correct installation of power to watercooling

[DanielLange]

Hi, so I bought a Corsair H40 watercooling a little while ago, and I noticed that the cooler needed two connections to the motherboard, one for the fan and one for the pump.
My motherboard is a GA-990FXA-UD5 - Socket-AM3+

So, my question is, where should the pump get connected? In the CPU-fan port? Or Pwr-fan port?
And where should I connect my fan?
And also, I bought two fans for this watercooler, so I have a push-pull solution and because of this, I got this kind of cable:

Was this a good choice of me?

Right now, I got both the fans connected to the CPU-fan port, and the pump connected to the Pwr-fan port.

So, the entire reason of why I'm asking, is because my CPU is reading 42°c idle, and I feel it should be much lower, because I feel my system isn't operating cool enough.

I also have the ability to connect my fans to a fan controller and manually adjust the fan speed.
Would that be the best?
Connect the pump to the CPU-fan port, and both fans to the fan controller?

http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=208

Unfortunately the fan controller only gives 7w per channel, and I'm not sure if it's powerful enough for my Corsair SP120s

Also, my CPU is a AMD FX8150, running at stock speed.

 

[MagR]

Normally you connect the fan to the cpu header so it adjusts the speed for different temperatures. Your y-splitter so should do the job for both fans if connected to the cpu header. However it looks like a 3-pin whereas you need a 4-pin to 4-pin for power and speed adjustment. It might be easier just to connect your fans to your fan controller and experiment with a setting that gives a good balance between noise and cooling. The Corsair website shows the maximum wattage for its fans so you can check whether 7W is enough for two fans. If not you can't use the splitter and will have to connect each fan to its own channel on the controller.

Regarding your pump you should have this connected to a system or power fan as you have. However you say the cpu is still running a little hot. The pump is designed to have the full power coming from the header. Have a look in the BIOS (press del on boot) and check the setting for this heading. It needs to be at 100% fixed speed all the time for the pump to work properly - any less and you won't be getting high enough flow. The default setting may have the power to this at say 60% which is not enough.

Hope this helps

Mag

 

[DanielLange]

Thanks, I found out that connecting my fans to the controller gave me the advantage of controlling the speed manually, but this didn't reduce the heat, so I'll check if I can manually adjust the power to the pump inside the bios.

Also, my CPU fans only have a three pin connection.

Thanks for the help :)
I'll post results back.

 

[MagR]

Hi

If your fans are 3-pin the fan speed can't be varied automatically - if connected to the motherboard you can normally set a fixed speed of your choice in the BIOS. However it is easier to use a fan controller as you are doing.

Good luck seeing if you can adjust the pump speed in the BIOS. One final thought - are your radiator fans orientated correctly? Some Corsair all-in-one watercoolers should be set with the fans as intakes even though they normally occupy exhaust fans mounts in the case. If set as exhausts this can increase the temperatures unfortunately. The advantage of Corsair's method is cool air from outside the case is used. This strikes me as a little strange as it means rear mounts become intakes which could confuse the airflow. Depending on the layout of your case it might be possible to use a front mount rather than a rear or top mount as this would give a more conventional bottom/front to rear/top airflow.

Hope this helps

Mag

 

[DanielLange]

Actually my computer is able to adjust the speed of my CPU fans according to the temperature.
Here's a map over the airflow of my case:

After fondling around in the bios, and trying different programs such as easytune 6, and speedfan. I can't seem to control the "fan" manually...
Right now, the pump is reading 1440 RPM, and I've read that it should run around that number.
Also the air coming out of the case on the top is quite cool, and all of sudden my CPU is reading around 27°c, but have the tendency to spike up to 37°c.. So it seems like I've been able to cool it down to normal temps.