Mayhem's interview: Taking the water-cooling world by storm

Bit-tech: So how long have you been working on your current products and is there anything interesting in the pipeline?

Mayhem's:Aurora for example has been in development for three years. We actually worked with Ice Dragon Cooling and a lot of its make up goes into our current coolants when we improved it. In addition there’s obviously lots of our own work that goes in too – there’s a lot more behind coolants like Aurora than you might think.

We’re actually working on Aurora 2 as well – Aurora as you probably know isn’t designed to last more than a couple of months, especially in high-flow systems. We’re aiming to make it perform much like any other coolant in terms of longevity and we’re nearly there – hopefully around the end of the year or soon after we’ll have Aurora 2 ready but each coolant does take years of formulating and testing before we release it.


Bit-tech: We’re big fans of the Aurora coolants. Is there anything we can do to prolong its life at the moment?

Mayhem's:We’ve managed to get up to a year out of it by reducing the pump voltage. We use Laing D5s in our test systems and on the number two setting this does improve the lifespan massively – usually this doesn’t result in too much of a performance hit. Aurora is usually about three degrees worse than water but we don’t like to put too much emphasis on performance – water cooling is more about looks these days as performance is generally very similar. If you make claims and enthusiasts can’t replicate them then we’ve seen other companies feel the wrath – the community can be pretty harsh. Thankfully, we’ve only really had people not liking our products and we have more than enough fans to come to our rescue.

Bit-tech: That’s very true – we would certainly prefer to have a great-looking coolant than a CPU that’s two degrees cooler. So you have the Aurora and Pastal coolants as well as dyes, UV coolants and your new radiators too. Is there anything other than Aurora 2 that’s in the pipeline?

Mayhem's:We’re currently working on Chameleon which is a thermal-reactive coolant – it changes colour depending on what temperature the coolant is. It’s actually going to be quite a big range as we’re going to release a few different products for different temperature ranges. All you’d need to do is take the temperature of your water then you’ll be able to pick the right coolant. Each will come pre-mixed with a colour and white base. You can then add a second colour that will replace the white base.


Also, a red variant that changes to blue could be made to go from purple to blue, while adding yellow to red would mean it goes from a fiery orange to yellow – there will be quite a few options but we’ll release a chart that better explains the various combinations nearer the time. It will give users the ability to tailor-make their own coolants.

Apart from that we’re obviously expanding into the hardware front too with our radiators that we worked with Thermochill on. Despite getting good reviews, especially when using them with low air flow fans, they haven’t had a great impact. At the moment we’re not too concerned as we’re focussing on the coolants, we’ll put these on the back burner but as we made them in the UK, it’s obviously more expensive than doing it in China so we didn’t have an impact price wise. We’re also working on cases too although this is still in the early phases.

Bit-tech: Have you had any help from anyone in particular with your coolants and radiators?

Mayhem's:Lots – obviously Steve Verity has been a huge help but also EK Waterblocks, Koolance, Aquatuning, Specialtech and Overclockers UK and even hardware manufacturers such as Gigabyte and Intel. The chemical companies we work with have been a great help too. They like the fact we experiment to create coolants so we can come up with something that’s unique.


Bit-tech: What kind of testing do you do?

Mayhem's:It takes years to create a coolant from start to finish. We obviously do temperature testing and our systems are probably the worst systems out there and put the liquids under some considerable use for extended periods. We’ve actually found that Pastel performs better than water at very high temperatures. But we like to keep things realistic – you won’t see these temperatures in your water-cooling system at home. Unlike some people who test coolants or components, we’re only interested in detailing how our products will work and look in your average PC.

Bit-tech: We all know that some tubing works best with some coolants and there’s a lot of ideas floating around about how best to remove dye from tubing and components too. What advise do you have for making your coolants look best?

Mayhem's:If you’re using Pastel, do not use Primochill or Tygon tubing. For some reason they react slightly which can affect colours. Clearflex is generally the best tubing for Pastal. Apart from Pastel our other coolants don’t have any issues but we’d still recommend Clearflex.

As far as clearing out old dye from your system, a lot of people recommend IPA – Isopropyl alcohol. Flushing this through with water seems to work quickly and doesn’t eat away at rubber seals. We use much stronger chemicals but these aren’t available over the counter for important reasons so we won’t be recommending anyone uses them.

Generally speaking with colour, less is more, especially deep colours. If you use too much, especially UV reactive materials, you start to lose brightness. You normally only need a few drops of most dye additives to obtain a really strong colour. Also adding a very strong UV reactive colour and a plain colour isn’t a good idea either. You proved this in your recent coolant test – we had the best red there, but it was the least UV reactive. Our lighter colours – UV pink for example are much more vivid.

A huge thanks to Michael Wood of Mayhem's for talking to us. Are you planning on using Mayhem's coolant in your project? Maybe you have some suggestions for them for future products. Let us know in the forum.