Corsair H90 Fan Connection

Dear all,

I have recently built a new PC, and have used a Corsair H90 to cool my 4770k. I am not a complete novice, but by no means an expert, so any help would be hugely appreciated!

Being an ITX chipset, my motherboard (MSI Z87i Gaming AC) only has 2 fan headers, so I have bought the BitFenix Recon fan controller.

Currently I have the pump connector plugged into the CPU fan header, and the fan controller plugged in to the System Fan header. Connected to the fan controller is the H90 fan, and two other case fans.

My question is this - Should I be connecting the H90 fan to the CPU Fan header instead of the pump, and therefore connect the pump to the fan controller?

I guess I am a little uncomfortable a) not having the fan controlling CPU temps being in a CPU Fan Header, and b) having a pump connected to the CPU Fan Header!

Thank you kind people! I look forward to hearing your thoughts! :biggrin:

Hi edd677,

Congrats on your new system! I myself, just 3 days ago, also built a new system. It's been a long time, I think the last time I put together a DIY rig was in the early Pentium 3 days.

I also went with the Corsair H90 for the cooling solution on my shiny new AMD FX-8350 that seemed to like to run as hot as the sun (seems that's normal for these newer 120+ TDP CPUs, though).

I researched this heavily before purchasing, and asked for advice on virtually every tech enthusiast forum I could find, and I found general consensus to be this:

H90 Pump -> CPU_FAN motherboard header <set that header to "Turbo" mode within UEFI BIOS, or whatever your brand of motherboard's equivalent to 100% [12 volt] power is, if no profiles are available, you can turn PWM fan control for that header off and just let it run wide open>

H90 Radiator Fan -> CPU_OPT motherboard header / any chassis fan header / fan controller <the rad fan on the H90 is PWM, so it can be controlled by your mobo's BIOS or software to your liking for noise vs. performance without issue>

Personally, on my ASUS mobo, I have the pump in CPU_FAN @ Turbo profile, and the rad fan in CPU_OPT and have a manually defined speed curve by using the ASUS fanXpert software. I'm sure any newer MSI motherboard would have some similar features, either in it's BIOS or included software tools. I have the speeds for the rad fan set pretty high as well, as I don't hear much noise at all coming from it)

I was hesitant to run a water pump off of a CPU Fan header also, but from what I've read and been advised by people with much more experience than I, 12v is more than enough to power it. As long as you set that particular header to use 100% power, you should be fine.

Hope this was of some help to you. BTW - how are those Samsung 840 EVO's ? Every review I read is pretty much all glowing praise. They seem like they would be pretty awesome, but I've not used one myself.

EDIT: I should add that I also have 5x140mm chassis fans running off of a NZXT Sentry-2 fan controller. I wanted maximum airflow inside the case, but wanted the H90 to have the motherboard headers for monitoring and stability (there's still 3 vacant chassis fan headers on the mobo, but I wanted all the juice to go to the H90 because I was a mixture of hesitant and paranoid. LOL I'm new to this whole water-cooled CPU stuff, too).

Hi edd677,

 

Congrats on your new system! I myself, just 3 days ago, also built a new system. It's been a long time, I think the last time I put together a DIY rig was in the early Pentium 3 days.

 

I also went with the Corsair H90 for the cooling solution on my shiny new AMD FX-8350 that seemed to like to run as hot as the sun (seems that's normal for these newer 120+ TDP CPUs, though).

 

I researched this heavily before purchasing, and asked for advice on virtually every tech enthusiast forum I could find, and I found general consensus to be this:

 

H90 Pump -> CPU_FAN motherboard header <set that header to "Turbo" mode within UEFI BIOS, or whatever your brand of motherboard's equivalent to 100% [12 volt] power is, if no profiles are available, you can turn PWM fan control for that header off and just let it run wide open>

 

H90 Radiator Fan -> CPU_OPT motherboard header / any chassis fan header / fan controller <the rad fan on the H90 is PWM, so it can be controlled by your mobo's BIOS or software to your liking for noise vs. performance without issue>

 

Personally, on my ASUS mobo, I have the pump in CPU_FAN @ Turbo profile, and the rad fan in CPU_OPT and have a manually defined speed curve by using the ASUS fanXpert software. I'm sure any newer MSI motherboard would have some similar features, either in it's BIOS or included software tools. I have the speeds for the rad fan set pretty high as well, as I don't hear much noise at all coming from it)

 

I was hesitant to run a water pump off of a CPU Fan header also, but from what I've read and been advised by people with much more experience than I, 12v is more than enough to power it. As long as you set that particular header to use 100% power, you should be fine.

 

Hope this was of some help to you. BTW - how are those Samsung 840 EVO's ? Every review I read is pretty much all glowing praise. They seem like they would be pretty awesome, but I've not used one myself.

 

EDIT: I should add that I also have 5x140mm chassis fans running off of a NZXT Sentry-2 fan controller. I wanted maximum airflow inside the case, but wanted the H90 to have the motherboard headers for monitoring and stability (there's still 3 vacant chassis fan headers on the mobo, but I wanted all the juice to go to the H90 because I was a mixture of hesitant and paranoid. LOL I'm new to this whole water-cooled CPU stuff, too).

Thank you so so SO much for your response. It was perfect - exactly what I needed! Congrats on your new system too! What are you using it for?

The EVO's are lightning - especially in Raid 0!

Haha it's fun isn't it! I just need to work out how to overclock my CPU and then i'm finally sorted! Finished article is looking pretty nice... (see attached pic!).

Thank you so so SO much for your response. It was perfect - exactly what I needed! Congrats on your new system too! What are you using it for?

 

The EVO's are lightning - especially in Raid 0!

 

Haha it's fun isn't it! I just need to work out how to overclock my CPU and then i'm finally sorted! Finished article is looking pretty nice... (see attached pic!).

No problem, glad I could be of some help. Your system looks great in that case, and that LED fan controller on the front is really sharp, it looks very similar to the NZXT Sentry-2 that I use. I love being able to adjust the fans by the press of a button without having to fiddle with any buggy software! Looks awesome, I love the clean lines on those BitFenix cases.

If you click under my name on top of those post here, it'll list my System Specs. Only reason I say that is because I think they want people to do that rather than to list their whole parts list inside of posts. I'm going for the clean, minimalist look as well, only in a.... slightly bigger form factor. :laughing: Actually the Define XL R2 is a giant hulking Scandinavian viking behemoth of a case, but it had everything I wanted. It was on sale at the time, and was easy to work with for me, as I am a 6'5" guy with bigger hands, so cable management in those littler cases could be a real pain in the butt for me. It is freakin' heavy, though. I think it tips the scales at around 40.5lbs!

And yes, it's a whole lot of fun! This is the first time I've done a DIY build for some years, I think the last time was when the Pentium 3's were first coming out (makes me feel old :sigh!:). So much has changed since then, it's so much easier than it was back then. Aftermarket components are magnitudes easier to come by, and the selection is almost TOO much to comprehend. Companies and manufacturers are so much more approachable now, you don't have to deal with distributors who are clueless about the parts and are just re-selling what they get from China with a mark-up. I credit that to the Internet of course, but also to the popularity of tech enthusiast websites/blogs, and even more-so to places like Youtube.

No problem, glad I could be of some help. Your system looks great in that case, and that LED fan controller on the front is really sharp, it looks very similar to the NZXT Sentry-2 that I use. I love being able to adjust the fans by the press of a button without having to fiddle with any buggy software! Looks awesome, I love the clean lines on those BitFenix cases.

 

If you click under my name on top of those post here, it'll list my System Specs. Only reason I say that is because I think they want people to do that rather than to list their whole parts list inside of posts. I'm going for the clean, minimalist look as well, only in a.... slightly bigger form factor. :laughing: Actually the Define XL R2 is a giant hulking Scandinavian viking behemoth of a case, but it had everything I wanted. It was on sale at the time, and was easy to work with for me, as I am a 6'5" guy with bigger hands, so cable management in those littler cases could be a real pain in the butt for me. It is freakin' heavy, though. I think it tips the scales at around 40.5lbs!

 

And yes, it's a whole lot of fun! This is the first time I've done a DIY build for some years, I think the last time was when the Pentium 3's were first coming out (makes me feel old :sigh!:). So much has changed since then, it's so much easier than it was back then. Aftermarket components are magnitudes easier to come by, and the selection is almost TOO much to comprehend. Companies and manufacturers are so much more approachable now, you don't have to deal with distributors who are clueless about the parts and are just re-selling what they get from China with a mark-up. I credit that to the Internet of course, but also to the popularity of tech enthusiast websites/blogs, and even more-so to places like Youtube.

Very true! Mine isn't even working with the software, but I'm happy to press a few buttons (which are actually very responsive) every time I want to play a game!

Wow! haha. I last made one using a Q6700, but that must have been 4/5 years ago now. Yes I totally agree - far easier to come by - unless there is a sudden burst of confidence in cryptocurrencies...!