Fans / AIO interaction

[Nitefly]

Hi there - apologies in advance for the extremely noobish thread but I’m having trouble figuring out something in relation to fans and my AIO.

I have a suite of Lian Li SL120 fans. These fans come with a controller. I was intending on putting (from each group of fans) the fan rpm signal and the fan rgb signal into the controller. This all seems to make sense and as is per Lian Lin’s guidance. Happy days!

Here’s the fans with info on the controller:

https://www.lian-li.com/uni-fan/

My AIO is a NZXT Kraken 73. There seems to be a fan connections on the pump. Can I just ignore it completely? Or does the AIO have to be connected directly to the fans it’s connected to?

Here’s the AIO manual - see where it says about fan connections:

https://nzxt-site-media.s3-us-west-...49/KRAKEN-Z_Manual_690x405_020720_for_web.pdf

I presume that there is no need to connect the fans directly to the pump if they are separately connected to the motherboard via the Lian Li controller. Is that right?

It just seems to contradict each other and not explain whether it’s optional.

Please help a struggling noob!! Cheers!

 

[Nitefly]

I did that with my h150. Used the mobo to run the fans for the AIO rad, no problems.

Cheers mate, really appreciate the response. Is the option of connecting it to the pump just in case you don’t have a separate controller or whatever?

Thanks!

 

[Nitefly]

Think it's just so it's all controlled by one system / peice of software. I run push pull and wanted all 6 fans in sync without overloading the controller / pump header so decided to run them off a single controller and hooked up a couple of exhaust fans to the pump fan header instead.

Ah I see. Final questions (if you don’t mind ):

Would the pump work if you had no fans connected to the pump? As I mentioned, I was intending on running all fans via a separator controller.

In that situation, as the z73 comes with that cable that has a billion connections, do you simply leave them unplugged in the case? I guess so!

 

[Nitefly]

@Doug2507 like this ^^^

 

[Nitefly]

You need to connect that single one to the mobo as that should be for the pump control. Should have a pump header on your mobo. I've done the same with my corsair fans and AIO. Sata to psu, pump to mobo pump header, all 6 AIO fans onto corsairs own fan controller (pwm and rgb), then I've run 2 case fans using the pump fan connections (pwm)

Oh right - I thought that single cable was optional for RGB! Jeez! Glad I asked

There is a different USB cable to connect to the motherboard as well - what’s that for then.... I suppose it is one cable to motherboard for pump control and one cable for controlling the pump software/light.

So I gather you have those cables shown blue below on some fans that are not connected to your radiator. I was planning on not having them plugged in at all but I didn’t want to give the pump a hernia! I could always add the three ‘come with the AIO’ fans to the back of the radiator, but to my simple mind it would be weird to have ‘non-identical’ fans either side. I guess it would be fine...

I suppose the only way to know if the below way of doing it would cause issues is to ask NZXT themselves, as everyone always seems to use those cables for something else.

I do just wish the manual was more clear on what was absolutely necessary and what was not.

I am making a meal out of it huh

 

[Nitefly]

@Doug2507 thanks mate - really appreciate your time and patience

 

[Nitefly]

In a nutshell, plug it all in apart from the 3 pwm fan connectors if you don't want to use them. ( use 2 of mine for case fans but could easily just connect them to the mobo instead) The sata powers it, the USB 2.0 controls it, the 3 pin is just the tacho / speed signal to the mobo.

Some older motherboards went into panic mode if they didn't detect any signal from the cpu fan headers unless the bios setting was disabled, imagine it may be something to do with that too?

My P67 MB does exactly this. PWM channels to maximum. Easily disabled in BIOS.

Hi chaps - I hope you don't mind me resurrecting this one!

I was very much hoping you could clarify my understanding.

If I leave the 3 pwm fan connectors disconnected (i.e. those circled blue as per the most recent image above) and plugged the 3 pin into the pump header, am I going to have to disable the CPU fan header in the bios to avoid a 'you have no CPU fans' error? Or it a case of seeing if there is an error and, if there is, make the change in the bios? Or was this only an issue with older motherboards (in which case it should just work fine)? I'll be using a 2020 board.

As I mentioned, I'm intending on installing my radiator fans onto a separate controller.

Thanks for your help / patience - I'm a super novice

 

[Nitefly]

Never changed. You'll get cpu error if there's no fan on that header when you 1st start up. If not using it, just disable monitoring that header in bios.

It may require disabling of monitoring in the bios, but I'd expect it'll most likely work fine as it's still using the CPU_Pump header (and I'd expect most boards these days will account for AIOs having passthrough control of fans). The blue plugs won't have any impact, they're just there for passthrough fan control via the AIO software.

Thanks both - I’ll give it a go (without fiddling with the bios on the hope that connecting to the pump control will sort this) and if I then get an error message I’ll then review the monitoring options in the bios

I’m hoping that the motherboard and controller software will be intelligent enough to let me link the radiator fans (connected to the fan controller) to CPU temps...!

 

[Nitefly]

Any fan connected to the AIO fan controller will be run based on cpu temp.

Thanks. As I was intending to connect them, none of them will be directly connected to the pump - all fans would instead be going into the Lian Li controller so I could control them from there.

Would that be erroneous?

 

[Nitefly]

Don't over think it. 2 pages of connecting AIO fans, plug em in and see what happens.

will do