M.2 Installation Asus Motherboard

[Donahue Granados]

Forthe installation of each parts in the computer, such as CPU, CPU cooler, memory, hard disk, graphics card and other PCIe devices, please refer to the user manual of the corresponding motherboard model in ASUS official website.

1. First, please search and download the user manual of your motherboard model from ASUS Download Center. Enter your motherboard model in the search box on the left, click on the corresponding model in the model list prompted below, and then select "Manuals and Documents" on the right. Refer to the image below:

2. Taking ROG MAXIMUS Z690 FORMULA as an example, the screenshots of the English manual are as following. According to the catalog and search function, it is relatively easy to obtain the required information (mainly refer to Section 2.1)

1. The pump body has TWO wires coming off it, each with 3 lines, supposedly for connecting to motherboard "CPU" or "Pump" fans? Does it matter which goes where? I must assume it does, as logically, one triplet powers the pump (at 12vdc?) and the other powers the LED's (at 5vdc)? How does one tell which is which, short of building a test rig (which I don't have?)

Thanks, LeDoyen. I printed that after I started the installation since not much is included in the box (for over $140.) Sadly, none of the wiring connections are detailed in that "documentation." So here I sit, still, after two weeks, still trying to figure out what should be simple installation. I have 3 of the Corsair AIO from previous installations but all of them were simple and installation took less than hour each. This new H100x, not so much.

The 3 pin cable from the pump is the tachometer wire. This reports a speed to the motherboard to satisfy its safety feature and will set off a BIOS alarm if the pump does not talk back on start up. This should go on CPU_FAN and not any faux headers like AIO_Pump or W_Pump.

The 4 pin cable with a splitter is for fan control. This unit does not have an internal fan controller and you connect both fans to the motherboard chassis fan or other control header. You can pair the two together and there is no reason for individual control.

1) If there is a flat SATA connector that is hardwired to the pump, that is the power delivery. Most AIOs get their power this way these days, but since it offloads fan and RGB power, it is possible it does draw power from the motherboard and the manual is wrong about the 3 pin being a "tach cable".

2) There is no SATA connector and when you look at that 3 pin cable for CPU fan you see three wires and 3 real connector pins. That means power and ground are on that line as well. If this is true, then you need to go into the BIOS and set CPU_FAN to 100%, full speed, disabled, or whatever language the BIOS uses for locked at maximum. In theory this is what those AIO_Fan headers are for (automatically locked at 100%), but then you still need to disable the CPU fan warning system while not getting the benefit of it. CPU Fan and OPT generally do not work well for general case or water cooling fan control. They are programmed for a small to medium air cooler and are very reactive to changes in CPU temp. You do not need that and it's now how water cooling works.

The real tricky bit is going to be the RGB. There are a few threads going of H60x and H100x owners discussing the included "ARGB cable" and connecting to the motherboard. There seems to be a lot of difficulty with this. If you have pre-existing corsair rgb fans and they have their own controller, use that for the RGB control for the new fans unless they are of a substantially different type. That still leaves the pump and it appears that must go to the motherboard ARGB header unless you have a Commander XT, which 2 users reported was able to control the pump RGB.

Which lines control the power to the AIO fans (not the pump body?) The fans have one four line connector that has nothing printed/stamped on it, and another four line connector that has a "1", "TKG", and "2510" in raised letters. They give me no clue. The connectors are different, different sizes and different latching mechanisms. Wish I could post pictures.

The manual suggests there is a 4 pin PWM splitter cable. Typically this would have a single 4 pin motherboard fan connector and then it would split into a 4 pin and 3 pin connector for the two fans. The missing pin is deliberate so the extra fan does not report back to the motherboard. One fan leads. The other follows.

If there is another cable coming out of the pump, that must be the RGB cable. Corsair RGB cables are flat, but since this one is designed for motherboard ARGB it could be the chunkier type like the below. 5v RGB is 3 wire but uses the same connector as 12v 4 pin but with a blocked or missing 4th hole/wire.

What I am curious about is how the above would ever connect to a Commander XT. It would need a traditional flat Corsair RGB fan cable or an adapter that bridges the two. That would make the most sense to have a standard Corsair flat RGB cable that then connects to a special receiver connector on the 3 way RGB cable for the motherboard.

What's the difference between "addressable LED header" and "RGB LED header?" More importantly, which ones are used on this AIO unit? My motherboard has pins for both things but I don't know which to connect them to. These are the LED's on the radiator fans. I just might be able to power up this beast when I find this out. Phew! They are 4 pin headers but no clue as to their required orientations.

Aside: on a whim, I did a web search for "1 TKG 2510" and lo and behold, the TKG comes up with some small amount of docs for the FAN connectors!! Amazing luck, that. So, I connected the radiator fans to the motherboard that was, as fans. Didn't think I'd ever find anything as abstruse as "TKG 2510" but there it was! And while I would rather use a splitter cable for the radiator fans, this ARGB cable has zero clue (surprise!) about what it does, either, so I'm just gonna hook them up directly on the mobo.

RGB LED Header refers to a "12v analogue RGB system". This was the original type and all LEDs in the chain are like one long strip of the same color. You can choose the color, but generally they will all do the same thing at the same time. These types of devices have 4 wires and 4 connectors at the pin. It looks just like the picture above but with the 4th pin/hole.

Addressable LED/RGB Headers also known as Digital RGB (D-RGB) is type of LED control where you can set each individual LED to it's own pattern/color. The controllers are more complex and the system uses 3 wires to delivery the power and control. All Corsair devices are 5v addressable, with a couple of odd exceptions. You never want to connect a 5v D-RGB device to a 12v RGB header. It will not end well for the device. The pump LEDs are most definitely 5v D-RGB and will connect to that header on the MB. The intent is the pump + fan 1 + fan 2 connect on the RGB cable to the motherboard. You then control it with your MB RGB software suite. As mentioned, there are several users posting problems about this. No clear reason identified yet.

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