Where to plug my watercooling cords?

[Iron Knickers]

I am installing a Corsair Hydro H1000i v2 into my Z170-A motherboard. In the manual for the H1000i, it says to connect the connector to the CPU_FAN header, however the motherboard also does have a water_pump header, should I be using this instead?

[LeapFrogMasterRace]

No all that header does is reads the rpm of the pump so connect it to the cpu fan

[Rushfriend]

If said so in the MB's manual then yes.

[shibbs]

On my board, I plugged the pump into the PWR_FAN which would shut down the computer if it detected a failure, and always ran at 100%. I then plugged the fans into the CPU_FAN header and set them up with a custom fan curve of my choosing.

[dwang040]

So, in general, there should be two places for you to plug in your fan. a fan header, and one labeled cpu_opt. fan header is where the fan plug goes, and the one labeled cpu_opt is where your pump goes. Now, this is for gigabyte boards, as they label the header cpu_opt, so you may need to consult your user manual to locate this. But just for future reference, the cpu header is where the fan goes since that allows you to control fan speeds in the bios and what not. cpu_opt, on the other hand, does not allow you to change anything... i mean, do you really want your pump on "idle"? that sounds like a terrible idea, so cpu_opt is where the pump plug goes so it will be running at it's full capability at all times. Hope this helps, and hope i didn't mess any info up.