mmch

After looking up the manufacturing date I seem to be under my 5 year warranty since the H110i GTX was made in 2015. This means that the unit itself didn't even last the whole term and would cost Corsair more replacing the unit than including a brass watertank and channel or an aluminum cold plate to reduce galvanic corrosion between the copper and aluminum. I understand you're trying to say it was a budget cooler compared to thousand dollar custom loops but even the Deepcool AIO I got for $50 has a drain valve. You get what you pay for but unfortunately I think I received a $180 lemon with the Corsair logo slapped on it.

Thank you for the response even if it did come off as, pardon the pun, abrasive. After some research I discovered that copper and aluminum have adverse reactions to each other with the cooling liquid working as a catalyst. This could account for the odd buildup that I don't normally see when working with copper pipes and plain old tap water. It sounds like a design flaw to me with no easy way for a consumer to prevent the damage themselves especially if they don't know any better. No. I don't expect things to last forever. Thats not how the universe works. What I do expect is if engineers were aware of this why didn't the radiator come with warnings and an easier way to change out the coolant. Better yet, why not a sensor which would detect any restricted flow and send a warning to the software to avoid any potentially damaging temperature spikes it may cause. Sorry but simply throwing it out and buying a new one is not sustainable to my wallet nor the environment. P.S. Inhibitors are unneeded in modern custom loops made of only plastics, brass, nickle, and copper. Distilled works just fine with very little corrosion. Most inhibitors themselves can break down, reduce heat transfer efficiency, and actually increase corrosion when past their normal shelf life which is way below the 5 year warranty.

Sharing my experience with the H110i GTX for those having similar problem. I first noticed the problem when my CPU would show temperatures upwards of 100c under medium load but showed no signs of pump or fan failure. One hose was hot while the other was cold so I suspected a clog somewhere in the loop. After reapplying heat paste to no avail and no longer covered by the 5 year warranty I decided to open up the water block to discover the fins on the cold plate were completely clogged with some sort of sediment. There was very little corrosion one would expect from copper and it instead looked like a hard grey substance similar to concrete. Upon popping off the water pump cover I discovered even more buildup which was sticking to everything from plastic to rubber to metal. It had the gritty consistency of hard sand and was very tough to remove without lots of scraping, isopropyl, and vinegar. I flushed the entire system the best I could and replaced the coolant with distilled water. It seems to be running fine and reading temperatures of 30c when idle and 60-70 under load but I am still curious to what caused such a large build up which would completely clog the system. With my fans getting progressively louder I believe this has been happening for a while and I just now noticed the temperatures which is a shame since my warranty ran out months ago. Not that I could afford the RMA cost right now anyways... I suspect its a manufacturing defect or negligence during production which caused these issues. The deposits seemed similar to scale build up one would get in coffee makers except grey but that shouldn't have happened if demineralized water was used in the cooling solution. It makes me question what exactly was used to fill these coolers with. I'm only glad I caught the problem before it caused any major damage to my CPU compared to the few years of life it took from it. Feel free to share your own experiences with the H110i GTX. To me this is unacceptable for the amount of money which was spent on it and the potential damage it can cause to components. Corsair should be offering free replacements to any owners lucky enough to be aware of this problem. Thank you for reading.