kithylin wrote:Computer water systems are -NOT- like automotive systems. It may use similar coolant mixtures but the environments are completel […]
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Aideka wrote:It might hurt components anyway, automotive antifreeze is sticky as hell if it leaks out. I know since my car decided to leak the cooling liquids out from between the spark plugs, and thore rubber spark plug wires have had an tendency to stick to my fingers and all other soft parts after that. Also, if that stuff leaks out, it can very rapidly create corrosion on metal parts, even if they are not turned on. I have a Scytche Ninja and Antec Truepower Trio to show the effects of a leaking water cooling system that had no power when they leaked, and those do not look pretty.
Computer water systems are -NOT- like automotive systems. It may use similar coolant mixtures but the environments are completely alien to each other.
With automotive applications you need the coolant system to routinely operate above water's boiling point, and below water's freezing point. And as such, the antifreeze mixture has to be concentrated enough to modify water to withstand the higher temperatures without boiling, and survive sub-zero temps without freezing. So in cars, you're typically running the coolant in it at a 50/50 mixture. Or in some extreme hot or extreme cold parts of the world you even end up with cars running mixtures of 70% antifreeze 30% water. Even then it's usually always mixed with distilled water as well.
With computer water systems you're never going to encounter temps for the coolant getting any where near freezing or anywhere near boiling. So in computer water systems the concern is more of transferring heat more efficiently to the radiator than it is making the water able to withstand extremes beyond it's nature. Nothing transfers heat better than water it's self. So in computer water systems you essentially want as much water as possible and as little actual additive as possible.
Here in Finland people usually go for 30% antifreeze, 70% water. That is the recommendation on our antifreeze bottles. The temperatures vary very much here depending on the season, and it is not too uncommon to have -30 degrees celsius in the winter and +30 degrees celsius in the summer. As a car mechanic I would also have to say, that the water, or in this case the liquid, hardly ever goes actually past the boiling point. If it did, the engine would have a very bad time, since the pressure in the system would rise to a very high value, and thus would propably blow something off. True, the liquid temperature may go above the 100 degrees celsius, that is the boiling point for water, but the antifreeze solution actually rises the boiling point, so the liquid does not actually boil.
Of course, that is pretty much what you said, and the water cooler on a computer doesn't have such extreme temperatures, but it really doesn't make the rubber seals too much less likely to go bad.