Switch to watercooling=dead mobo? READ THIS!
 

Problems getting your system to start after switching to watercooling? Check this out...

I just switched to watercooling. Previously, my mobo had a few issues, but nothing like this...
My system wouldn't start when I pushed the power button... I mean, NOTHING happened. I tried everything... unplugged everything but the PSU and power switch. I tried different PSUs. I even tried different switches in case my power button had broken... all to no avail.

You have to remove your Heatsink/FAN when you switch to watercooling. It turns out that my mobo has a failsafe whereby it won't boot or operate if the CPU fan comes unplugged. That's why it wouldn't respond.
I simply plugged a case fan into the CPU fan header, and everything worked just fine.

I hope this saves someone the headaches it caused me.

PS... watercooling is great.

well hell u can just turn that off in the bios some where im sure

Would be nicer still to have the rpm sensor from your RADIATOR fan plugged in to the CPU fan header... :p

OR, if Joe could arrange a Pro/Deals entry with Swissflow for their inline flow flow sensors... :D :D

One of those puppies would be a FANtaskic way to bamboozle a reluctant mobo and also give MBM a real idea of what's happening in your cooling system.
:cool:

I'm sure you could... if you are able to boot your system.. :)

Catch 22... screwed if you don't think of the solution first.. I was about to RMA my mobo.

Depends on the specific mobo and/or BIOS, but I believe some of em give you a backdoor to get booted to the bios by holding down a key during powerup/POST?
:cool:

I don't see how. There was no power to the system... or so it seemed. The PSU fan didn't budge. There was no noise, no lights, no nothing.

cause the signial to turn on wuznt going threw to the powersupply....i wuz just saying that so u dont have to have a fan pluged in all the time

gotcha

thats been known for years. you still will have fans plugged in anyway on the mobo

Haddy - On a lot of the newer m/bs that feature can not be turned off in the BIOS.

ECU - be careful what you plug into the m/b fan headers. They aren't usually rated for higher current draws. If you hook up a fan(s) with too high a current requirement you can burn out the header traces on the m/b (depends on m/b and which fan connector it is).

Unless you are running a waterblock on your northbridge, easiest way is to just move the northbridge fan to the CPU fan header ;)

ecu- what mobo is it?.. you can turn that failsafe off, and if not then there probably is a bios update (thats how my kt7a-raid was)

It's just a little 80mm fan. the mobo is a gigabyte ga-7dxr.

The trick to running high current rpm-sensor fans is to take power to actually RUN the fan from a 4-pin drive-connector off the power supply, and connect just the rpm-sensor wire to the three-pin mobo header. Use a "header saver" 4-pin-to-3-pin adaptor like this one.

THX.. most of my 80mm fans are just 2 wire fans.. Right now, I've got my 80mm PSU fan (3 wire) plugged into the CPU header, the 92mm PSU fan plugged into my homebuilt 7/off/12v switch, and one of two panaflo 80mm fans rigged so that it blows directly onto my GF3 (I unplugged the tiny stock fan) and the other fan sitting on top of my graphics card, pointed at my northbridge. (I unplugged that tiny fan also.)
the 6.75" comair on the fad is connected to a rheostat. :) Right now, my two IBM hd's are the noisiest part of my system (by far). :( I don't know how to silence them.

unplug them and put in WD120's or Barracuda IV's

wd120se 8mb buffer owns jur azz

I would sell my arse for a couple of them

i would sell ur arse for a couple of those 2