[SOLVED] Corsair H150i AIO Cooler w 4-Pin PWM Fan Connectors Don’t Move the Connected Fans. Suggestions?

[ganymede-]

TLDR: I have an H150i AIO Liquid cooling system installed on my computer. On the pump head installed over the CPU, one of the wires leads to a three-way split that is made for three 120mm fans installed on the radiator. I have three fans plugged into the connectors, but they hardly move. But if I plug them directly into the motherboard, all three fans spin normally.

I don’t know what I have done wrong or if I need to figuratively throw a switch to make the three fans connected to the pump head to be recognized and start functioning properly.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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Hi, I have a freshly installed Corsair H150i AIO Liquid CPU Cooler The radiator size is 360mm and it fits three 120mm fans. I intend to do a push/pull configuration, so the radiator has three Corsair LL series fans on the front and three Corsair ML series on the back. I had not planned for the fan configuration to be mixed, but I watched a video that stated it was ok as long as the fans are identical on each side, which is how I have it. If you have read something different, please let me know.

So, there are a couple of wires that sprout from the water block that covers the CPU and each wire needs to be attacked to something. My problem is with the flat cable that exits the block with three fan connectors at the end of it. These three fan connectors are obviously meant to be plugged into the three fans mounted on the radiator.

However, when I plug either the front or rear three fans into the connectors the fans barely move. As I said above, I do have the six fans on the radiator, but no matter the fan configuration, the fans plugged into the fan connectors do not really do much more than move slowly.

When I connect the fans on either side of the radiator directly into the motherboard, all the fans function normally, turning at an mid range RPM and displaying whatever RGB flavor I like at the moment.

Lastly, I’m no expert with the BIOS, but when I have looked there I do not see any obvious problems. Is there something I should be looking for in the BIOS regarding this fan problem. Also, thee is software like iCue that allows you to adjust color and it does show my two RGB hubs with the appropriate number of fans installed. There is also the Corsair LINK software that displays the fans, but I don’t see anything to remedy my fan problem.

FYI, the SATA connector is plugged into a active cable going to the PSU. The 3-pin motherboard connector that serves as a tachometer for speed/health monitoring is plugged into the primary CPU header. If I plug the 3-pin connector into the AIO connector (which seems like the right connector), I receive a CPU error message when I boot. If anyone knows why, also let me know. Thanks.





Anyone with a suggestion about why the three fan connectors on my water cooling system do not work, please let me know

 

[Paperdoc]

You are correct to plug the 3-pin female fan connector on the cable from the pump unit into the CPU_FAN header. That header monitors the speed of its fan (actually in this case, the PUMP speed) for possible failure to protect the CPU from overheating. When you plug NOTHING into the CPU_FAN header it sends out a warning right away that there is NO cooling for CPU!

Your description does NOT say you have connected a cable from a socket on the side of the PUMP into a USB2 header of the mobo. That connection is how the iCue software utility can communicate with the pump and the rest of the H150i system. And it is that software that controls the speeds of the radiator fans . So maybe that's what is missing, and why the iCue system only shows you the lighting devices, and no pump and fans.

Now, there' still a problem with what you describe. As you say, the pump has three output connectors for the three ML120 PWM fans included with the H150i system. It does not have six outputs. Further, those three ML120 PWM fans together will pull up to 0.9 A current in total. A normal mobo fan header can supply up to 1.0 A. Corsair's docs do NOT tell us the limit for the fan power outputs from the pump unit, but I would suspect it is similar. So you can NOT connect all six fans of your planned push / pull arrangement to the outputs from the pump. That means you do NOT have a good way to control the speeds of all of them.

What to do? IF the pump outputs to its three fan connectors are for FOUR-pin fans with PWM signals included, then you could rig a 4-pin fan HUB and connect six fans to one fan output connector from the pump. BUT the illustrations for the H150i system do NOT show 4-wire connections there, so I doubt this can work. Alternatively, since all those fans are of the 4-pin PWM variety, you could omit the iCue software control of the fans speeds (still use it for lights, though), and change the fan power and control system. You would plug the PUMP speed line into the AIO Pump header on the mobo for power and pump speed reporting, and use a HUB to connect all six rad fans to the CPU_FAN header, and then let the mobo's normal CPU fan temperature automatic system control all the rad fans instead of having iCue so that job. Or the third option would be to NOT use the ML120 fans that came with the H150i system and use only the three LL120 ARGB fans on the front of the rad - no push / pull. Check with Corsair Tech Support for details of the pump outputs to the rad fans, then decide which way to go. Post back her how you will proceed and we can provide a few more details.

 

[ganymede-]

You are correct to plug the 3-pin female fan connector on the cable from the pump unit into the CPU_FAN header. That header monitors the speed of its fan (actually in this case, the PUMP speed) for possible failure to protect the CPU from overheating. When you plug NOTHING into the CPU_FAN header it sends out a warning right away that there is NO cooling for CPU!

Your description does NOT say you have connected a cable from a socket on the side of the PUMP into a USB2 header of the mobo. That connection is how the iCue software utility can communicate with the pump and the rest of the H150i system. And it is that software that controls the speeds of the radiator fans . So maybe that's what is missing, and why the iCue system only shows you the lighting devices, and no pump and fans.

Now, there' still a problem with what you describe. As you say, the pump has three output connectors for the three ML120 PWM fans included with the H150i system. It does not have six outputs. Further, those three ML120 PWM fans together will pull up to 0.9 A current in total. A normal mobo fan header can supply up to 1.0 A. Corsair's docs do NOT tell us the limit for the fan power outputs from the pump unit, but I would suspect it is similar. So you can NOT connect all six fans of your planned push / pull arrangement to the outputs from the pump. That means you do NOT have a good way to control the speeds of all of them.

What to do? IF the pump outputs to its three fan connectors are for FOUR-pin fans with PWM signals included, then you could rig a 4-pin fan HUB and connect six fans to one fan output connector from the pump. BUT the illustrations for the H150i system do NOT show 4-wire connections there, so I doubt this can work. Alternatively, since all those fans are of the 4-pin PWM variety, you could omit the iCue software control of the fans speeds (still use it for lights, though), and change the fan power and control system. You would plug the PUMP speed line into the AIO Pump header on the mobo for power and pump speed reporting, and use a HUB to connect all six rad fans to the CPU_FAN header, and then let the mobo's normal CPU fan temperature automatic system control all the rad fans instead of having iCue so that job. Or the third option would be to NOT use the ML120 fans that came with the H150i system and use only the three LL120 ARGB fans on the front of the rad - no push / pull. Check with Corsair Tech Support for details of the pump outputs to the rad fans, then decide which way to go. Post back her how you will proceed and we can provide a few more details.

Hi PaperDoc,

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my questions in such a detailed and helpful response. I sincerely apologize for not replying to you sooner, but I was working on a project; moreover, I wanted to run a test on my computer to see if one of your suggestions would make any difference w my problem, and, finally, I needed a break away from building my computer after a number of set backs, including a bad first motherboard that I only determined after I had installed everything possible in my computer.

Initially, I had read your reply to my questions several times and yet I didn’t see a fix for my problem. I had the USB2 plugged-in as well as having only three fans out of six attached to the three split cable coming from the water pump; the remaining three were plugged into the motherboard. You mentioned current/voltage to and from the fans and how they may differ depending on the type of fan, and how the water pump likely provided less power than the motherboard to the fans. I considered this and the fact that I was using a high quality 360mm AIO Liquid Cooler that I assumed would have the necessary amps to power a mere three RGB PRO fans.

Then two days ago I woke up and kind of had an epiphany. I thought about what you had written regarding voltage/current and that motherboard delivers up to 1.0 amp, but there was the unknown variable—how much voltage could the water pump put out to the fans.

As you may remember, my fan setup is six fans on the 360mm radiator for a push/pull configuration. What I did not mention or was not clear about was that I was NOT using the non-RGB ML fans that come with the H150i. Instead, my radiator had the three Corsair LL PRO RGB series fans on the front of the radiator and plugged into the three way splitter from the pump head The back of the radiator had three ML PRO RGB fans on it, but they were all plugged directly into the MB.

When I pulled one of my ML PRO fans off the radiator, I discovered that it did require more voltage/current than the non-RGB fans. So then I attached one non-RGB fan that came w the unit and it started spinning fast. Then I pulled the two connectors for the LL series fans from the pump head and attached two ML RGB PRO fans and they also started spinning up, much faster than the original LL PRO series fans that had been attached to the front of the radiator.

For reference purposes here are the voltage/amps for each fan:

The Corsair LL PRO fan puts out 12 V DC 0.30A, while the ML PRO fan puts out 12 V DC 0.225A, and finally the non-RGB fan it puts 12 V DC 0.219A.

Last night I finally sat down unscrewed all the fans on the radiator and placed three ML PRO fans on the front of the radiator. Instead of doing a push/pull configuration, I placed just one LL series fan in the center of the back of the radiator (I wanted some light coming from the front of my build!). This fan is now faced outward and pushing air from the radiator, so it’s kind of a push/push configuration, but w just the one fan on the back, I figured it wouldn’t cause that much of an issue. I intended to run Prime 95 to determine if perhaps the back fan might be a problem. But it did not seem to be based on temperature.

Now, w all the fans installed on to the computer, I ran Prime 95 for two hours then had to stop it. But during those two hours at 100% CPU usage the CPU temperature never went beyond 58 Celsius, which I consider a successful test, though perhaps I should run Prime 95 for a longer period of time, or run another app for testing my system ? What do you think?

I want to thank you again for your help in this matter, and solving my problem. I’m not sure if I should mark this reply as SOLVED bc it is so long and is filled w a lot of extraneous details that are meant for you specifically. What do you think? Should I summarize this reply in another reply and post it as the SOLVED issue. Let me know what you think I appreciate your feedback. Take care.

 

[Paperdoc]

Thanks for Best Solution. I'm not sure I understand how what you did solved the problem, but it did! So congratulations on getting it working!