Greetings,

I've just about finished a new build, and can't seem to figure out why the K360 isn't spinning up the pump or the CPU fan under the LCD. The radiator fans are turning, but all three report as 0 rpm in the MSI center.

No amount of tinkering with the fan curves in MSI Center does anything to engage the pump/fan. I've turned off fast boot in the BIOS, and even set all of the fan headers to max rpm, with zero change.

I can change the RGB on the radiator fans just fine (though the LCD never remembers any settings I give it and I have to manually change it after every single boot, but that's a separate issue...) but forget about altering any speeds on this thing.

It's currently plugged into the CPU Fan 1 header on the board. There is the separate pump header I can switch to if needed. The connector for the AIO was labeled for the CPU fan, so that's where it went for now.

Does anyone have any idea what I may be doing wrong here? It's literally my first shot at water, so I could have easily borked something somewhere.

System thus far:

CPU: i9-10900K
MOBO: EVGA Z590 FTW Wifi
RAM:  G.SKILL Trident Z Royal 64 GB
AIO: MSI MPG Coreliquid K360
GPU: EVGA RTX 3090 FTW Ultra Gaming
PSU: Thermaltake PF1 ARGB 1050 Platinum
SSD 1: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500 GB NVMe (Boot)
SSD 2: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2 TB NVMe (Data)
OS: Win 10 Pro 64

System idles at around 90-100c, so it's utterly useless until I can get those pumps/fans running. I appreciate any insight you can provide.

EDIT 1: I just realized I haven't checked the BIOS version on the mobo, so I'm going to update that to 1.07 next.  Eleet did some sort of update when I first launched it, but that was at 3am, and I've slept since then.  O.o

Edit 2: Updating from 1.04 to 1.07 changed nothing. Still no movement on the pump/fan. Next step is to try the pump header and the second CPU fan header to see if anything happens there.

Thanks!

Try the pump header, but normally cpu fan header will run your pump just fine. Plug a different fan into them and see if it comes on or not to test the headers. If the headers work with another fan the that points to something with the AIO unit it would seem.

Just checking, did you manually set the header-mode to "PWM" instead of auto in the BIOS Hardware Monitoring section (assuming you have 4-pin devices)? I've had things not get determined correctly that way before with the "auto" setting. I have since manually set things at PWM or Voltage (3-pin) and not had as many issues.

B0baganoosh
Just checking, did you manually set the header-mode to "PWM" instead of auto in the BIOS Hardware Monitoring section (assuming you have 4-pin devices)? I've had things not get determined correctly that way before with the "auto" setting. I have since manually set things at PWM or Voltage (3-pin) and not had as many issues.

I'll try that. The connector from the AIO is a 3 pin with 2 wires. I took the shroud over the LCD off so I could see the fan, and it wasn't turning. The only other connections are the SATA power and USB. Those are working fine, or appear to be.  The radiator fans power up, and I can change the LED colors on those, and change the LCD screen settings.

I pulled the whole thing off the desk and plugged the old PC back in for now. I only have the one monitor to work with, so I have to swap them to test the new build.

When I get some time today, I'll swap them out again and change that BIOS setting to see what it does.

Thanks!
 

A 3-pin with 2 wires? Either they just gave pwm and tach or something else is needed. Not sure about which setting is needed there actually...

B0baganoosh
A 3-pin with 2 wires? Either they just gave pwm and tach or something else is needed. Not sure about which setting is needed there actually...

Yup. It only has wires going to the two outside pins. The center is empty.

I had assumed that the power for everything would come from the SATA connector, and most/all of the control functions would be via the internal USB header it's connected to. It's possible leaving the BIOS set to auto is interfering with the control functions there.

I'm going to set the CPU Fan headers to PWM, and do the same with the pump header, then try each of them until something changes.

I asked the same questions on the MSI sub-reddit, but may have to try their customer service email if I can't get it going.

Appreciate the tips!
 
 
 

Those are ground and tach/rpm sensor. So there's no control at all and the pump is supposed to just run full speed maybe? In that case you should get a reading back whether it's in pwm or voltage mode because the output from the motherboard (in terms of voltage or pwm signal) is not even connected.

Edit: I just looked at the pictures and it appears as though it may need to use the USB header with software to actually control the thing, leaving no bios control.

The software is their MSI Center. It always reports back zero RPM. Nothing I do with it makes the VRM/Pump spin up.

Just for thoroughness, I plugged in several Noctua fans, rebooted into the BIOS, and checked to see if the fans were reporting RPM. Every header (other than the pump header, which I didn't plug the fans into) showed fan speeds.  I had to do that about 3 times to get them all, but I've ruled out an issue with the MOBO by doing so. I also set all of them to PWM mode.

Just for giggles, I switched through all of the sensors that regulate the fan speed while in the BIOS, and could see the RPM's change as I did so, so that makes me feel safe in concluding the board isn't at fault.

No matter which fan header I put the AIO on, it never spins up. There's either a hardware issue there, or the MSI Center software really does suck as bad as the reviews seem to indicate. I never even though to look at that before I bought it.  Lesson learned.

I've put in a request for assistance with MSI tech support to see if they have any advice, but I have the feeling that this thing is going back on an RMA. Good thing I kept the box!


 

I couldn't see anywhere where you said you plugged in the pump's USB header into the motherboard's USB header. It requires a 2.0 header to work right I think. Beyond that, I'd guess drivers are needed (due to USB) or you have a faulty unit there.

B0baganoosh
I couldn't see anywhere where you said you plugged in the pump's USB header into the motherboard's USB header. It requires a 2.0 header to work right I think. Beyond that, I'd guess drivers are needed (due to USB) or you have a faulty unit there.

USB is connected. The only software I could find available for the AIO is MSI Center. I'm going to uninstall it and try a reinstall, and see if perhaps it borked itself on the initial install.

Probably not tonight, though. Just got home from work and I'm too beat to mess with it at the moment.  :D