question conc. pump / fan connection....noob watercooler here ;-)

[deadbydawn]

hi all

i've been active in the other parts of the forum but here it's a first timer for me... so is the topic watercooling. now i have a thing i just can't get ahead with and have been thinking about it for a while now:

i plan a build where i use two sperate loops, one for the cpu with one 480 rad (4 x 120mm fans) and one loop for the 3 gpus with one 480 rad (4 x 120mm fans or maybe 8 x 120mm in push/pull...not sure yet) and one 360 rad (3 - 120mm fans), using two pumps.

now my question to pros: how would you hook up the pumps and the fans? all of my fans are pwm fans. now what i though about doing was the following:

 

- using those pwm splitters (http://www.amazon.com/Phobya-4-Pin-Splitter-Power-Eight/dp/B00OD7MO6E) to "collect" all the fans of one radiator and then sending them to a aerocool touch 2100 fan controller (http://www.aerocool.us/peripheral/touch2100.htm).

 so in the end i have 3 rads going to 3 splitters and from there going to 3 ports of the fan controll.

this doesn't seem to work, the fan controller is a 3pin one (only 1 of the connectors is a 4 pin pwm port). i tried with two fans on the splitter and from there to the fan controller. but i'm not able to regulate the fans. if this would have worked out, i would have connected the two pumps the the cpu_fan and cpu_opt headers on the mainboard (asus rampage v extreme).

 

now i'm thinking about using those splitters to "collect" the fans of the rads and then connecting them to the different fan-headers on the mainboard, but the question i'm facing here is: let's say i connect the pump for the cpu-loop to the cpu-fan header, the pump for the gpus to the cpu_opt header...how does the mobo know that the gpus are getting warmer and therefore regulates the cpu_opt header? and if i do it like this, do i just connect the 3 splitters for the 3 rads to other ports on the mobo? here again my question: if the cpu is getting warmer, the mobo will try to up-rpm the pump. but how does it know, the fans on the rad connected to i.e. chassis1-header has to be upped as well?

 

i hope anyone understands what i'm saying ^^ i'm so confused about this it's hard to even write straight haha... if you don't know what i'm talking about let me know, i will try to explain in more detail whatever part is unclear..

 

thanks for your help in advanced and i wish you all a great monday

cheers

[prins_carnaval]

I would go for one big loop with all the radiators you've got.  I think it's a better idea to use all the cooling capacity for all your components. Especially 3 titan x's (if your sig is right) are going to produce way more heat than your cpu.

 

From my experience with watercooling, it doesn't really mather in which way you set-up your components. The only thing that you have to bear in mind is to place the pump directly under the reservoir.

 

To connect all those fans, personally I would go with a fan controller. You can use those fan splitter cables too, but first check the maximal current that you can draw from your motherboard's fan header. 

[titancomplex86]

I agree with prins_carnaval, but also recomend you figure out and plan the flow direction of the loop with your pumps. I have a moderate loop and only needed one pump, i believe the p55 from swiftech, but when i planned and mounted my pump i had the flow through the pump backwards and it complicated my tubing. The general flow from one component to another does not matter so much cuz all of the water/liquid will have the same temp, i say this cuz the temperature difference within the loop will be negligeable as long as the loop is not crazy like Linus's, from LTT, crazy multi PC water loop.

 

Another thing i would suggest is a fan controller setup, some companies sell these as all inclusive units that go into one of your 5.25" front drive bays.

 

On my setup i have 2x240 rads one reervoir directly to feed my pump and a cpu block. For fan coltrol i have a pwm 8fan splitter for my six fans plugged into my cpu fan header and it works good. Except if my cpu load goes over 12% the fans speed up from idle speeds to mid and then at 50% they are at or near full speed so that gets more uncomfortable. At idle they are very quiet and at medium they are slightly uncomfortable at first. If you use a fan controller you can set this so they dont change or if you use fan control software you can make the transitions less abrupt. Either will work but i recomend a fan controller.

 

I guess the last thing for this post is to make sure you are prepared. Water cooling is expensive, troublesome, time-consuming, and quite heavy. On my loop i spent about $900usd and it was mild, i spent about 25hrs on the actual build and similar on the planning. Also all said it probably weighs about 75lbs so deffinately not for LANs.

 

[Kithylin]

One thing I wanted to note to you about the fans and connecting multiple together.

 

Those Aerocool fan controllers specifically state maximum wattage per channel is 25 watts. Depending on the fans you use, you could exceed that with just 2 fans connected together. Make sure you carefully look at the wattage for the fans and add it up (Additive) together to make sure you don't burn out the ports on the fan controller (It is possible and is a risk).