Water Cooling, Temperature and Flow Sensors

[Vicariously]

 

Hi all,

I am new to water cooling, and am currently loving the loop I installed but after looking around for temperature and flow sensors, I wanted to start with something more simple as a temporary way to monitor temps before I eventually maybe install and LCD monitor or something. 

 

My problem is I have no idea how I am supposed to connect to the motherboard. On page 1-25 of my motherboard manual it says I can connect temperature and flow sensors but it doesn't really give me any indication of in what order (shows W_IN and W_OUT).

 

I also heard mention that people can connect it to certain graphics cards and it would show up in the data for said graphics card's control panel? (IDK if this is true however)

 

There also doesn't seem to be any indication of whether the port is polar (requiring positive and negative terminals in a certain order) and the plug doesn't indicate it either, no instructions...

 

Looking for some advice as I can't seem to find anything online doing simple searches. If you have other options that you have used for displaying these temps and flow let me know (although flow isn't a huge concern for me right now)

 

Thanks in advance!

 

My Info:

I have an Asus Maximus X Hero (Wi-fi) motherboard, the link to the manual is here: 
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1151/ROG_MAXIMUS_X_HERO_WI-FI_AC/E13646_ROG_MAXIMUS_X_HERO_WI-FI_AC_UM_V2_WEB.pdf

 

I ordered this generic Temperature sensor:

https://www.newegg.ca/p/0X6-04KT-03WY8?Item=9SIAK7K9A26157&nm_mc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-

 

I am also cooling a Geforce GTX 1080ti FTW 3 from EVGA

[For Science!]

4 minutes ago, Vicariously said:

 

Welcome, sounds like you've done enough reading so I'll be happy to help you out. You're actually really on the best way to set up the temperature probe (far better than just an LCD display).

 

The header you should use is actually T_sensor (#15 on the manual). While W_IN and W_OUT can also moniter the temperature, the BIOS won't do anything productive with it. The T_sensor can be used to control fan speed in the BIOS and is an excellent way to control your radiator fans, since you want them to spin up if the water is getting hot, and spin down if the water gets cool again. This is far better as you get a smoother transitions unaffected by sudden spikes in temperatures of the CPU, for example.

 

These 2-pin headers have no polarity so just whack the sensor onto it, I believe its just based on resistance (may be wrong).

[Olaf6541]

39 minutes ago, For Science! said:

These 2-pin headers have no polarity so just whack the sensor onto it, I believe its just based on resistance (may be wrong).

Correct, they are temperature dependent resistors so the polarity doesnt matter.

 

Most fan controllers can use these probes to read the temperature and put it on their display, but you could also use your motherboard.

 

You mentioned a simple solution, but if you want to go full custom: I use an arduino to monitor mine. Not sure how relevant for you but ill leave it here:

 

[Vicariously]

Thanks @For Science! and @Olaf6541 for the help. I was getting a bit turned around and I feel confident this is all the info I need. 

 

@Olaf6541 I was thinking of doing something like this. I have a Pi and wanted to use it as a temperature monitor of sorts. I had to stop researching it as I got busy, but have the time now. I want to add a small (5-7") display inside my pc case, but use a pi or something to take the temperature data from all the sensors in the PC (GPU included) and create a custom GUI so it displays it. Essentially it would be like Aida64 or HWMonitor except its completely out of the system tasks and boots/shuts off with the system. Could this be done?

 

I have seen some people that use HDMI and setup a 'monitor' in their pc and just leave one of those software running, but that to me seems lazy and looks cheap, and i don't want it to be showing up in windows, or have things move to it (like windows likes to do with multi monitor things).

 

It doesn't need to be a fan controller, I have that covered for sure, but maybe I could also program it to be an RGB controller? (Yeah I'm one of 'those').

 

[Olaf6541]

5 minutes ago, Vicariously said:

@Olaf6541 I was thinking of doing something like this. I have a Pi and wanted to use it as a temperature monitor of sorts. I had to stop researching it as I got busy, but have the time now. I want to add a small (5-7") display inside my pc case, but use a pi or something to take the temperature data from all the sensors in the PC (GPU included) and create a custom GUI so it displays it. Essentially it would be like Aida64 or HWMonitor except its completely out of the system tasks and boots/shuts off with the system. Could this be done?

Ive been thinking about this too. I dont have the desire to display the temperature on a LCD but i would love to have a way to display it in the system tray like Core Temp does. Now i have to open the arduino IDE to see my water temperature. So i would need a serial program that could read the temps and display it in windows...

 

Im pretty sure if you can manage to hook up a temp sensor you can output it somehow on the screen of a pi, but you may have to figure something out for how the gui would show up on your LCD.

[Vicariously]

5 minutes ago, Olaf6541 said:

Ive been thinking about this too. I dont have the desire to display the temperature on a LCD but i would love to have a way to display it in the system tray like Core Temp does. Now i have to open the arduino IDE to see my water temperature. So i would need a serial program that could read the temps and display it in windows...

 

Im pretty sure if you can manage to hook up a temp sensor you can output it somehow on the screen of a pi, but you may have to figure something out for how the gui would show up on your LCD.

I actually have a friend that does a lot of programming who can help me out with the GUI, and there are websites you can find examples and kind of copy them. I would be interested in knowing if you get that system tray display working. 

 

Have you ever heard of a way to export the temperature/sensor data from a PC?

[Olaf6541]

4 minutes ago, Vicariously said:

Have you ever heard of a way to export the temperature/sensor data from a PC?

You mean logging the data and export a txt file with collected readings over a period of time or streaming it realtime to an output like a display?

[Marinatall_Ironside]

I do the same thing with my water loop setup: control the four fans on my 480mm radiator off of water temperature for smooth fan speed transitions. No spikes in fan RPM just because a component suddenly jumps in temperature, which is the beauty of water cooling. Plus I can spin my fans way down low (400 RPM is the lowest I permit at 30º C)

 

Why I choose this temperature instead of 25º or lower is due to my environment being hotter, and my room not being air conditioned.

 

My loop definitely has enough space for an RTX 2080 Ti, which I have coming in the mail soon.

[Vicariously]

18 minutes ago, Olaf6541 said:

You mean logging the data and export a txt file with collected readings over a period of time or streaming it realtime to an output like a display?

@Olaf6541 I guess both/either?

 

I had heard of the "make a text file, export it, have something read it, display it" thought that was maybe the long way around. (have this automated in like 1 second intervals, would likely be laggy)

I don't know if real-time output to the pi would be more feasible, then it could just get thrown into the software and displayed.

[Olaf6541]

4 minutes ago, Jurunce said:

I do the same thing with my water loop setup: control the four fans on my 480mm radiator off of water temperature for smooth fan speed transitions. No spikes in fan RPM just because a component suddenly jumps in temperature, which is the beauty of water cooling. Plus I can spin my fans way down low (400 RPM is the lowest I permit at 30º C)

Exactly, i love my current setup, got my ML120s down to 500rpm with the arduino pwm signal, everything stays cool and quiet. 

7 minutes ago, Vicariously said:

I guess both/either?

 

I had heard of the "make a text file, export it, have something read it, display it" thought that was maybe the long way around.

I don't know if real-time output to the pi would be more feasible, then it could just get thrown into the software and displayed.

I know you can hook up a SD card to an arduino to store things and something similar should be possible for a pi, unfortunately i choose the arduino route and you already have a pi but there must be some info out there about people using temp sensors on their pi and how they stored it / displayed it.

[Vicariously]

5 minutes ago, Olaf6541 said:

Exactly, i love my current setup, got my ML120s down to 500rpm with the arduino pwm signal, everything stays cool and quiet. 

I know you can hook up a SD card to an arduino to store things and something similar should be possible for a pi, unfortunately i choose the arduino route and you already have a pi but there must be some info out there about people using temp sensors on their pi and how they stored it / displayed it.

Yeah @Olaf6541, I wasn't even going to mention it until you posted about your arduino. Its a project I'm still doing my research on.

I will be posting on pi specific threads on reddit and here likely until I can find an answer. I'm not against using arduino, I just have an extra pi (from my programmer friend) that I thought this would be good use of. 

 

I wanted to dump this project on him, but he has never done something like this before and I'm using this as a learning experience, just get his help with tidying everything up.

 

Thanks for all the help!

 

[Marinatall_Ironside]

2 hours ago, Olaf6541 said:

Exactly, i love my current setup, got my ML120s down to 500rpm with the arduino pwm signal, everything stays cool and quiet. 

FYI my fan controller of choice so far is the Asus Fan Extension card that came with my motherboard, the ROG Rampage V Edition 10. Brilliant piece of tech which only needs the BIOS to do these advanced fan tricks.

[Olaf6541]

13 hours ago, Jurunce said:

FYI my fan controller of choice so far is the Asus Fan Extension card that came with my motherboard, the ROG Rampage V Edition 10. Brilliant piece of tech which only needs the BIOS to do these advanced fan tricks.

Yea i was looking for something like this but i couldnt find that so i ended up with making my own using an arduino.

 

Im really interested in seeing if @Vicariously can make something out of a pi.