Question Connection of an AIO to the GPU with a Kraken G12, fan hub questions.

[Arnavut]

Hello everyone. I'm not good at English, so first of all sorry for that.

I'm gonna use a Kraken G12 and an AIO cooler on my GPU. I want to use the radiator on push/pull. In this case there are 4 connectors:
-1x Radiator
-1x 92mm fan
-2x 120mm fan

Also I want my gpu to control radiator fans depending its heat. So I decided to buy a Gelid pwm cable and a Silverstone fan hub. The question is, if I connect Gelid cable to my GPU and Silverstone hub to Gelid cable, can I use radiator fans, radiator and vrm fan efficiently? Someone said that the radiator needs to run at %100 so I should connect it directly to the motherboard.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Lutfij]

You forgot to mention the make and model of your GPU. It'll either help or prevent you from moving forward, since the G12 isn't quite accepting with non reference GPU's.

Better yet, list your specs like so:
CPU:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:

 

[Paperdoc]

We really need specs - that is, makers and exact model numbers - of your major components, the GPU card, the AIO cooler system, etc.

The Kraken G12 is just a means to fasten an AIO cooler system to a GPU card, so it does not have any direct bearing on how to connect and control things. Those aspects depend on the cooling system design. Most AIO cooling systems are designed so that the PUMP part is supposed to run at full speed all the time, and hence requires connection to a fixed +12 VDC power supply. Sometimes that is done by a connection directly to a SATA power output connector from the PSU, and sometimes it is done using a mobo fan header configured in a particular way. Control of the item to be cooled involves two things. First, there normally is a temperature sensor in the hot item that feeds a signal out to a control system. Then the system normally alters the speed of the cooling fans mounted on the radiator to remove the heat at a rate suitable to keep the hot item at the proper temperature. In some systems (for example, Kraken's Xnn line of CPU AIO cooler systems), the maker supplies a software tool that takes over all this control, grabs the temperature reading inside the CPU chip from the mobo, and uses a USB connection to the pump to communicate speed control to the rad fans. In other systems, there is no separate control software and the AIO system allows the normal CPU cooling controls of the CPU_FAN header to control the speed of the rad fans. Obviously what you need is not exactly either of those, since you are trying to control cooling of the GPU chip in the video card. So without details of what your real components are, we can't advise fully.

The Silverstone PWM fan hub is a typical device of that type, and thus it can only operate from a fan header that is using the new PWM Mode and with fans that are of the new PWM design. That MAY be what you have - we will see when you tell us what you have!

 

[Arnavut]

Thank you for the answers and sorry for the missing info, I'm newbie on PC forums.

My case is Phanteks Evolv Shift X. So that I use an ITX motherboard, MSI B150i Gaming Pro AC. I have an i7 6700 and a MSI GTX 1080 Armor on it.

The motherboard has only 2 headers for fans. I have NZXT M22 as CPU cooler with push/pull. So first header is for CPU with 3x fan splitter cable. I spreaded other fan header for 2x 140mm case fans. That's why I bought a Gelid GPU adapter, to attach a Corsair H75 push/pull with via Silverstone CPF04 hub.

Addition: I have an High Power 750w power supply, HPS-750GD,F14C.

 

[Paperdoc]

OK, thanks for the info. Although the MSI GTX 1080 Armour web page does not provide all the details, maybe we can assume that it has a fan control header on it that the Gelid adapter can connect to, thus providing a standard 4-pin fan output. Then connecting that to the Silverstore Hub will get the required control signals to the Hub. That Hub also comes with its own cable to plug into a SATA power output from the PSU for power to its fans, so it does not load up the fan header of the graphics card. So far, so good. This means you do NOT need access to the temperature sensor inside the GPU chip, and you can use the cooling controller built into the graphics card to control the rad fans of the AIO system you plan to mount on the graphics card.

The only thing left to settle, then, is the way the planned AIO system is supposed to be controlled. You need a system that uses an existing fan speed control header to supply power and control of its rad fans, and does not use a software utility. Typically such a system will have two electrical connections. One may be to a PSU power output for power to the pump, OR perhaps to a mobo fan header for that pump power. Now, for that latter case you do not have a spare mobo fan header to provide pump power. But if the AIO system is designed (like most) to use only a fixed 12 VDC supply to the pump, you can get that by using an adapter to connect the pump's fan connector to a PSU Molex power output. The second connection to the AIO system normally would be to provide power and control to the fans on the rad, and those can be done from the output ports of the Silverstone Hub. If you can tell us the details of your proposed AIO cooler for the graphics card, we can confirm how this works.

 

[Arnavut]

OK, thanks for the info. Although the MSI GTX 1080 Armour web page does not provide all the details, maybe we can assume that it has a fan control header on it that the Gelid adapter can connect to, thus providing a standard 4-pin fan output. Then connecting that to the Silverstore Hub will get the required control signals to the Hub. That Hub also comes with its own cable to plug into a SATA power output from the PSU for power to its fans, so it does not load up the fan header of the graphics card. So far, so good. This means you do NOT need access to the temperature sensor inside the GPU chip, and you can use the cooling controller built into the graphics card to control the rad fans of the AIO system you plan to mount on the graphics card.

The only thing left to settle, then, is the way the planned AIO system is supposed to be controlled. You need a system that uses an existing fan speed control header to supply power and control of its rad fans, and does not use a software utility. Typically such a system will have two electrical connections. One may be to a PSU power output for power to the pump, OR perhaps to a mobo fan header for that pump power. Now, for that latter case you do not have a spare mobo fan header to provide pump power. But if the AIO system is designed (like most) to use only a fixed 12 VDC supply to the pump, you can get that by using an adapter to connect the pump's fan connector to a PSU Molex power output. The second connection to the AIO system normally would be to provide power and control to the fans on the rad, and those can be done from the output ports of the Silverstone Hub. If you can tell us the details of your proposed AIO cooler for the graphics card, we can confirm how this works.

I've checked the 1080 Armor pcb on google and saw that there is a fan control header there. That's why I bought the Gelid cable. It won't be a problem to connect gelid cable and silverstone hub. The question is, if I connect radiator too to the fan hub, won't it work properly? Also I checked the Corsair H75 power consumption but I couldn't get anything🙄

 

[Paperdoc]

OK, so you're planning to use Corsair H75 AIO system with a pump unit, a 120mm radiator, and a pair of 120mm PWM-type rad fans in a push / pull arrangement. First, let's ensure that this is kept simple. You are creating an AIO cooling system for the GPU chip of your graphics card. Although you are using components often used for main board CPU or for case cooling, this system has virtually NO link to those other two cooling systems. So keep it separate from the CPU and the case fan systems.

You have a way to remove the fans and their mounting system that come on the graphics card, and probably also the heat exchanger (fins) on that GPU chip. Then you will have to mount the pump unit from the H75 system on the GPU chip with appropriate thermal paste, and use the Kraken G12 system to fasten that into place securely. In doing so you also will use the Gelid adapter cable to provide a lead out from the graphics card's normal fan header, and will further plug into that the cable from the Hub that normally goes to a mobo fan header. This will make the Hub control its fans according to whatever the graphics card's fan control system wants, with no link to any mobo factors.

The H75 pump unit will need a fixed +12 VDC power supply, and it has a cable from it ending in a 3-pin female (with holes) standard fan connector. This can plug into any fan header that can supply a constant 12 VDC on Pin #2, and Ground on Pin #1. This line also will send its own pump speed signal out on its Pin #3. We do not know whether the fan header on the graphics card does any monitoring of the speed of its fans for failure, but it may. So, I suggest the best place to plug in the PUMP's 3-pin fan connector is to the one port of the Silverstone fan Hub that is specially marked. This is the only port of that Hub that can send its speed signal back to the host header (on the graphics card). Now, the Silverstone Hub gets its power from a connection to a SATA power output connector from the PSU, so its pump and fans do not draw any power from the host header on the graphics card and cannot overload that header. Because it is designed to operate only in a 4-pin fan system, it always supplies on every one of its output ports a Ground on Pin #1 and +12 VDC (constant) on Pin #2. Thus plugging the PUMP into a Hub port does guarantee it gets the correct power supply. And when you plug it into Port #1, then the pump's speed will be relayed back to the graphics card's fan header via the Gelid adapter cable you connect between the card and the Hub's fan input connector. Since continued operation of the pump is vital to GPU cooling in your system, giving that speed signal to the graphic card's fan header will allow it to monitor for cooling failure IF it is already set up to do that. THEN the two fans mounted on the radiator of the H75 system can be plugged into two other ports of the Silverstone Hub, and their speeds both will be controlled by the signals from the graphics card's fan header. For your info, note that there is NO way for any item here to monitor those two FANS for failure, and no way for you to "see" their speeds. From time you time you should just check to be sure they both are still working.

When you set things up like this, the H75 is a cooling system for the GPU chip in the graphics card, and nothing else. All power for the pump and fans of this system will be drawn from the PSU. The pump will have the constant full 12VDC power supply it needs and its speed signal may be monitored by the graphics card for failure IF the card actually is designed to do that (we don't know). The speed of the two radiator fans will be automatically controlled by the graphics card itself, based on the temperature inside the GPU chip.

Since there is no connection between this H75 system and the mobo, you will NOT ever see any info about it in BIOS Setup or any mobo cooling system utility software tools. SOME graphics cards do monitor their GPU temperatures and cooling fan speeds and MAY make these pieces of info available through their own graphics card optimization software tools. If yours does, just remember that what it reports to you as the FAN speed cooling the GPU really will be the PUMP speed of the H75 system you have installed.