H80i V2

I would like some advise

I have just replaced my H70 with a H80i V2 due to my H70 giving into retirement.

I find I can't use the corsair link as all my USB headers are used! and connecting the H80 to the to the CPU_Fan header and then the 2 fans to the H80 results in no fan control or even monitoring.

And even setting the CPU_Fan to 100% results in a pump speed of 1430 RPM, which may be normal because I can't find any specs on what it should be.

I have an aging ASUS mobo P6X58D Premium running Windows 7 and an i7 and have no reason to want a change.

So like the H70, I have connected the 2 fans via a splitter to the CPU_Fan so I can no see 1 and it's RPM and control both using ASUS AI suite but I have connected the pump to Fan 2 on the mobo and all that lets me do is see what RPM it is running at.

So my questions:

Is the above okay or is there a better way.?

Is the pump able to have it's RPM controlled?

What is the maximum RPM of the pump?

Thanks in advance.

First, the pump's fan connector needs to be connected to a fan that runs at 100%, all the time. This powers the pump and the pump requires the full 12V at all times.

Second, the RPM reading for that fan header will be about 1/2 of the actual pump speed. So if you see an RPM of 1430, the actual pump RPM is about 2800-2900 RPM. That's performance mode and just fine.

While you can run the fans for the cooler from a standard fan header, the control you have of them will be limited to using the CPU temperature, which isn't the best control source. When the fans are controlled by the cooler, the default control source is the temperature of the coolant.

Now, I completely understand being out of internal headers and you have a couple of options there. One is to get an internal USB hub to give yourself a few more headers. Another is to use a standard mini-USB cable and run this to an external port on your motherboard's backpanel I/O. Depending on what you have on your internal USB headers, you may be able to wire two devices, including the cooler, to a single header. Internal USB headers have pins for 2 USB ports and the cooler really only needs 1 port. So ... if something else that's connected to one of the internal headers only actually uses 1 port, you can get 2 single port USB extension cables to wire it up. Only do this if you are familiar with and comfortable with the cables, by the way. Last, but not least, is to get a Commander Pro, which has two USB headers and serves as a hub itself.

First, the pump's fan connector needs to be connected to a fan that runs at 100%, all the time. This powers the pump and the pump requires the full 12V at all times.

 

Second, the RPM reading for that fan header will be about 1/2 of the actual pump speed. So if you see an RPM of 1430, the actual pump RPM is about 2800-2900 RPM. That's performance mode and just fine.

 

While you can run the fans for the cooler from a standard fan header, the control you have of them will be limited to using the CPU temperature, which isn't the best control source. When the fans are controlled by the cooler, the default control source is the temperature of the coolant.

 

Now, I completely understand being out of internal headers and you have a couple of options there. One is to get an internal USB hub to give yourself a few more headers. Another is to use a standard mini-USB cable and run this to an external port on your motherboard's backpanel I/O. Depending on what you have on your internal USB headers, you may be able to wire two devices, including the cooler, to a single header. Internal USB headers have pins for 2 USB ports and the cooler really only needs 1 port. So ... if something else that's connected to one of the internal headers only actually uses 1 port, you can get 2 single port USB extension cables to wire it up. Only do this if you are familiar with and comfortable with the cables, by the way. Last, but not least, is to get a Commander Pro, which has two USB headers and serves as a hub itself.

Thank you very much appreciated the time you took to respond, and I will take your advice :praise::praise:

Addendum:

I did get Corsair link to work using a connection to an external USB port, and I was going to order a Internal USB Hub to make a permanent connection.

I am a big fan of corsair having, PSU, memory and cooler, only 1 device will work with link.

At this time I think link is for a problem that does not exist for me! I'm a mature user so are not a fan of RGB anything except when editing my photos, I am a AAA gamer so performance is paramount and reducing background programs is a prime objective.

I remove the USB cable and Link software and went back to letting ASUS AI Suite monitor and control my (H80i) fans all other monitoring is done by AIDA64 and MSI Afterbuner, existing programs that run very well on my system, so thanks for your suggestions and help, but my solution whilst it bypasses fluid temps in favour of CPU temps does work for me.

As a side issue and a plug for H80i doing some stress testing and running the CPU at 100% my temps never go above 45C and fans never at maximum, the older H70 would go beyond 60C with fans at maximum, one reason I think for that is when I removed H70 found the radiator was covered in dust blocking most of the surface area. SO regular annual removal and cleaning of the radiator is now the norm.

Again thanks for your help

So ... you can use Link to configure the settings for the cooler and then save the settings to the device. Your custom fan curve will run from the cooler, no software required (as long as the temperature source is the coolant).

And ... seriously ... if you want to minimize background CPU usage, then uninstall AISuite. That is, if you can ... it didn't completely uninstall for me and I had to get medieval with it. I had far more issues with that than I even did with Link and I've seen it use over 20% CPU for no apparent reason.

So ... you can use Link to configure the settings for the cooler and then save the settings to the device. Your custom fan curve will run from the cooler, no software required (as long as the temperature source is the coolant).

 

And ... seriously ... if you want to minimize background CPU usage, then uninstall AISuite. That is, if you can ... it didn't completely uninstall for me and I had to get medieval with it. I had far more issues with that than I even did with Link and I've seen it use over 20% CPU for no apparent reason.

Again thanks,

My AI Suite is back at version 1! in those days all it did was transfer the settings from desktop to BIOS, no ongoing running :biggrin: if ever at rest I saw my CPU in excess of 2% I go fishing.

Will look at your suggestion regarding saving curves to the pump although it will involve re-plugging in USB and reloading Link to change. :eek:

Again thanks,

 

My AI Suite is back at version 1! in those days all it did was transfer the settings from desktop to BIOS, no ongoing running :biggrin:

 

Will look at your suggestion regarding saving curves to the pump although it will involve re-plugging in USB and reloading Link to change. :eek:

What I'd recommend is that you leave the USB plugged in ... and leave Link installed. You can then disable it from loading at Windows startup. It won't load anything ... no service starting, nothing. But it'll be there if you need/want it. With the USB plugged in, you should be able to monitor your coolant temperature in Aida as well ... c-attack can speak to that more definitively than I can. In all honesty ... your coolant temperature is a pretty key component to your overall thermal monitoring as it will determine the lower bound of your CPU temperature. High coolant temperatures can also be indicative of an airflow problem (particularly with high-powered GPUs) that are otherwise difficult to see.

You do realize that the fluid temp will never exceed the CPU temp! unless the mobo has caught fire of course.

Yes, I do. Also the CPU cannot be lower than the fluid.

Here's the thing: the fans on the radiator do not cool the CPU. They cool the coolant. The coolant does not heat up as quickly as the CPU does nor is it as spiky. Also, after a heavy load, the fluid take longer to cool down (for the same reason that it heats up slower ... higher specific heat). Controlling the fan speed by the coolant temperature has the fans controlled by the value that they actually cool, not via an indirect heat source (CPU).

Finally, in most installations, the radiator is configured as exhaust ... so it's cooled by the internal case air. With a high-powered GPU, this can get quite warm - warmer than most people realize - and prevents the coolant from cooling down.

Allow me to provide a concrete example of this.

If you look in my "System Specs", you'll note that I have an H115i PRO cooler. Like your H80i V2, it monitors the coolant temperature. I have my fans based on the coolant temperature. What my systems specs don't show is that I have another system in my office (my server) and often have a laptop going as well ... and 3 monitors.

As you can probably imagine, my office can get a bit warm with all this. So I typically leave my office door open with a small fan blowing cooler air from the rest of the house into the office. Well, I was on some conference calls this morning and my wife decided that I was a bit loud (I tend to do that) and she shut the doors and they stayed shut for about 2 hours.

After a bit ... I noticed that my fans were going faster ... fast enough that I could hear them. Now, this is not typical ... they are usually pretty quiet, even while gaming. So ... I was like ... WTF?? I looked and my CPU temp wasn't crazy (PC wasn't working hard) and my GPU was pretty much at idle ... why was my radiator going crazy? Well, the radiator temp was a little over 34C. With my CoPro's temp sensors, I could see that it was the internal case temperature that was causing the issue ... because my office was now closed. Opening my office doors to cool my office down dropped the temps in just a few minutes.

If my fan speeds on my radiator were based on CPU temp, they wouldn't have spun up - and they should have (to keep the coolant cool). The warming of the radiator coolant wasn't due to CPU load - there really wasn't much (I was on a conference call ... not really doing much) - but due to the ambient environment. By not monitoring your coolant temperature and not controlling your fan speeds by the coolant temperature, these things would be completely invisible to you. Focusing solely on CPU temperature is myopic - there's much more to the entire thermal environment than just the CPU temperature. We use it out of habit because, for a long time, that's been the only indicator that we have. But now that we have more, we should use them as it's the only way to really get the holistic view of then entirety of the thermal environment.

This is now getting a bit subjective! I prefer to monitor my CPU and have my fans instantly react to temperatures from the CPU, realizing that any fluid will eventually catch up or down to the CPU temp, after all these cooling devices are made to cool the CPU.

You will be aware that Corsair recommend the fans are set to input not exhaust? depending on how well ventilated your case is, my set up follows Corsair recommendations.

I live in Australia where summer time temps can become very warm and winter temps like right now very cool, 10C this morning, so managing heat in a high end computer is an art form that I have been doing for a long time. in summer I have AC running thus setting the fans to input makes more sense than exhaust.

I am a Professional Photographer, A Combat Veteran (Vietnam) and retired! I process large commercial stock images for sale, these require a lot of computing power as well as playing premium AAA games above 60FPS.

I have considered your suggestions but find them not suitable to my needs and reduce my present functions by example when playing a game afterburner gives me an OSD where I can constantly see pump rotation and fan speed as well as everything else I need to see CPU/GPU Temp, GPU Fan speed, Memory and page file use, CPU/GPU Utilization, now you'll say I can have that with 'Link' but only by adding to my present structure, so lets agree to disagree.

It has been nice and informative chatting with you