fan controller

[amarrite]

I built my first system a few weeks ago and everything turned out great, but I still have one issue. I have a corsair commander pro controlling my lighting and case fans for the front and rear. the cpu fan (corsair h100i v2) with two fans on the radiator are connected to the Motherboard. my question is can I run all the fans through the commander pro without connecting any of them to the motherboard? That way I can control all everything from the controller.

[Thunderball]

That depends on your motherboard. In most cases your motherboards needs to detect a working fan connected to a CPU fan header (so it knows your CPU has active cooling, potentially) to POST. Some motherboards have a dedicated pump header (pump is best to be connected to the motherboard directly in majority of cases, unless none of your fan headers can supply enough power to the pump) and you can POST without any fans if that's connected.

[amarrite]

I have an asus prime z230-a. with the coarair h100 connected to the mobo. it does seem to SEE it in the corsair link software. What I may do is just connect the radiator fans to the controller and just leave the pump on the motherboard.

on a side note. should the water cooler fans be exhausting out the top or pulling in through the radiator? It's pulling right now.

[Thunderball]

I have an asus prime z230-a. with the coarair h100 connected to the mobo. it does seem to SEE it in the corsair link software. What I may do is just connect the radiator fans to the controller and just leave the pump on the motherboard.

on a side note. should the water cooler fans be exhausting out the top or pulling in through the radiator? It's pulling right now.

Depends on the rest of your setup and what's more important for you. Top exhaust is better for GPU temperatures (which modern GPUs are very sensitive to), front intake is better for CPU VRM temperature, but all depends on the rest of your fan setup (for example if you have a side intake there is almost no benefit for GPU temperature from top exhaust). Generally I'd say go for top exhaust if you have 3 good 120/140mm fans in the front.

[Ech0544]

CPU radiator position is basically irrelevant unless you have a GPU that dumps the heat (multiple fans) into the case as opposed to blower style where it blows it out the back and in that case, a CPU radiator in front pulling air through it is better by 5-10c as the heat from the GPU/inside the case isn't rising into the CPU radiator.