Question Aio cooler plug

Aug 3, 2022
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I have a deep cool gamemaxx l120 aio cooler and my motherboard has 4 pins for the cpu fan where the cooler has 3 pin plug, will it still work?
 

Karadjgne

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To be honest, with the lack of available ports and need for such, I'd ignore the factory instructions. They are a one size fits all, and they do fit any of the basic AIO's of any brand.

What I'd do instead is get a molex to fan adapter and plug the pump in directly to the psu. I'd put the AIO fan on the cpu_fan header, and any other fan on the front_fan header.

The pump needs to run 100%, all the time, so direct to psu isn't an issue. The fan is better being controlled by cpu temp, and there's a need for airflow, that's covered by the only remaining fan header.
 
Aug 3, 2022
17
1
15
To be honest, with the lack of available ports and need for such, I'd ignore the factory instructions. They are a one size fits all, and they do fit any of the basic AIO's of any brand.

What I'd do instead is get a molex to fan adapter and plug the pump in directly to the psu. I'd put the AIO fan on the cpu_fan header, and any other fan on the front_fan header.

The pump needs to run 100%, all the time, so direct to psu isn't an issue. The fan is better being controlled by cpu temp, and there's a need for airflow, that's covered by the only remaining fan header.
Ye I just need to get it to boot first
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
Cpus will protect themselves from mistakes, as best as they are able. They have built in shutdown procedure if they detect nothing in the cpu_fan header. My preference is a fan there, regardless of aio beliefs, simply because 98% of aios do not need any sort of speed control, but realistically I don't want to listen to a fan at full blast when the pc is idle.

You can hook it up however which way for boot, as long as cpu_fan has something connected. I'd leave off the side panel unless that case has no front fan option available, until you get adapters/splitters to enable the case fans.
 
Aug 3, 2022
17
1
15
Cpus will protect themselves from mistakes, as best as they are able. They have built in shutdown procedure if they detect nothing in the cpu_fan header. My preference is a fan there, regardless of aio beliefs, simply because 98% of aios do not need any sort of speed control, but realistically I don't want to listen to a fan at full blast when the pc is idle.

You can hook it up however which way for boot, as long as cpu_fan has something connected. I'd leave off the side panel unless that case has no front fan option available, until you get adapters/splitters to enable the case fans.
Still doesn’t run, I have aio pump connector in cpu fan and aio fan in front panel. I’ve been told it may be the motherboard doesn’t like my aio
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
Motherboard doesn't care. It can't tell the difference between a fan and the pump. All the motherboard sees is something needing 12v plugged in. You could hook up a cell phone charger from a car, uses 12v, it'd be the same thing to the motherboard.

Is all power connected? Everything seated correctly, monitor on correct port?
 
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I have a deep cool gamemaxx l120 aio cooler and my motherboard has 4 pins for the cpu fan where the cooler has 3 pin plug, will it still work?
A 3 pin plug means the pump is DC controlled. With a 4 pin header the motherboard can properly support EITHER a DC controlled pump OR a PWM controlled fan which uses all 4 pins.

It's generally desireable to run a pump at 100% all the time and it should be quiet enough to do so. So plug the pump connector in the 4 pin CPU fan header - it will fit but one of the header pins won't be connected. Then adjust the CPU fan to be DC controlled, +12V constantly in BIOS. This way you can monitor pump RPM.

If you absolutely must you can set up a profile to make the pump be quieter when temp is low, but don't use less than 6 or 7 V at the lowest since motors need higher voltage to start than they do to run.
 
Aug 3, 2022
17
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My board shows light to say power connected, but it doesn’t start up when I press the button on case I’ve tried a different power switch, I don’t know if it motherboard or psu.
 
Aug 3, 2022
17
1
15
My board shows light to say power connected, but it doesn’t start up when I press the button on case I’ve tried a different power switch, I don’t know if it motherboard or psu.
Turns out it my psu. The psu doesn’t have a 4+4 connector, so ordered a molex to cpu off Amazon, my aio fan rgb was flickering does anyone know why this could be?