AIO Liquid Cooler on mITX Board

[jhmejia310]

It’s my first time using an aio liquid cooler—the nzxt kraken m22, and also building in a mITX case/motherboard as well. What’s the ideal position to plug my fans/pump into? I working with the MSI Z270i Gaming Pro Carbon that only has 2 system fan headers and one cpu fan header. My system runs fine currently which is having the pump connected to the cpu fan header and the rest of my fans into my system fan headers. Is this the correct way and is there any way to make my setup more efficient? My case can also only work with 4 fans in total, that being 2 for the radiator and 2 for the chassis.

 

[vMax]

Yes you have set it up the correct way with the pump on the CPU header and the fans on the Fan header. You can also pick up a splitter cable to add more fans to the Fan header if required.

One thing I would keep in mind is this from a review:

'What becomes apparent in hardware monitor is that the system fan 1 and 2 controls are shared on this MSI board . This is highly impractical and it means you have to have the same fan speed profile for both connected devices. In our case we had connected the H100i v2 pump to one system fan port and the H100i v2’s second fan to the other.

Normally the pump would be run at full speed for optimal cooling performance and the fan on a quiet profile, but you cannot do this without running the fan at full speed also. Furthermore, the RPM reporting alternates between the fan and the pump (SYS_1 and SYS_2) so the single system fan speed readout for the system headers can change rapidly in few seconds due to the reporting of the two different headers at the same time. This doesn’t have any effect on the connected devices though, they still operate normally.'

https://www.kitguru.net/components/motherboard/ryan-martin/msi-z270i-gaming-pro-carbon-ac-motherboard-review/4/

 

[vMax]

No worries at all. As to the pump, leave it on PWM and I always use 'quiet' setting as it will automatically ramp up as the heat build up. So the speed is dynamic and will auto adjust to the Temps of the CPU. I tend to always have my fans and pump linked to the CPU temps on PWM and quiet mode of normal and leave it at that. I can hear the fans ramp up when the CPU is under load so it is all good...

I should have said I leave the pump at the highest setting, so PWM and highest speed setting like 'max'. So long as you cannot heare the pump, I prefer to have the pump running at full speed. Yes, I also have an AIO...

 

[jhmejia310]

Thanks for the swift reply vMax. So to my understanding, my rad fans and chassis fans will always have the same speeds? I also found out that DC is recommended for the pump because it operates at max speeds, but for some reason I can only leave it on PWM, because changing it to DC stops the pump completely—looking at the RPM of the “CPU Fan”. And I did buy a pair of Y cable splitter to utilize the max number of fans for my rig. Another thing what setting would you suggest I run my fans on since they’re all being controlled as one.

 

[jhmejia310]

One last question. Is there any way to gain control of the system fans separately so when I use my Y splatters, I can utilize 2 fans for the rad and 2 fans for the chassis? As much as I want the temps to be at an ideal number since I am running a mITX rig, I also don’t want a fighter jet in my room. The heat mostly comes my my GTX 1080ti which has the blower style cooler so I want to be able to vent out as much heat as I can using the fans.

 

[vMax]

There is but you would have to get a Fan hub which will provide you independent fan control, something like this. This is just an example and I am sure there are cheaper or more expensive options out there...

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lamptron-cfp30-fan-and-rgb-led-controller-for-pci-slot-black-fg-00p-lp.html

Not sure if it is worth it but it will provide a separate method of controlling the fans...