3pin pump broke PWM controller??

[Jaysvfx]

The pump in question is EK 4.0 3pin Pump

Prior to upgrading to my Crosshair V Formula, I was using this pump flawlessly on my old MSI 870A motherboard and the bios settings were able to control the pump speed with no problems.

I installed the crosshair and here is what started happening...

1. I had the pump installed via the 4 pin molex adapter and everything was great. Setup some of the chassis fans to be controlled by Fan Xpert and life was good.

2. I got unhappy with how loud the pump was at 12v so I decided to plug the pump in to CHA_FAN 1 header and noticed that the pump was not slowing down even though I the software said it was controlling it.

3. Plugged back in my NZXT 3 pin fan into CHA_FAN 1 and noticed that it is no longer slowing down and speeding up with the software anymore.

4. Checked to make sure that CHA_FAN2 was throttling the fans as intended and sure enough it is, so I unplug the fan and plug in the pump, boot the system and once again, pump running at 100% and not slowing down.

5. I turn off the system and plug the fan back in to CHA_FAN 2 and boot up the system and notice once again that now neither CHA_FAN1 OR 2 are slowing down the fans...

6. I did the same thing with CHA_FAN3, double checked that it slows down with Fan Xpert and as expected they are, but after plugging in the pump to CHA_FAN3, it no longer slows down the fans when switched back.

NOW... I have my 3 radiator fans being controlled by OPT FAN 1 with Duty cycle of 60% and the fans are slowing down PERFECTLY, but I refuse to plug my pump in for fear that it will somehow mess up the controller for the OPT 3 pin plugs next.

ASUS, whats going on?? Why can my $100 MSI-870A control my pump just fine, with 0 issues, but the second its plugged in to one of these plugs on my ASUS Crosshair V Formula, all software control ceases to work?

Unless someone from ASUS support knows what is going on, my next step is going to be to request an RMA and get this thing replaced, one of the REASONS I bought this mobo to begin with is due to the 8 fan headers that allow me to not have to have a fan controller installed.

Please ask your techs if there is some sort of a reset for the controller, because once my pump was plugged in, everything went to 100% and never came back.


Here are things I did to remedy...

1. Updated to the latest bios. I was still on an older bios from the factory
2. Reset the BIOS
3. Tried the UEFI settings to control the fans, but just as mentioned with Fan Xpert, bios fan settings have 0 effect on the 3 CHA fans

How on earth can a pump rated 1.5A 18w cause this to happen with fan headers rated at 24 watts??

This is straight from the manual

"The fan connectors support cooling fans of 350 mA-2000mA (24 W max.) or a total of 1 A -7 A (84 W max.) at +12V. Connect the fan cables to the fan connectors on the motherboard , ensuring that the black wire of each cable matches the ground pin of the connector."

Based on that, this pump is well within the technical specs of the fan headers, not to mention if this pump had an issue with it, I would assume that the headers would fail, not run 100% at all times...

I forgot to mention that I bought this board in the begining of March, so it is only a month and half old.

[HiVizMan]

Remove all traces of FanXpert and reset your BIOS to defaults.

Start again without FanXpert. Use only the bios to set up stuff and you should be good to go. Please post back if that sorts out your issue. 3pin is not supported in FanXpert I suspect.

[n0tiert]

Do you Power the pump from Mainboard ?
in that case i would give you the hint not to !

it could request to much Power on system power on from the PWM connector !
i only connect the RPM wire to the Mainboard connectors and the pump directly on the PSU
(fetching RPM signal if pump is down , shutdown system)

calc:

(12V * A = W)

where "A" is the Ampere the Pump pulls and "W" total Watt
you should check how much Watt the mobo can deliver on the 3/4 Pin

in your case:

12V * 1,8 A = 21,6 Watt

that is to much for my opinion for the MB connector

[flearider]

as has been said why would you plug it into your board ??pulling 20w+.. mines similar to yours .. in a little under 2 yrs it managed to burn out a sunbeam 20w fan controller ..so had to get a 30w ...

[theoneandonlymrk]

as has been said a pump pulls too much power for a motherboard to control long term (or at all in most cases as its 1 - 2 fans per header and they dont pull that much power) ,

If you wish to control your world ie pumps and fans in OS and easily get a Tbalancer BigNg it has four channels capable of 20-25 watts per channel, ive controlled two pumps plus 12 fans from one for a year or so and in all honesty its great it does need reasonable airflow across it though as it gets hot controlling that much power.

[Jaysvfx]

FanXpert does support 3 pin as I already mentioned it was controlling my 3 pin fans just fine prior to the issue I described. Ive also already wiped out FanXpert and reset the bios, but it makes no difference, it still wont control my fans anymore and just runs at 100% at all times, even from BIOS

As for the power consumption, I already posted what the 3 pin fan headers on the board can support.. ill post it again..

"The fan connectors support cooling fans of 350 mA-2000mA (24 W max.) or a total of 1 A -7 A (84 W max.) at +12V. Connect the fan cables to the fan connectors on the motherboard , ensuring that the black wire of each cable matches the ground pin of the connector."


The connectors are well within the safe range of handling the pump, as mentioned, my cheap MSI board did this with no issues whatsoever, so Im having a hard time wrapping my head around how an enthusiest board cannot.

Also, suggesting that I plug my pump back in to my 4 pin molex adapter (which I obviously already did) does not explain why the 3 pin CHA channels are no longer controlling the fans when they were prior to the pump installation.

Please, once again... the fans were working JUST FINE being controlled by the 3 pin CHA headers, so the question of the PWM controlling 3 pin fans isnt an issue, even Raja confirmed in another thread that CHA can in fact control 3 pin fans (which mine did)

The ultimate goal here is to reset whatever changed when the pump was installed as it is obviously software related, but unfortunately BIOS reset had no effect.

[n0tiert]

FanXpert does support 3 pin as I already mentioned it was controlling my 3 pin fans just fine prior to the issue I described. Ive also already wiped out FanXpert and reset the bios, but it makes no difference, it still wont control my fans anymore and just runs at 100% at all times, even from BIOS

As for the power consumption, I already posted what the 3 pin fan headers on the board can support.. ill post it again..

"The fan connectors support cooling fans of 350 mA-2000mA (24 W max.) or a total of 1 A -7 A (84 W max.) at +12V. Connect the fan cables to the fan connectors on the motherboard , ensuring that the black wire of each cable matches the ground pin of the connector."


The connectors are well within the safe range of handling the pump, as mentioned, my cheap MSI board did this with no issues whatsoever, so Im having a hard time wrapping my head around how an enthusiest board cannot.

Also, suggesting that I plug my pump back in to my 4 pin molex adapter (which I obviously already did) does not explain why the 3 pin CHA channels are no longer controlling the fans when they were prior to the pump installation.

Please, once again... the fans were working JUST FINE being controlled by the 3 pin CHA headers, so the question of the PWM controlling 3 pin fans isnt an issue, even Raja confirmed in another thread that CHA can in fact control 3 pin fans (which mine did)

The ultimate goal here is to reset whatever changed when the pump was installed as it is obviously software related, but unfortunately BIOS reset had no effect.

You should take a look here m8,

http://www.formfactors.org/developer...e_PWM_Spec.pdf

this should give you more info !

[theoneandonlymrk]

The connectors are well within the safe range of handling the pump, as mentioned, my cheap MSI board did this with no issues whatsoever, so Im having a hard time wrapping my head around how an enthusiest board cannot.


im haveing a hard time believing an old MSI board managed this, at lower speeds the transistor that controlls said header would be sinking so much power it has probably overheated and gone US, i too am not just talking theoreticaly i tried this a while ago and the header i tried blew striaght away and never worked again ,thats why i bought a big NG. I understand this might not sound right to you but the power surges a pump can put out at start up etc exceed the rateings of headers in the same way that start up can kill a heavy loaded PSU due to motor start up strain (HDDS Fans etc) ala many a cold boot issue.

and anyway I also got a big ng because its independant of the mobo, prior to its use, useing an OS tuner prog to controll my fans i found they sometimes didnt cool as they should and wouldnt allways spin up faster whilst benching etc because the software that was controlling them was not getting a look in on the cpu cycles and hence wasnt adjusting speed till After the bench ended, now its kept at a set water temp ..

[Jaysvfx]

Thank you for the info on the PWM specs! That will come in very handy.

I am not arguing that its not a good idea to control the pump off of the mobo, ive removed the pump even prior to the discussion here, what I really am trying to find out is whats up with the fan control and wether or not it is now broken due to pump.

[Mummy]

Hi, i seam to have same problem with, CPU and CPU optional.
I had my two pumps controlled/monitored via those and now they dont seam to slow down my noctuas.
My pumps takes power from PSU molex and those 3-pin. to MB are just for monitor/control so dont know whats happend.

But im dont have time so much to look deeply in to it yet so maybe just my own mistake here....

My pumps are Aquastream XT Ultra