I haven't seen this topic brought up too much in my brief period with watercooling and thought it might be helpful for some to share my limited experience and get others experiences reguarding this frequent occurance.
In the past few weeks I have bought several used radiators and all have had fin damage to one degree or another. I have read that fin damage doesn't really effect performance, but any impedence to air flowing through the fins has to decrease perfomance in some way. It is also a horrible eyesore if your rads are visible. It bothers me just to know that they are there.
Being somewhat handy and having ocd, I have repaired all of the fin damage to 4 different radiators with a common household item. Tweezers. They are perfect to fit in between the fins and flat so that you can us the good part of the fin to realign the damaged part. With some patience and attention to detail, most fins can be repaired. The only thing that I have found that cannot be completely fixed, is when the fins are broken from the water cooling channel or ripped in some way and seems to happen when the damage is beyond 1/8" deep. I'm wondering what other people have done or tried to do to fix this problem and what "tools" have been used, successfully or unsuccessfully, to repair fins or other damage to radiators in general. I'm sure there are al lot of people who have some interesting stories about this!
In the past few weeks I have bought several used radiators and all have had fin damage to one degree or another. I have read that fin damage doesn't really effect performance, but any impedence to air flowing through the fins has to decrease perfomance in some way. It is also a horrible eyesore if your rads are visible. It bothers me just to know that they are there.
Being somewhat handy and having ocd, I have repaired all of the fin damage to 4 different radiators with a common household item. Tweezers. They are perfect to fit in between the fins and flat so that you can us the good part of the fin to realign the damaged part. With some patience and attention to detail, most fins can be repaired. The only thing that I have found that cannot be completely fixed, is when the fins are broken from the water cooling channel or ripped in some way and seems to happen when the damage is beyond 1/8" deep. I'm wondering what other people have done or tried to do to fix this problem and what "tools" have been used, successfully or unsuccessfully, to repair fins or other damage to radiators in general. I'm sure there are al lot of people who have some interesting stories about this!
Diabolic
(17 items) |
Bits and Pieces
(13 items) |
| CPU | Motherboard | Graphics | RAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMD 1090T | Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 | Galaxy GT640 | G.Skill Ripjaws 6-8-6-24 @ 1600 |
| Hard Drive | Hard Drive | Optical Drive | Cooling |
| 500gb Samaung 2.5" HDD | Sandisk Ultra II | HP | Zalman CSN9500 |
| OS | Keyboard | Power | Case |
| Windows 7 Ultimate | HP | XFX Pro 550 | Rosewill |
| Mouse | |||
| HP | |||
| View all | |||
|
Diabolic
(17 items) |
Bits and Pieces
(13 items) |
| CPU | Motherboard | Graphics | RAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMD 1090T | Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 | Galaxy GT640 | G.Skill Ripjaws 6-8-6-24 @ 1600 |
| Hard Drive | Hard Drive | Optical Drive | Cooling |
| 500gb Samaung 2.5" HDD | Sandisk Ultra II | HP | Zalman CSN9500 |
| OS | Keyboard | Power | Case |
| Windows 7 Ultimate | HP | XFX Pro 550 | Rosewill |
| Mouse | |||
| HP | |||
| View all | |||
