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Comment by Sakos | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly, heat pipes in a computer can corrode and leak the coolant (largely escapes as water vapor). Once it's gone, the heat pipes are basically junk. I've seen this a few times, wondering why the thermal performance was so abysmal (think 90-100 degrees celsius with low loads). It was only after completely replacing the heat sink or whatever assembly contains it that temperatures would be normal again.

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Corrosion requires a constant source of fresh oxidant. The water trapped inside a heat pipe cannot corrode anything.

The tiny amount of free oxygen that was ever trapped inside gets consumed essentially immediatly and amounts to a relative handful of atoms on the inner surface.

If a heat pipe ever corroded and leaked, it was manufactured with a leak to begin with, or was corroded from the outside.

I never said the coolant corroded the heat pipe.

Your CPU pins rusting is a bigger concern then.

I never said it was a risk or concern or anything else in that direction. I was just pointing it out because I thought it was interesting. There was a time I didn't realize there was coolant in these heat pipes that could escape. Until encountering one where it had dissipated and, after some consternation and googling, realizing what must have happened to cause such terrible thermal cooling performance. Even if it does happen, heat pipes are among the cheapest components to replace (also the easiest).

Does everybody just want to argue over nothing now?

Maybe I'll rephrase.

Is the CPU pins rusting a bigger concern, compared to if the heap pipe busts ? Thats not an argument, it is a question.

I wonder if the obsolescence of such heat pipes corrode just outside of the warranty period...

Honestly, I think that's extremely unlikely. In the time I worked as a PC tech I think I saw this only twice and they were very old devices (like 8-10 years old).

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