Does antifreeze work well for watercooling loops!?

[Outback Bronze]

So,

The people here that are using car coolant what was your main reason for doing so? Would like to hear your thoughts.

I remember years ago when I first starting using it, I got into quite a few arguments about whether it's any good or not. Basically, a lot of people writing me off.

Well, here I am almost two decades later, and I see some people are starting to see the light.

I remember pulling my first loop apart (Asetek custom loop for socket 478) after using distiller water and the rust was very nasty. Even saw the water going all brown. Prob the reason why I disassembled it.

Pretty sure I tried distilled again (thinking I did something wrong) and the rust started happened again. Mixed metals maybe?

This was when I thought of Car Coolant. I had nothing to lose. Well, here we are.

 

[jon_joy_1999]

Wrong.There are also pumps that need to be lubricated others do neet to be.

No modern pump is lubricated by the fluid it pumps. They are either sealed at the shaft, or use an external electromagnetic coil to operate the pump.

When the coolant needs to lubricate the pump, she rattles when starting. The main tasks of additives inside the coolant is to minimize biological activity.

We're not talking about additives, we're talking about antifreeze. Antifreeze is not anti-microbial because the temperatures that an internal combustion engine reach will kill off any life forms in the water.

I would suggest to read this safety data sheet especially about the alphacool pure water.

SECTION 13: Disposal considerations
13.1. Waste treatment methods
Disposal recommendations
Dispose of waste according to applicable legislation.
Wash with plenty of water. Completely emptied packages can be recycled.

Wash water with water, yes yes yes, very informative.
I am shocked that it does not warn against the hazards of inhaling even small amounts of Hydric acid, or the effects of consuming excessive amounts of Hydric acid, or the potential dangers of gaseous Hydric acid

 

[OneMoar]

in a car you don't necessarily care if the coolant gets nasTy the passages in a engine are far far bigger then your typical pc waterblock
also the addatives in automotive grade coolant don't always play nice with the materials used in pc loops (orings and various seals and other plastics) can be degraded by the addative pack in automotive coolant. and temperature is anouther issue automotive coolant has a operating range far higher then most pc loop water temps. this mainly effects viscosity but is a concern many addatives behave completely differently at 150f then they do at 50f

 

[xmanrigger]

No modern pump is lubricated by the fluid it pumps. They are either sealed at the shaft, or use an external electromagnetic coil to operate the pump.

We're not talking about additives, we're talking about antifreeze. Antifreeze is not anti-microbial because the temperatures that an internal combustion engine reach will kill off any life forms in the water.


Wash water with water, yes yes yes, very informative.
I am shocked that it does not warn against the hazards of inhaling even small amounts of Hydric acid, or the effects of consuming excessive amounts of Hydric acid, or the potential dangers of gaseous Hydric acid

"Antifreeze is not anti-microbial"

Please give us all an example of any living biological life form that can survive and live in a propylene glycol environment. That shit kills anything!

in a car you don't necessarily care if the coolant gets nasTy the passages in a engine are far far bigger then your typical pc waterblock
also the addatives in automotive grade coolant don't always play nice with the materials used in pc loops (orings and various seals and other plastics) can be degraded by the addative pack in automotive coolant. and temperature is anouther issue automotive coolant has a operating range far higher then most pc loop water temps. this mainly effects viscosity but is a concern many addatives behave completely differently at 150f then they do at 50f

When used in a PC for microbial and corrosion inhibition, it is at a low enough concentration this will never be an issue.

 

[jon_joy_1999]

"Antifreeze is not anti-microbial"

Please give us all an example of any living biological life form that can survive and live in a propylene glycol environment. That shit kills anything!

Bruh. Propylene glycol is a food additive. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/propylene-glycol
Examples?
Doge.
Human beans.
Cows.

Not cats.

 

[A Computer Guy]

"Antifreeze is not anti-microbial"

Please give us all an example of any living biological life form that can survive and live in a propylene glycol environment.

Did you really mean ethylene glycol?

 

[gurusmi]

No modern pump is lubricated by the fluid it pumps. They are either sealed at the shaft, or use an external electromagnetic coil to operate the pump.

We're not talking about additives, we're talking about antifreeze. Antifreeze is not anti-microbial because the temperatures that an internal combustion engine reach will kill off any life forms in the water.


Wash water with water, yes yes yes, very informative.
I am shocked that it does not warn against the hazards of inhaling even small amounts of Hydric acid, or the effects of consuming excessive amounts of Hydric acid, or the potential dangers of gaseous Hydric acid

1. If you think so. All the professionals incl. specialists of the chemical industry and also the pump manufactorers say that different. Only you got this opinion. Oh my lord. All the others are stupid and you are the only one who knows how it works.

Was bedeutet Trockenlauf/unzureichende Schmierung bei Nassläuferpumpen?

Wann Trockenlauf/unzureichende Schmierung bei Nassläuferpumpen auftritt, ist eine häufig an uns gestellte Frage.

www.grundfos.com

2. And what the heck is antifreeze to a loop/car cooling system? Not an additive? And no. The temparature won't kill all the life forms. They only kill most life forms inside the coolant water. Did you ever hear about extremophiles? I would suggest you to visit i.e. the geysers at yellowstone. You would learn a lot about life forms and their abilities.

3. Didn't you realize that in the coolant there is no antifreeze at all? Take the liquid called pure water add it to the loop and let it run. It's a bit acid as the ph-level is below the magical value 7.

As i said before. You can run in your loop whatever you want to. If you place pure honey inside have fun. But do not tell others things that are factical wrong.

 

[jon_joy_1999]

1. If you think so. All the professionals incl. specialists of the chemical industry and also the pump manufactorers say that different. Only you got this opinion. Oh my lord. All the others are stupid and you are the only one who knows how it works.

Was bedeutet Trockenlauf/unzureichende Schmierung bei Nassläuferpumpen?

Wann Trockenlauf/unzureichende Schmierung bei Nassläuferpumpen auftritt, ist eine häufig an uns gestellte Frage.

www.grundfos.com

Thank you for posting an article that repeats what I said, and saying that all professionals say that differently. Technically,

In the case of glandless pumps, dry running or lack of lubrication occurs when there is air in the rotor chamber.

is different from

A proper liquid cooling pump doesn't need lubrication outside of the water its pumping.

But I can see I made an error when I said

No modern pump is lubricated by the fluid it pumps. They are either sealed at the shaft, or use an external electromagnetic coil to operate the pump.

What I meant was

No modern pump receives lubrication material from the fluid it pumps, e.g. oil, or an additive suspended in solution. The fluid itself is sufficient lubrication.

Counter point? Show me a CPU pump manufacturer that specifies a lubrication type for their pump.

2. And what the heck is antifreeze to a loop/car cooling system? Not an additive? And no. The temparature won't kill all the life forms. They only kill most life forms inside the coolant water. Did you ever hear about extremophiles? I would suggest you to visit i.e. the geysers at yellowstone. You would learn a lot about life forms and their abilities.

And you expect Ethylene Glycol to be different in some fashion?
How about some learning, since you brought it up. Have you heard of Galleria Mellonella? Interesting thing this one is. Seems like it eats your PE tubing, and excretes your EG antifreeze. Oh those extremophiles, they so funny. Amirite fellas?

As i said before. You can run in your loop whatever you want to. If you place pure honey inside have fun. But do not tell others things that are factical wrong.

At this point I have to believe you're just playing a troll.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I recently saw a video of some dude on youtube that used:

¼ of green antifreeze to ¾ distilled water!

The dude claims that he didn't change the coolant for 4 years and by the looks of it, it still was in great condition however he was using a chinese water pump but I don't think the plastic on normal D5/DDC is going to react since Acetal does not react with glycol, so what are your thoughts on this matter?

Done similar using valvoline antifreeze, went well no issues at all.

 

[gurusmi]

Thank you for posting an article that repeats what I said, and saying that all professionals say that differently. Technically,

is different from

But I can see I made an error when I said

What I meant was

Counter point? Show me a CPU pump manufacturer that specifies a lubrication type for their pump.

And you expect Ethylene Glycol to be different in some fashion?
How about some learning, since you brought it up. Have you heard of Galleria Mellonella? Interesting thing this one is. Seems like it eats your PE tubing, and excretes your EG antifreeze. Oh those extremophiles, they so funny. Amirite fellas?

At this point I have to believe you're just playing a troll.

1. no word to say against.

2. My loop is running 24/7 since around 4 yrs. At the start i filled it up with EKWB Cryofuel. I do not have any damage at my ekwb tubes since that. I do not have any problem with my loop in general. You are talking about butterflies (Galleria Mellonella)? Token some strange psychotropic drug pills? Smoked something unhealthy? I'm really sorry for you. If you live in a unclean home it's your problem. Not mine. Better do not infer from you to others.

3. Running out of arguments and/or eligable facts? So you have to get offending me becaus of that lack? Think what you like to. If you want to name me a troll feel free. I don't care about. But don't tell your wet night fantasies to others, they can believe your wrong arguments.

And now i'm gonna break up at this point. You made it as the first user here onto my ignore list. Enjoy your stay...

 

[damric]

I have been using a bit of Prestone (Ethylene Glycol) in my distilled water for a while but I noticed I still need to use a silver coil or I get algae. I've also used propylene glycol which isn't poisonous like the ethylene glycol but it doesn't work quite as well. Some food coloring is almost purely propylene glycol so you can use that if you want a pretty color. Also played around with titanium dioxide for pastel looking fluid, but that ends up caking up on everything eventually.

 

[xmanrigger]

Did you really mean ethylene glycol?

LOLOLOL!
Thank you.

Bruh. Propylene glycol is a food additive. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/propylene-glycol
Examples?
Doge.
Human beans.
Cows.

Not cats.

Yup. It is so. Bath in it or drink it and see how long you live. I bet not long.

I meant ethylene glycol. You know, anti-freeze. The shit we were talking about. My mistake.

 

[Mussels]

I recently saw a video of some dude on youtube that used:

¼ of green antifreeze to ¾ distilled water!

The dude claims that he didn't change the coolant for 4 years and by the looks of it, it still was in great condition however he was using a chinese water pump but I don't think the plastic on normal D5/DDC is going to react since Acetal does not react with glycol, so what are your thoughts on this matter?

claims like this should always be ignored - because "green antifreeze" could be MASSIVELY different between brands, let alone countries
Some people have perfectly fine luck with it, but when the ingredients vary and metals in loops vary you MUST go by chemicals involved in the coolant, not by vague descriptions like colour

Distilled water has better heat transfer than glycol, so you'd be suffering worse cooling with a thicker liquid - and no one could possibly know if it's safe with YOUR setup


Having done a google on this, it comes down to if the coolant is PG (Propylene Glycone), PEG (Ethylene Glycol), or something else - and how diluted it is, since you need to dilute it for PC use.

Found a nice simple quote on reddit from someone who has the background information instead of 'worked for me in one setup with one unspecified coolant'

Let me give you a REAL non-bullshit answer since no one in this thread has any idea of what they are talking about.

Most PC coolants were/are almost entirely based on automotive coolants. Most coolants are comprised of a glycol base: this will either be ethylene glycol (PEG) or propylene glycol (PG). PEG is usually what people are really referring to when they think of "antifreeze", and PG is typically the "non-toxic" variants that you sometimes see (PG for example is also the base of e-cigarette vape juices). These two compounds are what gives coolant both its antifreeze and anti-boil properties amongst other things. PEG generally has superior properties to PG when it comes to cooling for a number of reasons and also has the advantage that it is toxic, so it is also one of the most ideal biocidal agents by default. PG coolants used in low temperature environments like PC cooling will typically need a biocidal additive to prevent biofouling.

In typical usage most coolants are never used pure. Automotive coolants typically come in a concentrated form that you are supposed to dilute with distilled/DI water based on your needs, or they may come prediluted at the store in some fixed percentage. One other important aspect to coolant is that they contain corrosion inhibitors which will typically vary based on the intended use of the coolant (for example, depending on your region or type of vehicle, certain cars will use specific metals so you should ideally use an antifreeze that is most compatible with it).

The notion that automotive antifreeze might be harmful to loops is mostly nonsense. In fact, you can look up the safety data sheets for most commercial PC coolants you will find that a majority of them use PEG as a base (some use PG). You can find a compiled list here: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1076406-the-best-documented-pc-coolants/ and you can just look up the safety sheets of other coolants if they are not on the list. Now if you do the same thing with virtually all automotive coolants, you will find pretty much all the best ones use the very same chemicals which is PEG diluted with DI/distilled water with usually the same or similar corrosion inhibitors. Sometimes there are other proprietary components to coolant which may not be listed on safety sheets such as a buffering agents used to keep pH alkaline, defoaming agents, etc., but these are largely benign.

Long story short if you want to use automotive coolant I would suggest to make sure you are using IAT type coolant (so don't randomly pick a colour based on preference, usually what you should be looking for is the bright neon green one or clear ones- other automotive coolant colours are usually OAT/HOAT types which isn't as ideal for copper/nickel) and aim for a final PEG concentration of about 5-30%. PEG is not as good as heat transfer as water but when mixed with water and at lower concentrations (<50%) the disadvantages of PEG when it comes to performance essentially become negligible (as you can see there are even PC coolants using 30-90% PEG). The PC coolant market is a racket, and if you don't need certain colours there is almost no disadvantage to using diluted automotive antifreeze as long as you know what you are doing.

TL;DR: Most PC coolants are glorified car coolants that they add pretty colours to and charge you 10x the cost

And his part two

A good reason not to use vinegar is that it will completely ruin any nickel component in a loop very quickly and nickel components from GPU/cpu blocks and fittings are extremely popular and even ubiquitous in builds these days.

Distilled water alone also has no biocidal/anticorrosive properties, and while using copper/nickel alone generally won't cause many problems there can always be a issue with cheaper quality parts, lead/solder flux etc that remains in the radiator that can make its way into your loop. Many common additives that are recommended may also be fully incompatible with nickel (copper sulphates for example). This is the main reason companies like EK say your warranty is void if you don't use their coolant and why so many novices that use pure distilled with biocide/anti-corrosion additives end up with "stained nickel" gpu plates and blame EK for it.

Using the correct type of dilute, automotive antifreeze covers all these potential problems and costs 80-90%+ less than any specialty additives or coolant from specialty computer/cooling brands, so I guess that is the main "reason".

 

[claes]

Yup. It is so. Bath in it or drink it and see how long you live. I bet not long.

Propylene glycol is safe to eat and smoke, is used in pharmaceuticals consumed orally, as vapor, and receive intravenously, is used in hand sanitizer and lotion and eye drops and makeup… you could absolutely bathe in it and would have to consume a lot of it to face any adverse effects.

 

[OneMoar]

Propylene glycol =miralax, laxative
also used as anti-freeze in potable or fresh water systems such as rvs and boats

 

[phanbuey]

i like it because i there are tons of colors and varieties to choose from, they perform well, need much less maintenance, and most importantly they don't stain your tubing or block like dyes.

 

[claes]

Propylene glycol =miralax, laxative

Think you’re thinking of polyethylene glycol

 

[xmanrigger]

Propylene glycol is safe to eat and smoke, is used in pharmaceuticals consumed orally, as vapor, and receive intravenously, is used in hand sanitizer and lotion and eye drops and makeup… you could absolutely bathe in it and would have to consume a lot of it to face any adverse effects.

Fly at it.
You just go right ahead and jump into a pool of it. When you get out, if on your own, slam an 8oz glass of it, and see just how well you feel. Chances are, if you wake up, it will be in ICU.

 

[jon_joy_1999]

Fly at it.
You just go right ahead and jump into a pool of it. When you get out, if on your own, slam an 8oz glass of it, and see just how well you feel. Chances are, if you wake up, it will be in ICU.

I think you don't know what you're talking about. Considering that you repeatedly can't tell the difference between ethelyne glycol and methylethylene glycol after being informed of the differences, maybe you should just stick to air coolers

 

[Shrek]

Propylene Glycol is animal safe

 

[Outback Bronze]

most importantly

My most important feature using it is all the water-cooling parts look brand new inside even after a loop has been going for 3+ years. Blocks still have their mirror finish.

 

[GordonFreemanInTheFlesh]

But you all think about that the coolant does not only cool down the CPU etc? It does also lubricate the pump and all other movables inside a loop. I don't want to see the pumps bearings after a while of using not appropriate liquids.

I want to absolutely point this out!!
Because no one mentioned it besides you!
Antifreeze has great lubricative properties which will improove the life of any moving parts it comes into contact with! If used in right proportions of course!
Thanks for the reply!!

It's what I have used for years, currently on year like 8 with the same coolant

On your car or your PC?
Lol all this Glycol marketing got me confused .

 

[claes]

Sure, but the pumps we use in loops are specifically designed to be lubricated with water. It’s a weird ”benefit” to mention when, afaik, there’s no data to clarify.

 

[LabRat 891]

No first hand experience here, but I'll throw my $0.02 in anyway.

If you pedantically investigate the various chemistries of modern coolants, I'd bet you'd find some properties attractive for water cooling a PC.
Also, back in the days of "bonnie heatercore" DIY setups, automotive coolant wasn't uncommon in the enthusiast-scene.

I'm not 100% sure about galvanic/catalytic compatibility with all coolant chemistries, but an Ag (silver) 'killcoil' or a coin/bar in the reservoir had been proven in times-gone-by to be sufficient biocide.
(I'd possibly even make some colloidal silver and mix it with concentrate antifreeze for my coolant.)

Edit:
Propylene Glycol is a 'bacteriostatic'. It is *not* "anti-microbial".
The Glycol can easily be food for microorganisms, but the other properties 'complicate and somewhat inhibit' colonial growths.

Ethelyne Glycol is metabolized into a highly toxic substance when ingested by most macroorganisms, but 'both sides of the name' are easily 'food' for various microorganisms.

Either -glycol used in an engine, even regularly around boiling point, will still have some extremeophiles and spore-forming microbes.
So, while microbial growth is rarely an issue in an engine's cooling system, it's hardly 'sterile'.

 

[freeagent]

I don't have any experience with water cooling myself.. I have seen older guys say they have been using the car stuff almost exclusively. I cant name names because I don't know.. but just things I have read over the years.

You have to use from a certain manufacturer though, and I cant remember who that was.