White Crud in Your Loop? Here's Why...

I've torn my system down and currently rebuilding it, see below. I have ditched the Koolance EXOS AL and have gone to system below. It's currently undergoing leak testing. I should have it up and running tomorrow and will post a build thread, but this issue deserves its own thread. I bought a Swiftech MCR-320 "Quiet Power" Series Radiator from Petra's Tech Shop and cleaned it per MaxxRacer's sticky at Xtreme Systems. I used distilled white vinegar. These pics are the results of TWO cleanings using the vinegar. Initially the vinegar was so cloudy you could not see through it, but I poured it into this glass and let it settle out for 24 hours. In a 12oz tumbler with 8oz of vinegar (I spilled some), you can see the results. There is a layer of white crud about 1/8" thick. Most of this is from the first 8 hour soak. You can also from the bottom shot that were a lot of metal particles that came out. Note that this is ONLY from the rad. The Storm, MCW-30 and EK 'blocks were already clean.

I'd say the results of this prove a couple of things:

First, cleaning your rad is an absolute must, no excuses.

Second, the white crud that people get on the inside of their tubing is coming from a dirty system.

Third, the use of an inline water filter with a 5 micron or smaller filter element is an excellent idea. Just think what would happen with no cleaning and no filter. I bought a whole house in-line filter and have installed it in my loop. I’m going to run it for 2 days on filter, then put it on bypass. I specfiically bought a larger whole house filter that has a bypass function. All you is turn is turn the top of the filter housing and it redirects the flow. The smaller filter in the sticky does not have this function. Once the bypass is engaged, you can then unscrew the bottom of the filter housing and change out the element or even remove it completely. The large size of the housing makes a graet reservoir once the element is removed. It holds about 1 liter. The last pic is of of the unit when I was setting things up. The housing is clear, but the blue is from the coolant I added.

I have no idea what this white stuff consists of.

Chenbro Gaming Bomb II
Gigabyte P965-DS3| BIOS F10
Conroe E6600
2 x 512MB OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum
EVGA 7900GT KO 256MB
Seagate 320GB SATA II
Silver Stone SST-ST60F
Dell 2405FPW
Cathar Storm G4
Swiftech MCW30 Northbridge Block
EK FC-78 VGA Waterblock
EK-RES250 Reservoir
Petra's DDCT-01 / Laing DDC
Swiftech MCR-320 Radiator
5 micron inline water filter

the question is why dont they sell clean watercooling parts ??? It should be easy for the manufacturer to pressure clean rad or blocks , as most of the parts come "leaktested" anyways....why not clean them at the same time ???
For the price they charge for watercooling parts i think i really could expect them to be clean and ready to use .
I mean who would by a new car and the first think to do is to wash it !!!!

interesting idea with the inline water filter.

Makes sense for an ongoing clean loop as well

I'll definitely be cleaning my blocks and radiator =|

I don't mean to thread crap but this is a legitimate question. Could the white crud be the vinegar precipitating with the metal inside the radiator? White precipitates like that look awfully like acetate precipitates.

cambrian said:

I don't mean to thread crap but this is a legitimate question. Could the white crud be the vinegar precipitating with the metal inside the radiator? White precipitates like that look awfully like acetate precipitates.

Click to expand...

It's not thread crapping, it's a legitimate question. Could be, I don't know, I'm open to ideas. May be some chem major can chime in. It's weird though. If you go to the Xterme systems link and scroll down you see vinegar turned BLUE.

mine turned white like yours when i did the vinegar cleaning. I have a Swiftech MCR-220. They might have used a radiator manufactured by someone else which resulted in the blue color

Mine turned white after I cleaned it as well, infact I should probably take my system apart, clean, lap etc it all over again, but I'm a lazy ass, I WILL do it sometime this week, because my temps seem to be a bit higher than they should be.