[SOLVED] Corsair H100i RGB Platinum help

[afroDragon]

I have a PRIME Z390M-PLUS mobo and H100i rgb premium. The corsair manual says connect the pump to the cpu fan header, is it recommended to just follow that or can i use the aio pump header?

 

[PC Tailor]

Welcome to the forums my friend!

At a basic level you need SOMETHING plugged into the CPU_FAN header otherwise the PC probably won't boot. They recommend connecting to the CPU_FAN header as the pump is more likely to fail before the fan, so the PC will not usually boot if it detects 0 RPM when connected to the fan header.

However I believe the H100i uses Corsair link to control temperature behaviour.

 

[afroDragon]

Welcome to the forums my friend!

At a basic level you need SOMETHING plugged into the CPU_FAN header otherwise the PC probably won't boot. They recommend connecting to the CPU_FAN header as the pump is more likely to fail before the fan, so the PC will not usually boot if it detects 0 RPM when connected to the fan header.

However I believe the H100i uses Corsair link to control temperature behaviour.

Thanks for your reply, so I do have other fans that I can connect to the CPU header. Is is better to connect those fans to the aio pump header and h100i to the cpu header or visa-versa? Or does it make no difference either way?

 

[PC Tailor]

I would tend to err on the side of caution, as I said, it's a safety mechanism, and that's why Corsair recommend it.
You should be fine as long as something is plugged into the fan header, but you lose that safety mechanism. If the pin is a 3 pin it won't have PWM control so will run at a constant rate, the 4 pin headers are often PWM controlled so the fan speed can be regulated.

You'll find a good thread that covers the same elements here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...into-cpu-header-or-water-pump-header.2890775/

 

[drewski989]

This is an interesting question to me, so I will add my 2 cents.

I have the same cooler (pretty sure), and I have an ASUS MB with a CPU header and Water Pump header. I have never used the Water Pump header, always the CPU and never had issues.

A few quick googles, and the AIO header seems to be for AIOs with a separate water pump/supply (did not even know these where a thing).

Anyways, Corsair iCue and this cooler expect you to plug into the CPU header. I can confirm I have had no issues with this configuration and I am very confident the other posters are correct in saying the CPU header is the one you want to use.

Poor naming and documentation on the part of ASUS in my opinion, they do not make this very clear in the manual why/when the heck you would want to use the AIO_PUMP header, but I can definitely see someone incorrectly thinking "Oh I have an AIO cooler, I should use the AIO header".

 

[afroDragon]

I would tend to err on the side of caution, as I said, it's a safety mechanism, and that's why Corsair recommend it.
You should be fine as long as something is plugged into the fan header, but you lose that safety mechanism. If the pin is a 3 pin it won't have PWM control so will run at a constant rate, the 4 pin headers are often PWM controlled so the fan speed can be regulated.

You'll find a good thread that covers the same elements here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...into-cpu-header-or-water-pump-header.2890775/

Thanks for help man! I'll take the more cautious route. The pin from the h100i is a 3pin but the fans are controlled by the corsair software when plugged into either header. I will just follow the manual and use the cpu header.

 

[afroDragon]

This is an interesting question to me, so I will add my 2 cents.

I have the same cooler (pretty sure), and I have an ASUS MB with a CPU header and Water Pump header. I have never used the Water Pump header, always the CPU and never had issues.

A few quick googles, and the AIO header seems to be for AIOs with a separate water pump/supply (did not even know these where a thing).

Anyways, Corsair iCue and this cooler expect you to plug into the CPU header. I can confirm I have had no issues with this configuration and I am very confident the other posters are correct in saying the CPU header is the one you want to use.

Poor naming and documentation on the part of ASUS in my opinion, they do not make this very clear in the manual why/when the heck you would want to use the AIO_PUMP header.

Cool, thanks for the info! Do I have to change any settings in the bios or something? i remember reading something about making sure the pump gets enough power... Or is it just plug and play?

 

[drewski989]

Cool, thanks for the info! Do I have to change any settings in the bios or something? i remember reading something about making sure the pump gets enough power... Or is it just plug and play?

As long as you connect up the SATA power cable as instructed in the manual, your pump will be fine. Now, since you mention BIOS, I will open a second can of worms...

With my ASUS motherboard, I had to disable Q-Fan control for the CPU_FAN to allow Corsair iCue full control/monitoring of the AIO fans/pump. Since you bought a fancy RGB model, I assume you will want to leverage iCue to control the lighting and whatnot.

Thus, after you hook up your cooler, make sure you know what is controlling your cooler. If the iCue is not, and my guess is it won't be (at least not fully)... I would refer to your MB manual again regarding CPU_FAN control. Mine was called CPU Q-Fan Control or something similar and I disabled it, thus relying on iCue to properly run its own cooler fans and pump.

There is an AUTO setting by default, not sure if that alone is smart enough to hand control completely over to iCue, so you may have to tinker... Good Luck!

 

[afroDragon]

As long as you connect up the SATA power cable as instructed in the manual, your pump will be fine. Now, since you mention BIOS, I will open a second can of worms...

With my ASUS motherboard, I had to disable Q-Fan control for the CPU_FAN to allow Corsair iCue full control/monitoring of the AIO fans/pump. Since you bought a fancy RGB model, I assume you will want to leverage iCue to control the lighting and whatnot.

Thus, after you hook up your cooler, make sure you know what is controlling your cooler. If the iCue is not, and my guess is it won't be (at least not fully)... I would refer to your MB manual again regarding CPU_FAN control. Mine was called CPU Q-Fan Control or something similar and I disabled it, thus relying on iCue to properly run its own cooler fans and pump.

There is an AUTO setting by default, not sure if that alone is smart enough to hand control completely over to iCue, so you may have to tinker... Good Luck!

I have an ASUS mobo too and it was set to AUTO so now I don't know if i should change it or not haha. Thanks for your help though!