I'm installing a Corsair Nautilus RS 360 liquid cooler and I'm unsure which motherboard header should receive the pump's 4-pin PWM cable. The cooler manual says to use the CPU_FAN header, but my motherboard also has a dedicated AIO_PUMP or PUMP header. If the pump header is intended for liquid coolers, why does Corsair recommend CPU_FAN instead?
2 Answers
Follow the Nautilus manual and connect its 4-pin cable to CPU_FAN. On this cooler, that connection may carry the pump—and possibly the radiator fans through the included wiring—so the motherboard can monitor it and report a CPU-fan failure if it stops. The dedicated AIO_PUMP header is a general-purpose header for setups where the pump and fans are connected separately; it is not automatically required just because the cooler has a pump.
The correct header depends on how the cooler is wired. If the pump has its own cable and the radiator fans are separate, connect the pump to AIO_PUMP and the fans to CPU_FAN. If the Nautilus uses one combined or designated cable, use CPU_FAN as Corsair specifies. The important thing is that the header provides the expected PWM power and that the CPU_FAN header detects a speed signal.

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