're never supposed to "leave" the tubing in the first place but some low-quality tubing experiences the plasticizers breaking down and the they then leach out of the plastic and into the inner-walls of the tubing and gunk up the loop. The only way to prevent it is to use a brand that uses superior methods of containing plasticizers or to use plasticizer-free tubing like Tygon.
 
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I thought PrimoChill was supposed to be a good brand but I'm not too sure now after my own personal experiences with it.

This is a picture after about a month of use compared to an unused section of tubing
1572ped.jpg
 
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Im actually planning on upgrading my pump since it died. Witch pump would you guys recommend?? I have a cpu block 2 gpu blocks and the mother board i just bought has water cooling capabilities in the vreg. A pump strong enough to handle that
 
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I would say not to use the voltage reg block and just cool the rest of the loop as it is.

You are going to need something with good head pressure and flow rate, either MCP35x or better or a D5/MCP655 or better.

That XSPC pump/res combo isn't really known for being really good at either and isn't necessarily designed for a complex or restrictive loop. They are only designed for running CPU-only as an entry level loop...maybe getting by with a single GPU added to the mix.
 
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whats wrong with using the vreg block?? ive read good things about that pump I think ill grab me one of those. I was flushing out my radiator and this is what I kept getting out of it.

 
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I flushed it out with vinegar and water like 3 times and the blue wouldn't stop coming out. do I have to keep doing it with the water/vinegar mix till it comes out clear??
 
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the reason I wanted to use the vreg block was cuz I just got this board the asus maximus vii and it comes with it pre installed.



 
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Usually, those types of blocks are relatively restrictive in watercooling loops and aren't necessarily needed unless you are really overclocking a significant amount.

Were you running blue coolant or something of sorts? That's the only reason I can think that you'd continuously keep getting that blue-tinted water. You could run a solution of water and vinegar to flush for a while, like 25% vinegar, 75% water to see if you get cleaner results.
 
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the only thing I can think of is my tubing. I was using xspc blue tubing. I only run distilled water in my system. it only comes out blue when I use vinegar in the mix. when I start rinsing it with regular water it comes out clear.
 
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Wondering if the vinegar is pulling oils out of your rads that aren't getting removed with the distilled water, alone. In that case, maybe just a good soaking in hot, soapy water and a very good rinsing.

I don't know that the tubing could cause that, but there isn't anything to say it couldn't.
 
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so far the don't have me all that happy with their customer service. they reply to my email like every 2 days =/ I sent them a video of the pump and they said that I was doing it wrong to re test it to their specifications and re email them the new video. this is for my dead pump btw
 
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What were you doing wrong based on what you said and their response? What were their specifications in the reply?

I think XSPC customer service is international, so depending on where you live, your questions and their responses might be due to the opposite side of the world. (Recalling the issue with the older pump impeller RMAs they dealt with a couple years ago)
 
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