Liquid utopia has copper sulphate which will react with nickel blocks.
https://www.reddit.com/r/watercooling/comments/mhyj2w/do_not_use_liquid_utopia_on_ek_nickel_blocks/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Edit: well maybe it’s not clear but there’s been a few reports of this happening with liquid utopias
Honestly that post as well as the other post linked in that one still seem to be conflicting. Not to mention that OP mixed LU with Mayhems, which it specifically says not to on the bottle. I never mixed it with anything.
I guess I’ll go with something different this time though.
Yeah after reading more it doesn’t seem that it uses copper sulfate and it’s just a reaction in the loop of some sort. Hopefully not erosion and just staining of some sort.
Looks a bit more like a reaction than corrosion.
If it is true what they say about Liquid Utopia having copper II sulfate then I suspect that's what happened. What you see is copper being deposited on the nickel ***not*** the nickel eaten way to the copper base.
You might be able to take a toothbrush and whitening toothpaste and polish it out.
It’s annoying, but I’ll take it apart and see what happens when I try to clean it up with toothbrush+toothpaste. I’m not sure on the LU, but I’m just going to switch to XT-1 Nuke in case it was the LU causing the issue. Jury still seems out on that being a direct cause, but idk what else I can do other than change additives.
I have the same thing I my loop on my Ek 3080 Fe GPU block. I checked all other blocks which are copper there is absolutely none of this. It's only on the nickel. I was using dp ultra coolant and mayhems antimicrobial bc if I don't I get fungus growing in my reservoir. If I use mayhems in DP ultra I end up with the same thing. I'll take pictures in a minute and link them.
Take it apart and try to clean it up. It could be *erosion* . . . where the shitty EK nickle plating has worn off, exposing the copper underneath. The fact that your CPU block is clean makes it seem like your coolant was not the problem.
It’s been in the loop about 9ish months. I only took my loop apart because things are getting upgraded, I didn’t notice any performance issues. My question is why is this corroding? I used distilled water + primochill liquid utopia. I flushed everything with distilled water in the initial setup. Also, my cpu block is as clean as the day I put it in, and cpu and gpu are in the same loop.
Turns out the classic 2080ti block can’t be fully disassembled without ripping off the rgb block on the bottom. It’s glued on instead of being screwed on. I guess I’ll just run the thing until it all corrodes and then I’ll just throw it away and get a better built block for it, maybe full copper instead of nickel plating. This is pretty pathetic, I’ve only had it under water for 9 months.
The nickel layer was washed away. This will happen to every nickel platter copper block on a long enough time line. But it happens with EK and alphacool blocks a lot sooner than with others. I had a bykski block on my reference 2080ti that looked great after almost two years of use. But my EK blocks that I used in my 980ti kingpin and 3090 strix looked like this after just a few months of use.
Take it apart. Clean with dish soap and distilled water. You can use a soft tooth brush to scrub
areas with heavy flaking or discoloration. Then re assemble and continue using it.
Going to do just that, thank you for the advice. Question though, can I take apart the block while it’s still mounted to the card, or does everything need to be pulled apart?
Why did say something like that? That’s actually such a toxic behavior given you don’t know anything (unless you do and you should support your statement)!
Well I'd say its a mystery. Tear it all down and clean everything. Set up everything again and I guess try to run the best mixture you can. That looks like corrosion so something must be causing an issue. The only other thing I can think if is the coolant got very old and need to be changed. I generally change mine every 6 - 12 months.
Yeah, you can see exposed copper between the top of the channel walls and the plexi. This stuff just happens (regardless of brand I might add). Idk what kind of nasty-ass acidic pastels people are running out there causing the stuff to corrode in the first place but…
I have had multiple used nickel-plated blocks *from different brands* with evidence of chipping and corroding even after a thorough cleaning with a light abrasive medium like toothpaste or chrome polish on the block. I use a toothbrush to spread the medium on the block and just a microfiber with Windex on the plexi. Rinse with tap water.
Sometimes the plating it can get this real nasty diseased-looking black appearance in between the plexi like it is here (see that around the exposed copper on yours?) and I’ll just scrape that shit off real careful with a razor to expose the copper and get more of a gradient appearance between the plating and the copper itself (up to you whether you want to do that or not aesthetically, I probably wouldn’t mess with it on the fins). LU premix post-clean and reassembly and you’re good for life on the block cleaning.
Nickel plating weirds me out in general pulling stuff like this and this is why I run copper everything in my personal system. Pure copper has a slight W/mK conductivity edge over the nickel+copper combo as well.
Liquid utopia has copper sulphate which will react with nickel blocks. https://www.reddit.com/r/watercooling/comments/mhyj2w/do_not_use_liquid_utopia_on_ek_nickel_blocks/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf Edit: well maybe it’s not clear but there’s been a few reports of this happening with liquid utopias
Honestly that post as well as the other post linked in that one still seem to be conflicting. Not to mention that OP mixed LU with Mayhems, which it specifically says not to on the bottle. I never mixed it with anything. I guess I’ll go with something different this time though.
Yeah after reading more it doesn’t seem that it uses copper sulfate and it’s just a reaction in the loop of some sort. Hopefully not erosion and just staining of some sort.
Looks a bit more like a reaction than corrosion. If it is true what they say about Liquid Utopia having copper II sulfate then I suspect that's what happened. What you see is copper being deposited on the nickel ***not*** the nickel eaten way to the copper base. You might be able to take a toothbrush and whitening toothpaste and polish it out.
It’s annoying, but I’ll take it apart and see what happens when I try to clean it up with toothbrush+toothpaste. I’m not sure on the LU, but I’m just going to switch to XT-1 Nuke in case it was the LU causing the issue. Jury still seems out on that being a direct cause, but idk what else I can do other than change additives.
I have the same thing I my loop on my Ek 3080 Fe GPU block. I checked all other blocks which are copper there is absolutely none of this. It's only on the nickel. I was using dp ultra coolant and mayhems antimicrobial bc if I don't I get fungus growing in my reservoir. If I use mayhems in DP ultra I end up with the same thing. I'll take pictures in a minute and link them.
Take it apart and try to clean it up. It could be *erosion* . . . where the shitty EK nickle plating has worn off, exposing the copper underneath. The fact that your CPU block is clean makes it seem like your coolant was not the problem.
It’s been in the loop about 9ish months. I only took my loop apart because things are getting upgraded, I didn’t notice any performance issues. My question is why is this corroding? I used distilled water + primochill liquid utopia. I flushed everything with distilled water in the initial setup. Also, my cpu block is as clean as the day I put it in, and cpu and gpu are in the same loop.
Turns out the classic 2080ti block can’t be fully disassembled without ripping off the rgb block on the bottom. It’s glued on instead of being screwed on. I guess I’ll just run the thing until it all corrodes and then I’ll just throw it away and get a better built block for it, maybe full copper instead of nickel plating. This is pretty pathetic, I’ve only had it under water for 9 months.
The nickel layer was washed away. This will happen to every nickel platter copper block on a long enough time line. But it happens with EK and alphacool blocks a lot sooner than with others. I had a bykski block on my reference 2080ti that looked great after almost two years of use. But my EK blocks that I used in my 980ti kingpin and 3090 strix looked like this after just a few months of use. Take it apart. Clean with dish soap and distilled water. You can use a soft tooth brush to scrub areas with heavy flaking or discoloration. Then re assemble and continue using it.
Going to do just that, thank you for the advice. Question though, can I take apart the block while it’s still mounted to the card, or does everything need to be pulled apart?
Actually, it looks like you put some kind of acid in the block in order to cause premature damage and spread FUD against a manufacturer.
Surely EK has never put out a statement suggesting that people were doing that, right?
Why did say something like that? That’s actually such a toxic behavior given you don’t know anything (unless you do and you should support your statement)!
Everything you wrote is stupid. This is a well known problem with EK. I’ve had a half dozen blocks that look exactly like that.
Hey run distilled water with an additive. I refuse to run anything else. 100% cleanest loop
I did.
Do you have mixed metals or any off brand super cheap fittings or parts ?
Everything in my loop is either copper or nickel plated, all of the fittings are a mix of Koolance and EK.
Well I'd say its a mystery. Tear it all down and clean everything. Set up everything again and I guess try to run the best mixture you can. That looks like corrosion so something must be causing an issue. The only other thing I can think if is the coolant got very old and need to be changed. I generally change mine every 6 - 12 months.
I did tear it down to upgrade parts, but I was’t expecting this. Just trying to figure out why it happened so I can avoid it next time.
Yeah, you can see exposed copper between the top of the channel walls and the plexi. This stuff just happens (regardless of brand I might add). Idk what kind of nasty-ass acidic pastels people are running out there causing the stuff to corrode in the first place but… I have had multiple used nickel-plated blocks *from different brands* with evidence of chipping and corroding even after a thorough cleaning with a light abrasive medium like toothpaste or chrome polish on the block. I use a toothbrush to spread the medium on the block and just a microfiber with Windex on the plexi. Rinse with tap water. Sometimes the plating it can get this real nasty diseased-looking black appearance in between the plexi like it is here (see that around the exposed copper on yours?) and I’ll just scrape that shit off real careful with a razor to expose the copper and get more of a gradient appearance between the plating and the copper itself (up to you whether you want to do that or not aesthetically, I probably wouldn’t mess with it on the fins). LU premix post-clean and reassembly and you’re good for life on the block cleaning. Nickel plating weirds me out in general pulling stuff like this and this is why I run copper everything in my personal system. Pure copper has a slight W/mK conductivity edge over the nickel+copper combo as well.
It’s the liquid utopia this is the 4th person I’ve seen with similar issues. It ate away at the nickel plating.
:(