Custom loop temp control

[916Mick]

Hi,
I'm stating to think that the temperature control for my custom loop is wrong.
At the moment my pump speed is set at 75% and my fans are controlled by CPU core temperature via a curve set in the bios.
During GPU intensive games the gpu gets hot, the whole loop gets warm, but fans stay low due to CPU not getting hot.
I've ordered a Aqua computer temp sensor to fit in the lop to monitor coolant temp.
Can coolant temp be used in the bios to control the fans/pump or will i also need an aqua computer quaddro controller
for control? i'd prefer bios control.
Current rig is :-
Asus Crosshair VII Hero (x470)
Ryzen 7 5800x CPU under EK waterblock
RTX 3080 ti FE With corsair waterblock
360mm radiators (top & bottom) with 3 Lian li DSL 120 on each.
Lian Li 011 dynamic case with EK side Distro Plate

Mobo has plugs for water in, water out & flow but manual is very vague

Any advice or experience appreciated.

Mick

 

[Gavster]

You can set your fan speed in relation to water temps in the bios if you have a two pin temp header on your motherboard, mine has two so I use one to read the ambient temp outside the case and the other to read my water temp in my loop.
I have a profile set in my fan curve in the bios so the warmer the water gets the more the fans speed increases, so at around 25 degrees my fans are spinning at 600rpm and as the temps rise to say 30 degrees my fans will be hitting 1000rpm.

My pump is set to 50% as I found no difference between 50% and 100% temp wise.

 

[916Mick]

Ok, So does it matter where i put the temp sensor in the loop?
i'm lead to believe it doesn't make a huge amount of difference.
Also do i plug sensor into water in or water out on mobo ?

 

[VersionMonkey]

No, it doesn't matter where you put the sensor in the loop.

It probably doesn't matter which of the W_IN or W_OUT headers you use either, but check in the BIOS fan control which can be selected as a reference for the fan curve - I would expect you can select either.

 

[Gavster]

No it doesn`t really matter where in the loop you put it as the water temp should normalise through the loop, mine is on a T just before it goes back in to the pump/reservoir combo.

Your temp sensor wants to go into the 2 pin T_SENSOR1 header (number 23 in the manual, pages 17 & 18) on your motherboard, it`s at the bottom on the left hand side

The water in and out headers are for flow meters.

 

[therealdippy]

As you have realised, if what you are controlling does not have a direct influence on what you are measuring then the results won't be good. The fans are there to directly cool the water. The water is a heatsink which is not directly related to the ASIC core temperature. During gaming you could have GPU at 70C and water at 35C. After gaming the GPU might be at 30C and the water still at 35C for a while!

I have 7 rad fans and 2 case fans and wanted to control them individually in order to try to have a PC which I could keep as quiet as possible. So I have an Aquacomputer OCTO, and 8 of them are controlled by Aquasuite. I even have 3 temperature sensors (one on the output of each rad) so that my fan speed control is as closely coupled with the temperature of the water in the rad on which they are mounted. But this leaves me with 1 fan and 2 pumps (I have a dual pump block) which I have to connect to mobo and control by BIOS.

Whilst in reality my setup is not as great as I designed it to be (it's my first) because that individual fan control is of marginal benefit, the difference between Aquasuite control of the fans and BIOS control is significant. I don't have a huge experience of different motherboards but my current Gigabyte Aorus Master has a far better fan control in BIOS than my last PC which used a high-end Asus motherboard. But it is still so limited compared to Aquasuite.

See how you get on with yours - you always have the option to upgrade to Aquacomputer Quadro and Aquasuite if you still find the control inadequate.

 

[SirConfused]

Not sure if it's chipset related or something the manufacturer chooses, but you might not be able to adjust the cpu fan curve with anything other than cpu temp. Something worth checking as it confused me when I was trying to set a curve in the asus bios.

 

[Gavster]

Not sure if it's chipset related or something the manufacturer chooses, but you might not be able to adjust the cpu fan curve with anything other than cpu temp. Something worth checking as it confused me when I was trying to set a curve in the asus bios.

With my Gigabyte board you can set the fan curve to any of the headers, I have a fan hub so all the fans are at the same speed and my pump is set to 50%, there are eight different headers to choose from if you wanted to.

 

[916Mick]

Thank you both for responses.
Just gotta wait for the sensor

 

[Sibbers]

My temp sensor (that came with the MB) is just placed above the top rad, sandwiched between it and the case. I set my temps to respond to EC_TEMP1 and ask the motherboard to ramp up speeds as it approaches 30c. Water temp (according to the sensor) rarely goes above 32 unless it’s peak summer but even then mostly it just gets louder as the fans need to do more work.

I have a ‘proper’ sensor to take actual water temps but it’s more annoying and it turns out reads exactly the same temps. All the other temps can be seen in HWInfo and they’re all good so I’m pretty confident now and that’s how I deal with it.

Heads up if you fancy doing the same in the meantime while you wait. Most annoying part is figuring out the noise levels and curves for your desired and effective operating temps over a small range between 20 and maybe 36 degrees or whatever. If you have different fan types you might want different %ages to get the sound levels where you want them matched. I know plenty of others are happy with higher temps, but I like about 30c to be where it settles for ‘normal days’ and that works out a happy compromise for cooling and quiet…

 

[Drumroll]

Pump speed, passed the point where flow is enough, won’t bring any gain. Some very restrictive radiator and waterblocks may require pumps to work at higher speed, but usually, not the case. With D5, I always look for the point where the pump is inaudible. Can be 50, 55, 60, 65%. Depends on the unit, as sometimes lower % doesn’t mean quieter. Is a trial and error task, until you find it.
The main thing that can impact your coolant temperature, after the pump is properly adjusted, and considering you have enough rad area, are the fans. Considering they have access to cool air, their efficiency will dictate how well you can keep your coolant temperature at bay. For a gaming computer, GPU will have a bigger impact on the power dumped into the loop. Side effect, CPU will run slightly hotter if compared to a good AIO or a dedicated loop, but won’t be an issue.
There’s two ways to control your coolant temperature efficiently: as your motherboard allows for a temperature sensor, you can control your fans to run slower or faster depending on the coolant temperature. Leave the pump at a constant rpm, as you won’t gain much, if anything, and the change of rpm is usually more annoying than a constant rpm. Second option, would cost you a bit, but for anyone with a custom loop, is the best money you’ll ever spend: Aquacomputer quadro or Octo. You can leave your pump being controlled by the motherboard, but being able to control each fan channel on the fly, while monitoring 4 physical sensors, and many others, and creating what is the perfect way of controlling your coolant temperature: delta temperature. Let’s say you have 40C coolant temperature. If your room is 20C, everyone here would say is safe but high. But during summer, if your room is 30C, still safe but 10C delta is okay.

 

[newuser]

I use Argus monitor software to control the fans and pump according to water temp.
It reads most sensors including the temp header on the mobo and those on the GPU and allows control of most fan and pump headers.
My parts, tubing and coolant are rated to 60c so I let the water temp hit high 30s under heavy use to keep the noise as low as possible. I also have 3 different profiles on hotkeys depending on what I'm doing.
In my case (here all week folks) I've found pump speed makes a difference up to about 70% so that's the top of my curve. Fans I try to keep under 1000rpm.
To set it up I ran loops of Port Royal with the fans and pump at 50% to get a base line, then at different speeds for the fans and pump to see the effect on temps. Also it's easier to get ahead of the curve and stop parts getting hot rather than cool them down after the fact.

I use the same software on my air cooled PC as well but the curve for the case fans use the GPU memory junction temp.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Second option, would cost you a bit, but for anyone with a custom loop, is the best money you’ll ever spend: Aquacomputer quadro or Octo. You can leave your pump being controlled by the motherboard, but being able to control each fan channel on the fly, while monitoring 4 physical sensors, and many others, and creating what is the perfect way of controlling your coolant temperature: delta temperature.

Aquacomputer D5 NEXT... Pump with integrated water temp sensor and fan control, as well as pump speed control... and a host of other things. It's basically a mini Aquaero hidden inside a pretty decent pump/res combo.

 

[Mr Mcgoo]

I use the aqua computer d5 next. Great pump. It can report current water temp and also can control up to 25 watts of fans via aqua suite. Or like me you can use a fan controller (easier for the pump fan header) and plug the rpm sensor pin into the pump fan header and use aqua suite to set pump and/or fan speeds to water temp.

 

[916Mick]

Sorry guys but i need more help.
The sensor has arrived and is now fitted and working.
In the BIOS i can change the lower fan control to temp probe, these fans are plugged into CHA-FAN1.
The upper fans are plugged into CPU-FAN but there is no option to change control from CPU to temp probe control.
Can i move the upper fans from CPU to CHAS-FAN2 and somehow get the bios to disregard CPU-FAN
I hope this makes sense

Wow... nearly 100 posts in 10 years..as you can see, if you've got nothing to say, say nothing.

 

[Sibbers]

It does make sense. The CPU header often can’t be reassigned while all the rest can. I just don’t bother with CPU, and instead use CPU-OPT, System 1, system 2 etc.

So yeah, you can just move to CHAS-FAN2.

Unless I’ve misunderstood what you’re saying.

 

[916Mick]

Yeah CPU-OPT will be good coz its next to CPU-FAN
Can the bios be set to ignore CPU-FAN so it doesnt give warning for no fan connected

 

[Sibbers]

Yep. Mine didn't need changing, but in the bit where you do the fan speeds you’ll see options to ignore zero rpm and set warning temps etc.

It will take a little bit of tweaking to get your fans just right to control the water temp, but once done it makes so much more sense and you’ll love it. I reckon setting fans to about 50 or 60% (wherever they move most air without getting loud yet) for 30c and 100% for about 38c is a good place to start.

 

[SirConfused]

It depends on the manufacturer and bios unfortunately. For example, on my board the cpu_opt is tied to the cpu_fan header and the cpu_fan has to have something plugged in. Plus it can only be linked to cpu temp .
As far as I can tell the only way round that is a separate fan controller.

 

[newuser]

It depends on the manufacturer and bios unfortunately. For example, on my board the cpu_opt is tied to the cpu_fan header and the cpu_fan has to have something plugged in. Plus it can only be linked to cpu temp .
As far as I can tell the only way round that is a separate fan controller.

It can be done through software, I use Argus monitor, fancontrol is a free alternative. Not all headers on a given board can be controlled or even addressed. On my Z490-E there's a header for the optional VRM fan that comes with the board that can't be adjusted anywhere. Later boards got a bios update to allow it, mine didn't. Some pump headers will also only run at one speed. Most others can be controlled.

I've got -

Top rad - two fans plugged into cpu and cpu opt.
Front rad - three fans on a splitter into a chassis fan header. Checked the ratings for the fans and header, five of those fans would be the max, wouldn't do it though.
Rear Fan - chassis fan header
PWM signal for pump - plugged into the optional M2 fan header. Pump power is through a molex to sata adaptor so I didn't have to run another PSU cable.

I'm using the 2 pin temp sensor that came with my pump plugged into the motherboard temp sensor. Using that temp (water temp) to control all the fans and the pump through the add on software. The bios and Asus software wouldn't allow me to do that even though the monitoring chip on the board can read the values.