Normal Water that bad?

[krthush]

I have just finished my (upgraded) water-cooling loop and it is currently under leak testing. Most of the parts that I carried over from my previous loop had been in use for a year (a cpu block, a gpu block and a rad), I did not bother cleaning them as I used very pure (apparently double distilled) water. This time however when I modified the loop, I had a bit of trouble when filling the loop up (so had to use some normal water to find the source of the problem - my funnel which I used to fill the loop was crap). So all in all I have about half a cup (approx 100ml) of normal water, mixed with a bottle (approx a litre) of double distilled water, running around my loop. Now I know that normal water is horrible as it contains a lot of impurities, but will that tiny bit be that damaging? Would it be worth ordering a whole new batch of distilled water and then emptying the loop, and filling it all over again? I really feel against that idea for it would a huge sink of time and money. If I do leave the loop as it is, when it comes to cleaning the parts, how difficult will it be? They will probably only have some calcium (amongst other impurities from water) on them as well as some general dust.
Would love some opinions on this,
Thanks

 

[manofchalk]

I think you'l be fine, generally tap water isn't recommended but there have been systems using it that have run fine for long periods of time without issue.
http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/01/02/distilled-water-is-the-king-of-water-cooling/3/

 

[vinhn]

As long as you don't have a leak, the water is just going to run through to relief the heat in your hardware. For cleaning you probably would have to do more cleaning than the usual distilled water due to impurities that could clog up but it is fine.

 

[MagR]

Hi

I think one of the main problems with tap water is it can contain minute amounts of organic matter. This can lead to algae forming. As long as you have used a few drops of biocide (PT Nuke etc) the small amount of tap water shouldn't matter.

Hope this helps

Mag

 

[krthush]

I have a silver coil to kill off any organisms that grow, so we should be fine on that side of things. After around 12 hours, I don't see any leaks, but I'm going to leave it for another day or so, as I was using some new fittings I'm not too familiar with. After reading the article manofchalk posted, I feel much more encouraged. I also now wonder would it be worth purchasing some of those additives? (like the corrosion blockers?).

 

[4Ryan6]

I have just finished my (upgraded) water-cooling loop and it is currently under leak testing. Most of the parts that I carried over from my previous loop had been in use for a year (a cpu block, a gpu block and a rad), I did not bother cleaning them as I used very pure (apparently double distilled) water. This time however when I modified the loop, I had a bit of trouble when filling the loop up (so had to use some normal water to find the source of the problem - my funnel which I used to fill the loop was crap). So all in all I have about half a cup (approx 100ml) of normal water, mixed with a bottle (approx a litre) of double distilled water, running around my loop. Now I know that normal water is horrible as it contains a lot of impurities, but will that tiny bit be that damaging? Would it be worth ordering a whole new batch of distilled water and then emptying the loop, and filling it all over again? I really feel against that idea for it would a huge sink of time and money. If I do leave the loop as it is, when it comes to cleaning the parts, how difficult will it be? They will probably only have some calcium (amongst other impurities from water) on them as well as some general dust.
Would love some opinions on this,
Thanks

I have a silver coil to kill off any organisms that grow, so we should be fine on that side of things. After around 12 hours, I don't see any leaks, but I'm going to leave it for another day or so, as I was using some new fittings I'm not too familiar with. After reading the article manofchalk posted, I feel much more encouraged. I also now wonder would it be worth purchasing some of those additives? (like the corrosion blockers?).

I've never heard of double distilled water, as distilled is usually a steam distillation process, and some steam distillers do run the steam distilled water additionally through an ionization process, so I guess that could be taken a double distilled water.

Pure 100% steam distilled water is getting harder and harder to find these days but is usually attainable from your local grocery store.

That said, I don't think one cup of tap water will hurt just keep an eye on it and if green slime starts creeping out the top of the reservoir, then, "Houston we have a problem!".

Even steam distilled water picks up impurities as soon as it is flowing through the system, and even steam distilled water in direct sunlight will begin algae growth, the silver kill coil works great as long as you don't introduce any additives into the water that will react with it, and that the machines reservoir is not in direct sunlight.

So I would say just run it and keep an eye on what's going on and don't worry about it.

 

[krthush]

Ok, thanks you guys . Well I'm on my pc, (after no leaks for nearly a day I'm pretty confident it isn't gonna kill itself XD). Had a bit of trouble getting my RAID working again... (I can't believe you have to put all the devices in the exact sata slots or otherwise the computer is mindfuked >.>), but its cool now 😀. Everything seems to have worked in the end, all that's left is my paint job ^^.

So in conclusion, the tap water shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'll give the best answer to manofchalk, as I feel like the linked article will help most people who read this thread in the future.
Ryan your answer was very helpful in terms of being very specific to my problem and giving me advice on what to do in the future, thanks for that 😀
Thanks everyone else in general as well!!

 

[Meoricin]

I can understand the time/effort argument, but not really the cost one. I mean, 5L of distilled water costs a couple quid at most (dollars, if you prefer).