Can someone confirm this? Not doubting DrMrLordX, just I thought silver & nickel were similar in noble-ness.
Its because vendors have really cheaped out on the nickle process.
Its to save cost and gain a bit of margins.
Nickle used to be safe with silver.
The galavanic table between them is so great, it would take litterally 10x the rate of copper vs alu for it to react.
But its what they now mix with the nickle along with how thick the layer is.
SidewinderPC's used to offer a premium nickle plating job which would not react at all to silver.
It was also 3x the standard thickness normal vendors would use.
Swiftech also had a tank of a chrome job they did, that would also be completely safe with silver.
eK and Koolance were the first vendors to start a poor nickle process, and from there, its been downhill for nickle and silver.
Personally as i said when the nickle flakes its not like gold flakes you see when you pan for gold in the river.
At its worst it looks like this:
https://www.hardwarecanucks.com/for...-water-block-still-having-plating-issues.html
There really is nothing you can do.
Even running the premix's will eventually lead to it flaking over time as the water is basically sand blasting the surface to exchange heat molecules.
Its just the vendor has a reason to deny your RMA claim if you didnt pay the "insurance" fee's which is called there premix.
Again the RMA process can take a very long time as well, especially with eK as you need to mail the block to Slovenia, which means a hell of a downtime for cosmetic reasons.
So unless your in a mod my rig, or a million dollar PC photo shoot, id rather honestly be gaming those 2 weeks then waiting for my soon to be destroyed again nickle waterblock.
I just dont care anymore.
I rarely run clear acrylic blocks for cracking issues, and run straight derlin tops.
Acrylic is horrible as it ages, it starts to crack internally and you get spider webs in it.
If the nickle plate is imaculate on the outside, that is all good for me, because i only run nickle blocks to preserve the exterior look, because oxidized copper looks horrible.