donta1979

Brad_Hawthorne

I gave up on water cooling when I etched my DD copper blocks in 2006. Galvanic corrosion occurred and I decided water cooling was way too problematic. I've been high performance air cooling ever since. Water cooling makes your rig into a high maintenance woman...and high maintenance women annoy me.

+1

Rudster816

Not all blocks will fail. EK has been Nickel plating blocks for quite some time, I don't there is any reason to get your block's re-plated unless you have an issue.

http://www.xtremesystems....74310&postcount=24

Read that, and the posts after it. I'm not an expert on material science, but the explanation the guy gives seems pretty believable. If the issue is because of impurities in the copper, its very likely that EK\Eddy had nothing to do with the issues, and that his copper supplier gave him impure copper. I don't think Eddy would buy impure copper to save money, and then not have a clue why the plating was going bad.

loveha

I wont have my system back in hand until after the RMA window. Home on leave then I report to my next duty station on July 29th... Will take time for the shipment of my household goods.
Guess I'll just tear it down and inspect it when I get it back and if I have to see how much to get it repated better than what they did at EK.

Goggle Eye

After reading this post I threw in the trash a brand new EK-Supreme HF Block. Fotunatley it was never instaled in the loop. Ill keep my Swiftech.

I have a second system running with EK water blocks, Full board plus Moffset. IM very concerned what will happen to the Black Ice SR1 360 Rads, Uber 655 Pumps, Evga 580 Hydros.

Im more than a little ________OFF

tpb7463


P.S. EK has also announced that ALL customers with a nickel-plated product will receive 24 months of protection from corrosion.
However, If customer insists on buying EK nickel block, we offer a customer full 24 month warranty on material, manufacturing and corrosion.

Brad_Hawthorne

It seems like to me that they assume no liability in their manufacturing process at all and are pushing it all on the consumer to be at issue with what they are running in their loop.

tpb7463

Alright, before this spirals out of control, read-up on what is on the EK site: 
http://www.ekwaterblocks.com/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=83&cntnt01origid=15&cntnt01returnid=17
they sent several customer case studies to a verified testing firm to have the blocks evaluated. There's a 30+ page PDF to read at that link at your leisure, which I've gone ahead and done so already.

The bottom line is that "flaking" of nickel is a gross exaggeration; and all those individuals over at Red Raider (who have been the most "vocal" about this issue) need to get their accusations straight. Flaking would imply that the nickel was improperly adhered to the copper. In every single laboratory test there was no evidence of "flaking" or the outright separation of nickel. What did happen was that the nickel corroded away and left the underlying copper exposed--under very particular cirumstances. They also took a brand-new block and based on the findings, added a very common biocide agent to the mix, copper sulfate, which is also found in a lot of pre-mixed colored dyes. Almost immediately, sections of low-flow, such as the edges of a block, started to corrode. From this investigation it is very clear that the corrosion most directly involves the additives and the type of coolant used. Their recommendation:

Corrosion can be avoided by the use of a low-conducting, anti-corrosion liquid (which,in principle, is also distilled or deionized water). It is recommended to exchange the liquidwith a fresh one after a period of time to remove the possibly dissolved ions from the closedwater-cooling system. The introduction of additional metals into the system (silver, etc.) orthe use of ionic algaecides (copper sulfate, etc.) even in minor concentrations can trigger thecorrosion processes. Avoid the use of acidic substances, especially when using copper metal.

So there you have it. Keep your nickel plated EK block, it's perfectly fine. Limit your coolant choices to those that don't have ionic algaecides in them; and toss your silver kill coils. Stick to the basics: distilled water and a gentle biocide, like PT_nuke-PHN.

Thanks for listening.

P.S. EK has also announced that ALL customers with a nickel-plated product will receive 24 months of protection from corrosion.
However, If customer insists on buying EK nickel block, we offer a customer full 24 month warranty on material, manufacturing and corrosion.