Gadgetory

pastel fluids definitely look good in your system but they can certainly wreak havoc especially if they've been running for two years like my parts from skunk works so today I'm going to show you kind of my tips and tricks on how to clean the blocks especially clear blocks like this so that they can look almost brand new almost also do a reminder that our new fall line of merch is now available I'm wearing my new tri-blend shirt with the digress logo which is much smaller and a lot less Kapow on your shirt and more like peeing over here so you guys can find the link down in the description below got hoodies zip ups all that sorts that pullovers beanies mugs there's even some lady shirts down there for your lady friends so part of upgrading your system usually means you have some old parts and stuff to deal with now although these are the first titan x Pascale version cards that came out and there was a new tight next after that and then obviously we've got our TX 2080 TI and all that stuff these parts are no slouch and I want to keep them in tip-top shape and because they are clear blocks and we've been using pastel this particular these particular parts have had pastel running in them for over two years it's important to keep them clean so as we're gonna do today I kind of have a method that I sort of came up with over all the years of how to clean this out most companies would have you believe that just running some sort of a solvent whether it be like primo gel system prep or be the Mayhem's blitz kit is enough to keep it clean but if you get in there and look tight at the jet flow plate right there you can see that there is a little bit of buildup not much it's actually really really good for two years you can see that there's not any discoloration really up the block but you can see there's some buildup in the jet plate you can see there's some buildup on the threads so we're gonna do today is we're gonna disassemble it I'm gonna show you some of my best tips and tricks on how to clean this and keep it looking new because the longer you wait and the more this dries out the harder it's going to be to clean so you could obviously get blocks in a lot of different styles this happens to be the Nichol plexi so you can see through to the nickel plated copper base you can also get it with copper and clear you can get with copper and acetal which is just a black cover you can get it with copper and or nickel and acetal so all these different variations now in the past you could just undo these perimeters screw right here and take the the front off with a clear plate off but in this case you can't because you can see there's a screw there and as a screw there which is holding the helping hold the block on to the PCB which means we're gonna have to take off the back plate as well obviously you can see my back plate it's pretty dirty so we're gonna be cleaning that up as well so for this version we have to go ahead and take off the back plate which really kind of sucks I don't want to have to do that but fortunately it's just some Phillip head screws so there we go okay so this screw right here is the other one that we have to get off okay so now we can go ahead and take off our perimeter screws right here for the block now most block manufacturers will be ek XSP see bits power fantex they usually include the right allen screw or allen key that you need to undo this obviously I'm using my iFixit kit because I like this little this is a screwdriver handle we're also gonna loosen up these three screws which I kind of already did on the I don't they call this piece right here terminal I guess so yeah I guess it's terminal there's tiny o-rings in here that are really kind of a bitch to deal with and I don't want to take those off if I don't have to this is technically the first block from ek I've ever disassembled where you had to take the backplate off normally the block cover itself doesn't share screws with anything that passes through the PCB so this is kind of a first there's still a little bit of fluid in there as you can see but because the o-ring just goes around the perimeter and nothing on the inside you'll see a little bit of discoloration where it sort of gets in between the metal and the plexi and as we take that off and hold it up you can still see there's a little bit of buildup a little bit of dirt right there the funny part is that built up on both blocks identically that you I don't know what that is but it's there all right we'll come back to the plexi we don't have a looking it did you tell me what to do I'm gonna lay out some blue towel right here and we are going to go ahead gently remove the o-ring as you can see it is the proper shape so it'll be a lot easier to put back in when it's time here's the flow plate right there this is what sort of forces the fluid down to the hottest part of the core and then obviously that is our core and the fluid feels kind of it's a little bit of that left over primo chill system prep which I use which by the way if you follow on Twitter you'd see the before and after it does it did a really good job at getting the green out but as you can see now we've got to actually clean the metal now this is where my super-secret weapon comes in but again it's not that secret cause I've already showed it before but people keep asking me so apparently the information hasn't gotten out which means I keep a really good secret although I'm sharing it with 1.7 million people I digress it is crest 3d white and a toothbrush this I have used on different materials including bare copper abuse' on the nickel and sometimes the nickel can turn serve a golden kind of a tarnished color this removes it very very well and I've used it on copper and it takes off that bluing or that bluish kind of a purpley color that the copper turns when it starts to oxidize this stuff is amazing I figure if it's good enough for your gentle teeth in your enamel it's good enough for the blocks and I've been using it ever since and it does a fantastic job so I just got a little bit of distilled water here in the container and we are going to get our toothbrush in the container of water apparently and then we are going to take our toothpaste and we are going to put a little bit right there there there wherever you feel like putting it and we are going to just let the bristles do their job but you saw it look like beforehand and you'll see what it looks like after it's gonna look like a new block this is gonna slightly polish it the reason for that is the crest 3d white has these little crystals in there which are slightly abrasive not enough to hurt anything certainly not enough to go through the nickel plating but certainly enough to go through anything that sort of built up on the block and it smells nice it smells minty fresh now if you're not comfortable working around an open PCB like this you can Vicis you can take it completely off of the card I just don't feel like doing that I don't feel like having to reapply my thermal paste and all that stuff so after a little bit of elbow grease distilled water and some crest 3d white that is what it looks like so not bad not bad at all now obviously we're not going to use the crest 3d white and the toothbrush on the plexi because as I mentioned slightly abrasive and we don't want to scratch it up but as you can see it definitely has some discoloration kind of where the o-ring grooves are we're gonna try and get that out we're just gonna use a blue towel and distilled water and probably even a little bit of my green works multi-surface cleaner if you've ever talked to a professional of anything a mechanic carpenter they've all got their crazy homebrew life hack methods of doing things that they've just found work over the years and that's kind of what this is for me and there's probably better ways to do this but I haven't personally found it and I have been doing this for years and I've had no adverse effects at least I know of and I'm happy with the results so just a little bit of that as you can see has already taken away the discoloration that was forming in the edges right there and it doesn't look like we actually have any staining up the block because we were running UV green in this and this is a UV flashlight and if I shine it at the table I'm sure we could find a spot it's glowing green because I have spilled fluid on this oh look my finger see because I've because I've touched the the bottle that got on there just from the bottle that's what that is I swear that's it's from it's from that right there that I want that you want remember though is that these blocks do have machine marks in them as well these covers so as you kind of look through it on from that perspective you can see it looks just a little bit dull in there and a couple of reasons why one there are machine marks that are in that it's not perfect to where the fluid constantly travels can actually sort of edge a block a little bit and that's what that could be but what I'm gonna do now for the front side is I'm gonna use to use a microfiber or something soft a cotton towel something that's not going to scratch it because we want to clean it as best we can you don't wanna get any fingerprints on the underside because that will show and as as its down on your block like that obviously you're not gonna be able to clean it and as it's against the graphics card I've decided I'm gonna go ahead and take off the terminal here because these fittings or these threads are pretty dirty in there and I just cleaned this guy so I don't feel like having it more water run down it and have to clean that plexi again we're want to show you here real quick is just how tiny these o-rings are right here that's how thin it's actually squishing down for the flow so that's why water blocks can definitely if you stack up a bunch of water blocks in series why you reduce pressure on your your entire water cooling loop because it squishes down to go through the jet plate squish this down to go through here it squishes down to go through the radiators or for cleaning this I'm gonna do just like I did with the o-ring actually I'm gonna go ahead and submerge the entire thing in there so that it can sort of soak those rings and then we'll take our toothbrush and sort of work it in there so before I put it back together I'm gonna clean these three thread holes right here and as you can see they're just they're just dirty that I don't know how these get dirty actually fluid doesn't even go into those because they're sealed off here but they get dirty nonetheless and this is where our 3d white comes in handy once again it's actually pretty interesting how I do this so I just put a little bit right there some in there and then we'll put some in they're eventually so I take the screw now this is the screw that goes in it right there get it wet and then literally just thread it you can actually heal it do you hear that do you hear the abrasive crystals listen and as you thread it down and then thread it back out and as you do this back and forth you actually will clean those threads off of any dirt and debris that's sitting in there so after just one pass that's what it looks like normally I'll do it two or three times just to get as much out as possible but as you can see that method clearly cleans out the threads because the crystals fill in the gap and then as you turn the screw and back it out it pulls the dirt out of the hole alright so pretty back together is pretty simple it's just the reverse order of what you took it apart I know that's always kind of a cop-out on the manuals when they're like oh just put about together in the reverse orders like you start going backwards in the manual but double-check everything don't over tighten anything these pieces are plastic and they will crack and break and that will ruin your day trust me ask me how I know how do you know because I've cracked plastic before now when I put the blocks back together I like to kind of just do the opposite corners first to hold it down as I'm doing that and making sure the o-ring stayed in its channel it didn't pop out or anything the o-ring is creating a seal not necessarily the tightness of the screws so just finger tight just finger tight if you have to if you grip on the screwdriver and then wrench it you are over tightening its now I'm gonna put my back plate back on and after the back plate is on then I'm gonna clean it otherwise I'd probably get it dirty again so spray your cleaner directly on your rag not on the back plate because there's no reason to spray it directly on the card and it's gonna take a little bit to get this this guy clean it's gonna take a couple passes but you get the general idea so as you can see there's a pretty big difference between before and after and remember that's after three days worth of a system flush running which got a majority of it out anyway but as you can see the heavy particles can definitely stick and be stubborn now if you have any sort of buildup in your blocks you can definitely start affecting temperatures you can affect flow rate and whether or not you can see in your block like having a clear top like this doesn't matter because you drop your card on the table it's fine I swear they're durable I got the durable versions when I bought them but whether or not you're running a clear see-through block or a solid top doesn't change the fact that this is happening inside of your systems you need to clean it out because it'll affect temperatures it will affect flow and that is bad for any system and obviously it's gonna be disassembling your system and putting away your parts and storing them or reselling them this is something you need to do because the longer it sits and the more it solidifies the harder and less like you less likely it is to come clean so that's how I do it I'm gonna do it now on this other block and my cpu block these are parts from skunkworks and I have plans for these so we're gonna go ahead an get out of here finish this up and hopefully you guys have found this video helpful thanks for watching guys and as always we'll see you in the next one and don't forget new shirts are available just not this one because I'm wearing it mine I think anyone wants to buy miss my old sweaty shirt you hit the table Phil amateur cameraman this is actually 1 liter of alien sperm buy my shit because I've got the Nickelback plate on there sing back Nickelback please Nickelback plate on the plexi Bloch