How to power my Corsair Hydro Series H60

grahamrigs · Jul 25, 2013

Hello, I made this account just to ask this question, sorry if this is the wrong forum.

I recently decided to purchase some water cooling for my Intel i5-3570k CPU, and I heard great things about the system in the title. I proceeded to buy it. Installation went fine, the only issue I'm having is how to hook up the power to the fans in my case.

I am using the ASRock z77 PRO3 motherboard, which comes with one 4-pin case fan connector, one 3-pin fan connector, one 3-pin power fan connector, one 4-pin CPU fan connector and one 3-pin CPU fan connector.

In my setup I would like to have the radiator fan as well as an other fan act as the air intakes, and a third fan to act as the output.

I've read that the pump should be plugged into the cpu power slot, as then if it malfunctions and doesn't start then the motherboard will forcibly shut down the computer, preventing fryage. But also read that it should run at 100% all the time for the pump to function correctly.

My issue is that I feel I only have three options:
-If I have both the radiator fan and the pump hooked up to the cpu power supplies, then I can either have the radiator fan at 100% all the time (loud) or the pump's speed will vary.
-If I hook up the pump to the power fan (always full) then it won't automatically turn off the system in a failure.
-And if I hook up the radiator fan to a simple case fan, then I won't have enough room for the three fans, as well as it wouldn't scale with CPU temperature correctly.

None of which seem to outshine the others. So I'm asking the Tom's Hardware community for help: what would you do if you were in my situation?

Cons29 · Jul 25, 2013

won't a high temp cause the pc to shutdown? safely i mean.

brisa117 · Jul 25, 2013

Here's an idea: if you want more control/auto response to temps, why not consider a fan controller for your front panel? These often have temp probes to monitor your fan speeds in accordance to the predefined temperatures you select. Most of these have 3-pin set ups and they make your case look awesome!

Even if it's not your style, there are many fan controllers that are low key. I think this is your best solution for giving you maximum control over your cooling solution.

Also as a side note, you won't regret getting an AIO liquid cooler. They're great!

nukemaster · Jul 26, 2013

I like to think outside the box here.

The connectors inside of a fan plug can be removed with ease and all grounds(negatives) on the computer are linked.

So why not just swap the fan speed sensor cable(yellow on most fans) from the pump wire to the fan wire and the other way.

Now when you connect the pump to the non controlled header it will run full speed and when you connect the fan to the cpu header it will vary with temperatures. Because the tach or rpm cables are swapped the cpu fan header will SEE the pump speed and the SYSTEM header will see the fan

When using a splitter I have run a cable to another header to monitor speeds of fans as well.

Image to follow.

For real, the fan connectors are very easy to remove making this a perfect idea for you

grahamrigs · Jul 27, 2013

I might look into the fan controller option.

And to nukemaster, I believe that both the pump and the radiator fan only have 3 hole connectors. Is that an issue? Also I'm having some troubles understanding. I get how the pump would work then, but in your setup wouldn't the fan's speed monitor not care? Unless I hook that up somewhere else I can't see it being controlled.

nukemaster · Jul 27, 2013

3 or 4 pin is not going to matter in this case.

I will have to come up with an example to show you how it works. maybe time to break out some fans.

In general, the wire I show you swapping ONLY detects speed. so the board will only show the speeds for the other device. The board will still be able to increase and decrease the fan speed(and the board should NOT control the pump speeds.).

The images on the newegg website seem to show a 3 pin for the pump and a 4 pin for the fan it self.

nukemaster · Jul 27, 2013

Ok, this will be interesting.

I will try my best.

First you need to remove and swap the yellow wires(or 3rd connector in your case) from the 2 plugs. I have used 2 random fans I had.

Now for my example, I used a Asus Maximus IV Gene-z.
This board can NOT control fan speed of 3 pin fans on its cpu header so I will be using a fan controller connected to the cpu fan plug(little black box hanging off the plug).

The small fan is connected to the CPU_OPT fan header(as it was closer than a system or other header, it does not control speed either at this point). The larger fan is connected to the CPU_FAN header(that is controlling speed with the fan controller, this simulates a board controlling the fan speed, but I have to do it my self).

No here is an image of the fan set to min and max on the fan controller. While I am controlling the CPU_FAN header, the actual fan it sees getting faster is the CPU_OPT fan, all this time the cpu fan header sees the smaller fans speed(so if that fan[or pump in your case] failed, the bios could shut down the system.).

I hope this clears up what I mean about swapping the yellow or 3rd wire and how the board can both control a cpu fan AND still shut down with a pump failure.

If you do not want to mess with the stock fan and pump, cheap fan extension cables can be used to make the wire swap as well.

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How to power my Corsair Hydro Series H60

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