My Liquid Coolant has floaties. Should I still use it?

loismustdie555 · Mar 27, 2015

I bought my dream rig and am in the process of liquid cooling the whole thing, (i7 5930K and 4 way sli GTX 980's) got it almost done. Just waiting on the 2 last radiators coming later today. And I *just* looked at my IronSide Liquid Coolant bottle, and it has floaties.

QUESTION: Should I use it? Or Filter it? Or use distilled water? Or what?

Things to note:
I can't buy more coolant. So I have limited options.
And I have to get this done by the end of the day. Got loads of stuff to do.

EDIT: Here's a pic of the floaties.

synphul · Mar 27, 2015

I don't know what that is, is it a brand new unopened/sealed bottle of coolant? How old is it? You're not the only one, I just did a quick search which pulled up several user comments on amazon saying they got some with cloudy coolant, floaties etc. If it were me I think I'd stay away from it. Especially since you mentioned just finalizing your dream rig, obviously you've got a lot invested in this system (not just money).

If it were me, for now I think I'd skip it and just use distilled water. Make sure to flush your new cooling loop to get any little bits out that may be inside things like the reservoir (if you have one), radiator, block etc from manufacturing. Replace it with better quality coolant when you can if you want something colored or whatever. If you plan to run the distilled water for any length of time (months) at least try to get ahold of some biocide just to keep any kind of bacterial/algae growth down. Coolant doesn't cost that much and it's not worth risking adding visible particles to your brand new system and possibly clogging the radiator(s) or the pump. Just my two cents worth. Good luck.

loismustdie555 · Mar 27, 2015

synphul :

Thank you.
Yes it is a brand new bottle/sealed. And I just bought it.
And I did not notice those comments. Whoops.
And a question I have now is how do I go about replacing the liquid once the system is up and running with distilled water?

synphul · Mar 27, 2015

Since you're looking at coolant, I'm assuming this is a custom cooling loop or a kit that you put together yourself? You should have a fill/drain incorporated somewhere in the system. If not then I would try to use a funnel or something, detach the cooling line above the pump. Find a low point hopefully after the radiator/cooling block or wherever you detach the line from use another piece of tubing to hook onto it and put it into a large bowl to catch it.

The idea is to turn it from a closed loop into a one way loop. Say the line to your pump came straight from your radiator (as an example), leave the line attached to the pump. Remove it from the radiator. Attach an extra piece of line to the open barb left on the radiator and direct it to a bowl to catch the water that comes out. There are various ways to run the pump without having the pc on, either in the case or you may have to remove the cooling system from the case and do it outside (avoiding spills on the internals). If you keep the funnel full of coolant and power the pump it should cycle the coolant through the entire system, pushing out the distilled water as the coolant replaces it. Just don't let the funnel run dry or it will suck air into the system and you'll have to bleed it.

Here's some guides on it.
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/how_to_maintain_your_watercooling_setup

A vid by Bill Owen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPZt2scj53E

As an extra note, sounds simple enough but just remember not to power your pc while doing this since you won't have proper cpu (or gpu if it's part of the loop) cooling. Just one of those simple mistakes that can happen like accidentally starting a car after an oil change and forgetting to put oil back in it.

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My Liquid Coolant has floaties. Should I still use it?

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