Stupid question about AIO cooler installation

Doc Rob

Doc Rob

Doc Rob

Associate
Joined
11 Oct 2005
Posts
139
Hi,

In the middle of a new PC build. Installing a Corsair Nautilus AIO cooler. The MB is an Asus TUF B850 plus WiFi.

Slightly confused about which MB headers to use. The cooler has one power lead for the pump and a separate one for the fans (the fans are not connected electrically to the cooler at all).

MB manual says to connect the pump to the AIO_PUMP header and the radiator to the CPU_FAN. However, the cooler manual says to connect the pump to the CPU_FAN header and the radiator fans to another fan header on the MB.

Clearly I can’t do both. So which do I do?

Option 1: MB manual (pump to AIO_PUMP, fans to CPU_FAN)

Option 2: AIO manual (pump to CPU_FAN, fans to another fan header, nothing to AIO_PUMP)
 
The AIO probably references connecting the pump to the cpu_fan header because presumably not all motherboards come with a dedicated pump header, so as to avoid confusion or support calls requests from people who don’t have the pump headers.

You'll be fine to use either option, using the pump header for the pump just keeps things neater easier to set up PWM profiles etc.
 
Looking at the manual if you have 1 x cpu fan you use CPU_FAN and if you have 2 you use CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT

Failing that you can just connect 2 fans to CPU_FAN and use a splitter for it to use 1 header

You connect the pump to AIO_PUMP
 
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The main reason to the use CPU fan header is because some mobos won't post or will error if there's nothing connected. That's only really an issue if the fans connect to the AIO rather than the mobo.

You'll want the AIO on the pump header and the fans on a Y splitter on the CPU header.
 
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