Question Fan settings with an AIO

[Veranscoto]

So, I have an ASRock PG Lightning Z790 (if it matters) mobo, and I installed a coolermaster ml360r AIO cooler. It works fine, the pump is noisier than I expected compared to using a fan like my previous build, but whatever, that's not my issue.

The system boots, and seems to cool well, and etc. My question is though, how do I know I've got the settings for fans/power etc set right? I plugged the pump into CPU_FAN2/WP and changed the setting to it being a pump in BIOS, but should I have it set at a ceertain type setting? PWM? Auto? It's a 3 prong plug, not 4, and the radiator fans are plugged into CPU_FAN1 (using a splitter), so as far as I can tell I've got them placed correctly, but I just don't know enough about the BIOS settings to know what I should be configuring it as. Is there a resource I can figure it out from, or can someone maybe step me through what settings I might want to pick (and why) ?

Thanks for anyone who has the time / interest / boredom level.

 

[Karadjgne]

The ASR motherboard software/Bios will have you set at default curve settings. You are plugged in correctly, so exactly how you change those settings is upto you, whether you are chasing lowest temps (performance), just like it quiet (silent) or any custom setting. There's no right or wrong to curves, as long as the temps stay within workable ranges.

It's pretty much no different to setting up an aircooler, although you'll not need the pump at 100% during idle time.

So play with the settings, you'll find a happy medium that works for you as far as noise/temps go at different levels of loads.

It's the little things, like a fan at 90% will only see a 1°-2°C or so difference to the same fan at 100%, but only be half as loud. Personally, I can live with that.

 

[Veranscoto]

Cool, so I don't need to worry about setting the pump in PWM mode or what level it's at to make sure it doesn't run too much and die or anything like that?

 

[Karadjgne]

4pin: power-ground-tach-pwm signal.
3pin: power-ground-tach.

As far as bios goes, auto defaults to pwm, but will switch to DC if it sees no activity on the pwm signal wire. Pwm will lock in 12v and signal, DC will ignore signal and allow variable voltage.

So you'd leave the pump on DC or Auto, not Pwm. It's designed to be able to run at 100% for the entirety of its lifespan, you can't over run it. Most aio pumps are plug-n-play, so will run 100% always, anyways, turning them down is a recent luxury development

 

[drea.drechsler]

So, I have an ASRock PG Lightning Z790 (if it matters) mobo, and I installed a coolermaster ml360r AIO cooler. It works fine, the pump is noisier than I expected compared to using a fan like my previous build, but whatever, that's not my issue.

The system boots, and seems to cool well, and etc. My question is though, how do I know I've got the settings for fans/power etc set right? I plugged the pump into CPU_FAN2/WP and changed the setting to it being a pump in BIOS, but should I have it set at a ceertain type setting? PWM? Auto? It's a 3 prong plug, not 4, and the radiator fans are plugged into CPU_FAN1 (using a splitter), so as far as I can tell I've got them placed correctly, but I just don't know enough about the BIOS settings to know what I should be configuring it as. Is there a resource I can figure it out from, or can someone maybe step me through what settings I might want to pick (and why) ?

Thanks for anyone who has the time / interest / boredom level.

An AIO uses liquid to sink the heat into. Water, the bulk of the liquid, has the ability to absorb a massive amount of heat before warming up to the point of thermal saturation when more air movement is needed to move the heat out. What that means is you can use an entirely different approach to setting fans as heatsinks rapidly saturate and need equally rapid air-flow increase to move the heat out.

I prefer to set a constant, unvarying fan speed that's as high as I am willing to put up with since a steady fan speed is much less bothersome than one that's constantly varying. The idea is to not speed up the fans with every burst of heat as the processor works hard for a short period; let the water absorb that heat and then cool down with the air flow when the processor stops working and cools down. Only when the processor temp gets fairly hot..still less than maximum of course...allow the radiator fans to rise up in speed to the point they become annoying.

This approach works really, really, well with ultra-quiet fans. Noctuas are great, but expensive; Arctic Cooling P12 are cheap and very nearly as quiet as Noctua's NF-P12's even at maximum speed settings.

Pump should, of course, be +12V constantly, so DC controlled. You could even use a SATA power adapter except you lose the RPM monitoring.