Refilling and Maintaining Water Cooling Systems/Vapor Chambers

[Shaina11]

I have a few questions. With the recent news of the announced Asus ROG G752 and GX700, water cooling has caught my attention. Mostly, I only use air-based cooling, as I do not overclock my components, as I believe that shortens the lifetime of the device. I have computers that are over 10 years old, up to 17 that still run well(albeit slowly) and are still used to this day. Including my 5-year old Asus G73JH, which is used almost every day.

My question is this. I have heard about different types of water cooling systems for desktops, such as closed loop and custom/open loop. My concern would be due to the fact that I like to see how long I can keep my hardware running, thus, CPU sockets and motherboard form factors become obsolete, and parts are no longer developed or maintained for older hardware. (Thus, eventually, you will no longer be able to buy a replacement water cooling system for a particular obsolete CPU socket. Isn't that wonderful?)

Eventually, with water cooling, the coolant/water would have to be refilled, I would imagine even in closed-loop, "no maintenance needed" systems. (Of which I call bull ten years from now.) Not only would they need to be refilled, but also certain parts, (tubing, pumps, fans, etc.) would need to be replaced. Now how would you go about that ten years from now? You can't simply tell me that I won't be using it anymore by then.

The question becomes even more concerning with the announcements of these new ROG laptops. In the G752, I have read about the so called "3D Vapor Chamber." From my understanding and what I have gathered, it's basically copper pipes with some form of liquid flowing through them. When the temperatures begin to rise in the future, and a thermal repaste is due, how would one also go about refilling this "vapor chamber?" Eventually, many years in the future, it will also need to be refilled. Liquid does not stay isolated in a container forever. It will evaporate or 'vanish' or even worse, leak, at some point or another. (Though leaking seems less likely with a copper pipe...)

This is why I don't like change, I'm the kind of person where if I can fix it myself, I want to fix it myself. I don't like extended warranties or having to RMA my device. I want to repair it and gain experience. Plus, it's cheaper that way.(Sometimes.) And if it's claimed to be "non-user replaceable" I take that as a challenge for me to replace it.

Another question is, how would we go about flushing the GX700 of liquid when putting it into storage, or traveling? Also, I still want to know that I can refill the water cooler system. Otherwise, I have no interest in this new "innovation..."

 

[synphul]

When it comes to aio or closed loop water coolers, unless you find a way to open the system and seal it back up completely using diy handy work they're throw aways. Meaning they're non serviceable by the end user and weren't intended to be. A custom or open loop (or expandable "closed" loop) liquid cooler can have things like tubing replaced, coolant drained and refilled etc.

In terms of vapor chamber tech involving copper heat pipes, no they do not need serviced. There's no way to open them up short of cutting them open with tubing cutters or a torch or plasma cutter and resoldering them shut. They also weren't intended to be serviced by the end user. Heatpipes use (most of the time) sintered copper pipes which have rough surfaces along the interior with just a bit of liquid added and is a fully closed, fully contained system. There usually isn't enough liquid to 'leak' out even if opened and unless the liquid can seep through copper tubing it shouldn't ever leak.

I'm not positive on the details of the gx700's detachable dock cooler, they haven't released a whole lot of details as of yet. I would assume it too is a non serviceable aio type cooling solution. It's pretty innovative for a laptop to have any form of liquid cooling at this point. When it comes to desktops, if you want a cooling solution that you can maintain yourself you'll need to go with a custom loop or expandable closed loop like the ek predator. Standard closed loop (non serviceable) coolers like the h100i go for around $100-110, the predator is scheduled to go for around $200 and custom loops can easily run $250-450+.

You're always welcome to tinker with your hardware but if you mess about with the cooler dock on the gx700 and break it or can't get it completely sealed again, you're almost certain to void the warranty and be stuck with broken hardware. They tend to use things like solid molded pipe fittings, it's not as if it's a matter of just removing a clamp from a tubing nipple and pulling the hose off.

 

[Shaina11]

Thank you for your response.

My main concern with the vapor chamber is for example, ten years in the future when I decide to boot the G752 again, and the temperatures are high. So, I go in and repaste the CPU/GPU. But low and behold, the temperatures are still higher than when the laptop was new. This being due to the "vapor chamber" pipes needing to be refilled. That's going to suck if it overheats and there's nothing I can do about it at that point in time. Nor could I just buy a replacement pipe, because of course, any other pipes that came from that model would probably have about the same issue, depending on the circumstance and where the computer was used and stored, and how often it was used.

And the cooler for the GX700. That's a different story. To my understanding, I believe you can use the laptop with the dedicated GPU without the water cooler, however, you will not be able to overclock it.(Someone correct me on this in the future if I'm wrong.) The only way to overclock it would be to have it docked to the cooler. (Which is less of my concern if I can use it without. Plus, I don't much care for overclocking anyway. I don't play games much, but the horsepower of a gaming laptop is useful for video editing and other intensive tasks.) I would still hope different parts of the cooler could be replaced, along with the water/coolant. Draining the laptop of liquid would also be of a concern.

 

[synphul]

Having an expectancy of 10yrs useful and relevant service life isn't that realistic. I doubt the copper heatpipes will function differently in 10yrs, they're sealed. You'd have to research the rate at which liquid can escape solid metal, I don't think it can. For the water cooler portion, the pump will likely fail much sooner than 10yrs rendering it inoperable.

They don't make easily obtainable replacement parts and it's not just with pc's. It's with most things these days. It's like trying to find a spring loaded switch to replace one of the buttons on the front of your hdtv or lcd monitor, they're just not available. It's not the 1950's when tv repairmen come out and pull the board at the back of the tv to swap out individual tubes, if the button breaks on a tv rendering it broken then you buy a new tv set. In 10yrs the operating system at that time (windows whatever) may not even support the laptop's hardware.

If you're dealing with adobe cc products which are cloud based, it very well may require you run a new os in 10yrs (if adobe cc is even around in 10yrs) and that os may not run on a 10yr old laptop. It's far too distant in the future to make any accurate choices right now, tech changes far too fast. 10yrs in tech is an eternity. At least with an air cooler you can usually replace the fan (desktop cpu cooler), laptops are another story since they use specialized nonstandard components. Compact fans that may only fit that make/model of laptop and I'm betting won't be available even from the manufacturer in 10yrs.

To put it in perspective, I had an nvidia gpu with a lifetime warranty and after just a few years it went bad. I ended up getting an equivalent but newer upgraded model for warranty exchange because they no longer made or had the card I was using. That was within 3yrs or so, much less 10.

 

[Shaina11]

Which reminds me of how they're trying to make cars so you can't change the oil yourself. Absolute bull. At any rate, thank you for the information.