Poll: Preference for header connections for simple closed-loop cooler

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9 Oct 2018
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Option 1:
  • Pump -> CPU_Fan Header
  • Pump connected to SATA power
  • Radiator Fans connected to pump
  • Pump connected to USB header
  • Control fans through Windows software (e.g Corsair Link)
Option 2:
  • Pump -> CPU_Pump Header
  • SATA power connector shouldn't be required?
  • 1st Radiator fan connected to CPU_Fan Header
  • 2nd Radiator fan connected to CPU_OPT
  • Control fans through BIOS
Context:
I work in a computer repair shop. We mostly deal with consumer-level stuff - mostly laptops. However we have a customer with more-money-than-technical know-how who has decided his current water cooling solution had died, has bought a replacement, and is paying us to fit it.
My collegue/boss has a water cooler in his own tower so the job got left to him.
The case is a horrible Anidees one. The new cooler is a H115i Pro. The motherboard is a Socket 1151 ROG Maximus X Hero.

My collegue is used to option 1 and considers it the "way it is done".
They are backed up by the manual for the H115i Pro that (in my opinion) assumes your motherboard doesn't have a Pump header and extra CPU Header and instruct you to do Option 1. I guess they also want you to use thier software.

My preference would be for Option 2. The cabling is simpler/cleaner, doesn't use up a USB header and doesn't require extra software running at Windows startup. I'd also imagine you could do without the SATA power connector (pump is powered by pump header and won't need the extra power as it is not powering the fans) which would make the cabling even cleaner. I'd feel more secure knowing my fan settings are in operation from power-on and not only after the program has launched.
Admittedly in this specific instance, the pump doesn't have the ability to connect to a motherboard RGB so AFAIK the only way to stop it flashing rainbow lights is to install the software (although it will still rainbow flash until the software loads).

Googling suggests this is a preference rather than one way being strictly correct and I'm interested to see which way this community leans.
If someone could make this an actual poll that would be great!
 
pretty sure the fans will still spin even before you get into Windows for the software to kick into play and control the speed, or is that not the case?
Oh the fans spin all right and the pump pumps, but, judging by the way it reverts to default rainbow RGB pre-Windows, I'd bet it reverts to it's default fan settings pre-Windows as well. Seems like the H115i Pro doesn't have any non-volatile memory. So yeh it will keep things cool enough but I don't like the idea of it (possibly audibly) switching to different fan settings only after a delay.

Yeh I was initially working under the assumption the RGB Cooler would be able to connect with an RGB Header to sync with the Motherboard but the H115i Pro - despite being released in 2017 - seems to be stuck in the past. For the sake of argument it'd be prudent to either ignore RGB or consider a cooler that can connect to a motherboard RGB header as any good modern AIO should.
 
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