water cooling different PSU

[matt123k]

Hey I was thinking about making water cooling system outside of case
and making separate loops for ram, cpu and gpus and also to put full water cooling system on different psu. It would consist of 3 reservoirs. 3 pumps and 3 radiators, so 1 for each loop and they are not connected to each other. Now my question is is it possible to put pumps and fans on different independent psu that is not connected to motherboard so it would just power water cooling system. Now if you came to this thread to tell me how it's overkill, money wasting, unnecessary and stupid, please turn your head in other direction. Thanks!

 

[Rogue Leader]

You could do it, all you need to do is use a PSU tester to trigger the main cable that would normally go to the motherboard to power it up. (this is accomplished also by shorting the green wire to the adjacent black wire, but using a tester plug is a little safer and cleaner). Then it would run as if it was plugged into your PC. You would need to use the switch on the back to turn it on and off, or maybe wire a switch in line to the wire you used to jump the 2 pins out. Up to you.

 

[maestro0428]

You could also jumper the secondary psu with a switch or button so you could prime it before the main psu starts the system.

 

[makkem]

Hi
Yes,you could do that.
You wouldn't need a PC power supply,just a 12 Volt one.
Just note that it wouldn't turn off when you turned the PC off,and you wouldn't be able to control the fan and pump speed from the motherboard.

 

[matt123k]

Thank you for your reply, can you please explain me a little bit better how that works and is it possible to put fans and pumps to psu directly so they don't have to be connected to motherboard at all?

 

[makkem]

Thank you for your reply, can you please explain me a little bit better how that works and is it possible to put fans and pumps to psu directly so they don't have to be connected to motherboard at all?

The best way would be to use a fan controller which would connect to the power supply 12 Volt then the fans and pumps would plug into the fan controller .

 

[matt123k]

Yeah I was just about to ask about fan controller 😀. That seems like very good idea. I would probably use quad 140mm (80mm thick) radiators, 3 of them, and push/pull configuration. I don't know it that would be benefitial as push fans would anyway "push" cold air and as it's outside of the case there is no need for any airflow, case will probably have few fans in it just to keep some air going around. How much W for 12v psu to power all those pumps and fans and maybe some lights inside the case.

 

[makkem]

You would need to decide how many fans you are going to use and which ones then check the fan specifications to find the Watts for one fan then multiply by the number of fans,a typical 140mm fan would take maybe 3W so 12 of them would be 36W.
Then you would need to do the same for the pumps which would be say 25W each making 75W .
This would mean a total of 111 W and would require a power supply of 120W.
The case fans would be better being powered by the PC PSU and plugged into the motherboard and the lights would also be better being plugged there as well.(into the PSU not the motherboard ) I suspect there will be very little benefit in a push/pull configuration as you are pulling cool air from outside the case and not the usual already warm air from inside the case.