OCTO, D5 and fan control.

Gfor

Gfor

Gfor

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21 Jan 2021
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3
Dear all,
I'm slowly gathering parts for my first water cooled PC. For this build I will use
1* HW labs GTX 360
1* HW labs GTX 420
1* EKWB Ryzen edition CPU block
3* Artic Bionix F140 (case fans, on top out flow, two bottom inflow)

3* Artic Bionix P140 (fan for 420)
3* Artic Bionix P120 (fan for 360)
1* EKWB D5 PWM pump in a tube reservoir

I know this is overkill, in the future I'll add a water cooled GPU as well. But that might take a while.
For this I bought the AquaComputer Octo. However the Octo has 8 (duh) PWM fan outputs. The Arctic fans can be daisy chained. So my plan is to daisy chain the three P140 into one, the three P120 into one and the two F140 bottom intake into one. That means that I will use 4 PWM outputs of the OCTO for 9 case fans and one PWM output for the D5 pump.
Will this work?

Also I am looking at some RGB solutions, my GPU block has 5v DRGB. From what I've see is that Aquacomputer mostly supports 12V RGB, Is there a way to connect the CPU block to the Octo? Maybe together with the RGBpx lighting set for PC case. Or would all that be too much for a single OCTO?
Ryzen 5800X

Fractal Design Meshify 2 XL
MSI MEG B500 unify-X
G.Skill Trident Z RGB F4-4000C16D-32GTZR
Asus GTX1080 OC
AOC AG352UCG
PSU undecided yet. Seasonic TX 750 or Corsair HX850 v2 I think.

Any tips would be welome
 
Can't remember what the max output is per fan header but i have 6 EK 120 X3M fans over 2 headers and 1 header for my DDC, so i'm sure you will be fine.

Not sure about the RGB though, most of mine are 12v so i have my RGB connected to a separate ARGB controller.
 
I'll try my best here:
The fans and pump, fine. The only issue is that the speed you set for one, would be mirrored to the other fans on the same channel, obviously.
I used the same pump before, but decided to control it with the motherboard, more because I believe (may be wrong) if the pump fails the motherboard would flag it straight away.
The Octo support flow meter reading, which is a nice piece of kit you may get.
Even with the pump connected to the motherboard, the Aquasuite would still be able to monitor (but not change speed) it.
The Octo would work with proprietary led strips, but there's an adapter that allows a 3 pin standard ARGB to be connected and controlled by it.
It requires a bit of researching around to order the required parts/cables, as the way the aquacomputer gear is highly customizable, there will be many options available when it comes to cables and adapters.
Basically you'll need a RGBpx (aquacomputer standard) to 3 pin ARGB adapter. The RGBpx has to be the female version (male also available, as I mentioned before, attention when ordering) to 3 pin male or female (which would require the comb-looking bridge/adapter).
The Octo can run all the things you mentioned easily. In fact, I went with the Quadro as the Octo was unavailable at the time.

To make better use of the Octo potential, I would recommend a flow meter and temperature sensors.
If you decide to control the pump with the octo, you can configure it to speed up depending on the temperature reading from one of the four possible temperature sensors.
Let's say you have one sensor on your top rad, that is after your CPU block on your loop order. When the temperature of the sensor (that you installed at the port next to your rad inlet, considering the rad has multiple ports like the 45mm or thicker Alphacool), you can set a fan curve for the fans controlled by port X on Octo.
If you have a rad that would be between your GPU and CPU on your loop order, again, you can set a fan curve to speed up the fans.

The main thing you may notice though is that loop order is irrelevant on 99% of the cases.
The coolant temperature before and after the GPU block (2080 at the time) and before and after the Monoblock (CPU/Mosfet) was never more than 2C.

The speed of your pump, some may run their pumps as slow as possible. I rather use a single speed, which I try from many and set the one where going faster won't give any performance gain, and slower won't be needed, as the fans would be louder than the pump.
Every pump is different. I used some that where dead quiet at 50%, my last one was 60%.
Slower would emit some weird noise, like if some air bubbles were present, faster no gains, but noisier.
 
Gfor said:
I know this is overkill, in the future I'll add a water cooled GPU as well. But that might take a while.
For this I bought the AquaComputer Octo. However the Octo has 8 (duh) PWM fan outputs. The Arctic fans can be daisy chained. So my plan is to daisy chain the three P140 into one, the three P120 into one and the two F140 bottom intake into one. That means that I will use 4 PWM outputs of the OCTO for 9 case fans and one PWM output for the D5 pump.
Will this work?
Click to expand...

The Octo and Quadro can take 25W / 2A per fan connector (total 100W). So 3 Arctic should be fine. Not sure about the Bionix but the P14s I had were under 0.12A from memory, so miles from the limit.
 
Yes I would love to add a flow and temp control unit to the loop. But I think they are all sold out right now. The Flow sensor high flow NEXT, G1/4 would be the best solution. There is also the Flow sensor mps flow 100/200/400, G1/4 but I'm not sure what the flow in my system would be. The separate temp sensors they have so many models not sure which one are for the OCTO.

As for the pump speed and fan speed. I think I'll first set all of them at a fixed amount. Say 60% for the pump and the fans around 800rpm and start experimenting from there. The tube reservoir I use is from Singularity.

Do you know what the default setting of the Octo is? When I switch on m system for the first time. Will everything go at 100% or at 0%?
 
100% Then you can use a static %, fan curve or temperature target.
Temperature sensor the OCTO/Quadro uses the fin connector ones.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aqua...-internal-external-thread-g1-4-wc-120-aq.html
They look more or less like the connectors from Front panel to motherboard.
There's some others available, but they won't let you use side by side.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/monsoon-premium-g-1-4-temp-plug-black-chrome-wc-138-mo.html
Unless you manage to trim the extra plastic.
I would keep simple and get the thin ones.
Other brands available, just check if they have the extra "lips" or not.
 
Gfor said:
As for the pump speed and fan speed. I think I'll first set all of them at a fixed amount. Say 60% for the pump and the fans around 800rpm and start experimenting from there. The tube reservoir I use is from Singularity.
Click to expand...
You can set each channel to run at a fixed power level, to keep your loop at a target temperature, or to a defined curve (auto or manually configured). The control sensor/data for each of these three modes is pretty much anything you'd see in HWInfo, although water temperature is the one generally advised. Lots of options to play with!
You also have four profiles for different setups, which can be useful.

Gfor said:
Do you know what the default setting of the Octo is? When I switch on m system for the first time. Will everything go at 100% or at 0%?
Click to expand...
The very first time it will blaze away at 100%, but you can set this to whatever you want in Aquasuite.
It's down the bottom where you set the percentage of fan power to use if the controlling data source is not available at the time (such as a software sensor service that has not yet started up).
 
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