The Importance of Conductivity Testing and Coolant Selection in Computer Systems

In this article, we will explore the importance of conductivity testing and coolant selection in computer systems, using a real-world example to illustrate the potential consequences of neglecting these critical aspects.

We started with an experiment to test the sensitivity of our leak detection sensor. To do this, we bridged two connections on the sensor with water, which triggered a "leak detected" alert. However, upon closer inspection, we realized that the sensor was not actually detecting a real leak, but rather the presence of water on the surface of the sensor tips.

Fortunately, our experiment revealed that by adjusting the distance between the sensors and using a sufficient amount of surface tension, we could achieve accurate detection results without requiring large amounts of water. This was particularly notable since the chassis of our computer system is metal, which would normally act as an electrical conductor and reduce the effectiveness of the sensor.

As we continued with the experiment, we discovered that even small amounts of water were sufficient to trigger a leak detection alert. This led us to realize that the system's conductivity was still a concern, even if it wasn't catastrophic. The good news is that the existing coolant in our system did not corrode significantly, thanks in part to the use of G11 antifreeze, which is commonly used in BMWs.

One interesting note about this type of coolant is that it can actually reduce the cooling performance of a system by a couple of percent. However, in our case, this was not noticeable. The real challenge came when we realized that using pure water instead of the recommended coolant would significantly increase the conductivity of the system and potentially lead to corrosion.

In order to mitigate this risk, we decided to flush out the existing coolant from the system and replace it with fresh G11 antifreeze. This process ensured that our computer system was safe from corrosion and ready for use. As a side note, our experiment highlighted the importance of taking proactive measures to maintain the health of our computer systems.

As Dennis so aptly put it, "This is Saving Tips by Dennis." In this series, we explore various tips and tricks for saving money and improving our daily lives. In this case, one of the most valuable lessons we learned was the importance of regularly checking our subscriptions and canceling any that are no longer needed.

By using Rocket Money, a service that tracks spending and allows users to cancel unwanted subscriptions with ease, we can avoid wasting money on services that we no longer need or use. Another tip from Dennis is to be mindful of our toilet paper usage and not feel pressured into forcing ourselves to have bowel movements at work simply to save on costs.

By following these simple tips and using the resources available through Rocket Money, we can take control of our finances and make significant savings over time. Whether you're looking to cancel unwanted subscriptions or simply want to be more mindful of your expenses, Dennis's Saving Tips series has got you covered.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enUsually it's my kids who break stuff, and I'm the one who gets to fix it.But, when corrosion in my DIY pool water cooling setup caused a catastrophic leak on his gaming PC,it seemed like a perfect opportunity to flip the script.I mean, sure, it's my fault it broke, but what good are kids if you can't put them to work?And besides, what a great opportunity for some learning.Yay, learning.But dad, my laptop's barely working.I want to upgrade to Cyborg 14 from our sponsor, MSI.It's perfect for balancing classwork and gaming.They're having a back-to-school sale now.Check out the link in the description.Just because you have a spill on your computer doesn't necessarily mean that it's dead.If you can unplug it, clean it, dry it off, and fire it back up,it might work, just like the PC that we intentionally spilled Coke on.But that's not what happened here.This system sat for hours in a puddle of water and its own corroded gunk.It should be dead, but somehow, miraculously, it survived.So then, no problem.All I've got to do is have my son put his water cooling back in, right?Wrong.Because if we do that, it's probably going to corrode again.So, we've got to figure out the root cause.The best theory we have is that this was caused by a ground loop between the pump and the computers,which causes a slight voltage differential which can drastically accelerate corrosion.Jake is actually working right now on the video that maybe you guys have seen,where we added an isolation transformer to the pumps and grounded the rack,which means...Hey, come on, boy!It's time to learn how to clean a really crusty water block.When am I ever going to do this again?Hopefully never, if Jake does all of this right.Probably soon.But if it happens again, we're going to be in relatively okay shapebecause one of the other things we're going to be installing in the boy's computer is a leak sensor.Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go!Luckily, the only things that got eaten away were the fittings.So, all we've got to do now is remove all of the gunk that was deposited from the fittings onto these blocks.Now, the bad news for you is I accidentally left my Brasso at the office.So, you get to try this Mother's Meg and aluminum polish, which I don't know if it's going to work,or goof-off, which I really think is not going to work.Here's a toothbrush.You'll need water.Okay, that's not doing much.Let's try some meg polish.That's probably not what that's supposed to look like.Oh, it smells so bad.Okay, let's see.Very similar to how it did before.It really does, doesn't it?I wonder if pick action is a better bet.That does actually seem to be a lot better.Do I really want to get a dental pick into all these little bins?Well, you're not doing it.Oh, yeah.I'll go get you a dental pick.I changed my mind.While I thought I had dental picks, it turns out I actually don't.But what I do have is a lot of X-Acto knife blades.Oh, wow, yeah, this comes off real good.Don't cut toward your finger like that, because if you put that into your thumb, we will have to go to the ER room.And you'll need a tetanus shot like me.I got attacked by a cat.So fun.I wouldn't rather be doing anything else.I'll tell you what, boy.I'm nothing if not fair.You clean that piece.I'll clean these three pieces, okay?Good deal?Maybe.What I didn't tell my son is there is another way.I brought an ultrasonic cleaner home.I can clean so much water block with this bad boy.Got some general purpose ultrasonic cleaner, lemon scented.There they go.I hope I have enough for this.I only have the one jug.Extra strength formula.This product is a concentrate.One part product with ten parts water.I have created some work for myself.I don't even know what color the back is supposed to be.Just salvage some of that back.Oh, yeah, buddy.And here's some water.Why don't we kick things off with the top of the CPU block?All of this stuff was pretty easy to get the gunk out of.I actually did that before.But what's hard to get at is these threads in here.This should help with that in a big way.Let's heat it up.Right, I forgot what a horrible noise it makes.Okay, let's throw this bad boy in here.Dude!Ultrasonic cleaners are freaking awesome.Can I use the ultrasonic cleaner?Sure!When were you going to tell me about the ultrasonic cleaner?I wasn't.These are great.They use ultrasonic vibrations to create these little scrubby micro-bubblesthat will remove any debris and crud from the surface of, like, a water blockor a piece of jewelry or whatever the case may be.Wow, not that we necessarily need it.You made really good progress.Yay.The boy can do work when he wants to.Check this out.Yeah, sorry.That is awful.Yeah, I know.Whoa!Look at it rip off this corrosion on this bad boy.You can actually see big flakes coming off this guy.Check that out.Now it's time to pull the system.So go around to the back, get it turned off and unplugged.We're going to be doing two things.We're going to un-jerry-rig it.So you can see I threw a replacement air-cooled graphics card in here.That's going to have to go.And we're going to add a leak sensor.Now, Jake is working on the parts that will do the actual monitoringand handle automations to turn the systems off in the event of a leak.Meanwhile, we will be installing this leak sensor.This appears to be two.Are we expecting there to be two leak sensors?They just came in packs of two.How's that supposed to sense when there's a leak?These are powered by five volt DC power.And basically what happens is if the two probes come into contact with waterat the same time, the water is going to act as a wire,which is going to connect our powered probe to our sense probe.I mean, here's the thing.Realistically, the water is going to pour outand then probably just dump down to the next server.So these sensors inside the computers, they might not do that much.So we're also going to add sensors to the floor,and that'll probably be what saves us.Hey, we just got new cats.Do you want to come meet the cats?Come on, let's come meet the cats.They have fleas, so they have to hang out in here for a few more weeksuntil they're old enough for flea treatment.And then that might actually be a good thing anyway,because it'll give the other cat some time to acclimate to the ideathat something doesn't smell right.Anyway, here they are.This might end up being a side adventure.LMG.GG/floatplane.Now that the new cat adventure is over, let's get some stuff mounted.Nice. Okay, now we got to strip it.Wouldn't something like this have a strip?It does.Then use this.Yeah, but it only works on this part.So then you figure out what gauge your wire is.You can look it up, or you can just not bother.Okay.And then squeeze as hard as I can.Squeeze as hard as you can.Ow, it hurts my hands.Maybe squeeze harder than you can.It, like, hurts.You know, you're going to get me made fun of on the internetfor having a boy with soft hands.I don't even, like, put product on or anything.My hands are just already soft.I'm shamed.Just tell them to not shame you.Yeah, they listen to me.Why do they watch your videos if they're not going to listen to you?That's a good question.That's great. That's not going to short out on anything.Ow, my hands.Shamed.Here's what we're going to do.We're going to slide a little thing in there, like that.Then we're going to put this down on it.There we go.Then we slide this out.And theoretically, we are exactly one paper width off the bottom.Now, you got your screwdriver, right?Yeah.Okay, we need to remove this power supply.Man, we have a lot to do.I should go check on the ultrasonic.Oh, it stinks in here.Ooh.You're going to put those in there?Yeah, why not?You can just drain it out of here outside.Yeah, but I don't want to drain it.I want to maybe use it for some more stuff.Maybe I could clean your mom's jewelry.Would you ever even know how scuffed this was?Ow, ow, ow.Okay.Wow, that looks like freaking, not quite new, but certainly a lot better.This is great.Check this out, Jake.That looks pretty gross still.What? No, that's copper.No, I meant all this.Can I see, please?Yeah, Linus.She said, please.That's a magic word.No respect.There's still some schmoo in here, so we might have to do another quick passwhile this is all still really soft and easy to get out.And then maybe we'll throw it in the ultrasonic cleaner again.Now's the perfect time to put our GPU back together.I did have to scrape some of this manually,but after the ultrasonic cleaner, man, does it ever come off easily.Since my GPU block is now clean,I'm ready to start putting my graphics card back together.And the good news is all of my thermal pads survived.What are thermal pads?Well, here, I can show you.They're stuff that makes heat, and we want to move that heat away from itso that it doesn't get too hot and die.But because they might be mounted a little bit higher or a little bit lower,we can't just put a piece of metal right against itbecause our piece of metal is going to be perfectly flat,and it might not make contact with all of them.So a thermal pad, it's like a little pad that is thermally conductive,so it can carry the heat through the pad and into our metal.You know how your computer runs games really fast?Without thermal pads, he no worky.We got to make sure that this O-ring doesn't get crushed.If this gets crushed, it has anything in the way,pretty much game over.You guys, I asked for pipe cleaners.That's a pipe cleaner.I know, but this is an arts and crafts pipe cleaner.What pipe cleaners do I use?We're trying to clean the threads of the inside here,and they bring me the fuzzy kind.I'll show you.This one?Yes, this, but a small one.Oh, that guy.Oh, no.Boy.Oh, he let the O-rings fall down.They're everywhere now.There were five when I put them in.Well, where's the fifth one?Oh, I think it went down the drain hole.Yes, it's there.Okay, good.Okay, well, no, don't put them there.Put them in here.Let's get this thing assembled.Let's go.I'm going to take this one apart so I don't know where they go.They go where they go.It occurs to me as I'm sitting here thermal pasting this GPU for reassemblythat we don't actually know that it still works.While nothing else in the system failed,I don't think we ever actually tried booting it with the original GPU, so...Now, I would never recommend running a water-cooled GPU without any water in it,but, hey, it's the do as I say, not as I do show, right?Let's see if this GPU works.If we get an output, I'm just going to throw it in the system and call it good.Hey, look at that.We got an output.Let's go ahead and throw the system together.Oh, this is exciting.Might be a good time to get some of these tubes out of the way.How bad are these?Some of them don't even look dirty inside.Should I just replace all of them?I feel like I should just replace all of them.Actually, before I do that,I should test our new power supply bracket and make sure that it works.Oh, so perfect.Uh-oh.Did we leave enough clearance for the barrel jack?Oh, no.Oh, it's perfect.It's flawless.Look at that.Professional.So our 5-volt leak sensor is going to go in there like that,and our fiber optics go in like that,and the whole thing goes in here like that.Wait.No.There's not enough clearance for the barrel jack and the power supply.New solution.No nut to secure the DC barrel jack thing because, I mean, I don't know.Does it really need one?It's kind of in there, right?And it fits.Yay.You know what?This is kind of crazy,but because of the friction with the power supply,it's actually really secure in there,even without the nut.Like, I cannot move it.All right, we're back on track.Let's get the leak sensor back hooked up.There.I spared you guys a lot of the boring details,but she's completely replumbed,and everything is ready to close up.I'm afraid I'm not optimistic enough to close up the top paneland slide it into its spot in the rack,so we're just going to huck it on the top.Where it was before,hook up the water pipes at the back and see what happens.Boop.Boop.I don't have to power on the system in order to get liquid to flow through it,so this is a perfect time to see if anything's leaking.Everything seems fine.I mean, it should.You know, we removed the corroded fittings,but when you disassemble and reassemble water blocks,you know, you can make mistakes, right?Dude, I'm stressed.I don't remember the last time I was this stressed to turn on a computer.Let's go see if she fires up.This is the monitor that's supposed to be lit up.Give it a sec.She's memory training.Memory's trained.Oh, thank God.Woo-hoo!Let's see how the temps are.All right.Well, I should have repasted the CPU block.You didn't repaste the CPU block?Well, there was paste on there.Oh, my God.I'm going to repaste it, okay?I even brought PTM7950 from lttstore.com for you.Oh, I didn't see it.In fairness to me, there was a solid chance that none of this was going to work at all,and any time we spent on it was a complete waste,so now that I know that the thing actually works,I can just pop this off, throw some more paste on it.Yeah, yeah, that's not enough paste.I'll throw some more paste on there, and we'll call it a day.Ah!Thermal pad time.Hmm.Temps are exactly the same.I bet the flow rate is lower from adding the filter.It's still going 10 liters per minute.That's a lot.Divided by seven systems.I think this might be a flow rate thing.Was it like that before?I don't think so.I mean, I can also check one of the other systems.Yeah, this one's the same.Realistically, they aren't 3D rendering on these systems,but in the long term, it might be nice to solve the flow rate issue.Maybe a second in-line pump.The more important one is the GPU anyway,so let's get that started.This one I'm expecting to be okay.Oh, well, that's great.This GPU is under 40 degrees, though.And it's pulling 220 watts.All right, gaming systems for gamers.Do they game?Casual, 175 frames per second in Halo Infinite on medium.1440p.Oh, no.Oh, no, don't kill me, please.Oh, no, no.Oh, no, no.Got him.Oh, double kill.Oh, dang it.It's a lot easier playing on my kid's account.His MMR is not as high.All right, cool.Well, that's enough of that.Time to throw this thing back in the rack.I may have made a slight mistake.What did you do?I buttoned everything upbefore we actually tested the leak sensor that's in there.I can unbutton it.Yeah.Is this going to hold?Yeah, seems like it'll hold.Okay, leak test time.What if something catastrophic happens?Theoretically, all we've got to do nowis take the other end of that barrel jack lead,hook it into this leak sensor,which you guys would have seen in the last video,and now I just...Pour some water in the computer.Basically, because it failed here last time,I put the leak sensor right there.So if this tube just comes flying off again,she's right there, bud.She's right there.Oh, my God.Oh, is it off?Yeah, yeah, yeah.Computer's off.Chill.Oh, my God.Okay.All clear on sensor eight,which is the leak sensor.So in theory,when you bridge these connections with water...Leak detected!Okay, that's a lot of water.Paper towel, please.Oh.Okay.I mean, it's not that much water.Yeah, I mean, it works.It just is a lot of waterthat I would like to put into a computerthat has other computers running beneath it.Still registering.Still registering.Oh, wow.Well, that's really good.Actually, I can see how it's working.You don't need water between them.Just enough surface tension...On both tips.And then it registers.So that means we got the distance just right on these.We don't actually need a ton of water.Right, because the chassis is metal.It's using the chassis as a circuit,which is usually a really great thingto do with your computer.Well, look.It's only five volts.It should be fine.It's working.0.6.Come on, blow harder.0.4.0.3.Keep going!I'm going to pass out.That would be funny.Oh, man.Woo!Lightheaded.Oh, okay.It's clear now.If this registers a leak in the future,just come in here and start blowing on it.I mean, I was going to say,well, no, I got to come in hereand start, you know, ripping power out of things,but I kind of don't.Well, the UPSs I do,but everything else is going to be shut down.I did bring you brackets to move your UPSif you want to do that at some point.I probably should.In a perfect world,we'll put in some concrete anchorsor something like that,and we'll just mount them to the wall over there.And then what's nice is that'll actually give meanother six rack units of space in the rack.Not that I'd need more machines,but you never know.I guess now's a good time for usto change out the coolant in these systemsto, just in case everything else wasn't enough,make real good and surethat she doesn't corrode again.Why is he so giddy about this coolant?This is G11 antifreeze,which conveniently is the same stuff you put in BMWs.Why does it always have to come back to BMWs with you?Like, are you on their payroll?I just looked at the forumsand everyone was like,yeah, just get G11.That's the stuff that works good for this.So this is the real stuff then?Yeah, I mean,most antifreeze protects most metals.This is just like a high qualitymade in Germany.Good one.Is this concentrate?It is concentrate.That's a 10 gallon tank.Let's throw both of these in.It's blue.Wow, look at that good stuff.One thing to note is that antifreezedoes technically reduce the cooling performance a bit.Yeah, it's not catastrophic though.A couple percent realistically,and we're not going like a 50-50 concentration,which is where you would really notice it.What we won't have protection against thoughis the non-conductive nature of pure water.This is probably going to contributeto the conductivity.Yeah, you didn't have pure water anyways.Well, it was pure enough that that system survived.No more corrosion.Corrosion be gone.Oh, hey, look at the down there.Oh, it's so pretty.I think we need to flush outthe existing stuff though.I'm kind of thinking we stickthe freshwater hose in thereand leave the drain open for a while.Oh, okay.Flushing this loop,not as interesting as watching paint dry.So you guys are just going to have to take my word for itthat I swapped it out for the other coolant.And take my word for trusting Dennis.It's Saving Tips by Dennis,as I like to call it,STD.Number one,start by collecting sauce packetsor little shampoo bottles from hotels.But what would even be betteris using our sponsor,Rocket Money.You might be throwing money awayon subscription servicesyou have long forgotten.With Rocket Money,canceling subscriptions is easy.No annoying service.Number two,don't force yourself to poop at workjust to save on toilet paper.Rocket Money tracks your spendingso you're always in control.No need to fear running out.Okay, okay.I have enough.Rocket Money has helped save its customersup to $740 a yearwhen they use all the features.Number three,just check out Rocket Moneyat the link in the descriptionand start saving money properly.If you guys enjoyed this video,maybe check out the last partwhere we looked at the aftermath of the leakand discovered all the corroded components.\n"