Can you change the fans on your AIO?

Very short answer: Yes. Slightly longer answer: Yes, you can, although there are a couple of things you need to bear in mind when doing so, as the fans that ship with your All-in-One (AIO) Cooler will have been selected with overall performance in mind. That being said, there are plenty of reasons why you might want to look at swapping out your fans – from wanting to add a little RGB bling to your system to needing to replace broken, or faulty fans. Here’s what you need to think about your changing your AIO fans.

It may seem obvious, but it’s worth stating from the off, to stop any silly ideas creeping into your head when you’re shopping for replacement fans – you need to look for fans that are the same size as the ones you’ve currently got. While it’s true that 140mm fans can run slower than 120mm units to shift the same amount of air, this isn’t much use if you can’t easily attach them to the radiators in the first place.

Of course, some enterprising tinkerers are going to see this as a challenge and set about trying to hook up some oversized fans to prove a point, and that is obviously fine. But for everyone else, if your current AIO has 120mm fans, then 120mm fans are the way to go. Check what you have before you buy any replacements, but the vast majority of AIO coolers available today use one, two, or three 120mm fans to cool 120mm, 240mm, or 360mm AIO radiators. Alternatively, you may find that you have one or two or maybe even three 140mm fans doing the same job, this time attached to 140mm, 280mm, or 420mm radiators.

Size is important, but that’s not the end of your specification-browsing if you’re looking to use a fan with your radiators. The important rating here is something called Static Pressure, and it’s this that defines how well the fans can push air through an obstruction such as your AIO radiator. It’s worth highlighting here, that there are two main types of fans when looking at keep a PC cool, those that prioritize high static pressure and those that focus more on airflow. It’s worth getting your grey matter around this subject, which is why we’ve got an article that covers the difference between static pressure and high airflow fans in a really clear way. The takeaway is that you want high static pressure fans for your AIO radiators.

This will probably lead to the question: how much Static Pressure are you looking for, and this is where it’s worth digging up the spec sheet for your current fans. Essentially, the fans that ship with your AIO will have been designed to keep the whole thing running optimally across a range of processors. If you replace these fans with ones that can’t match the originals numbers, then they’re going to have to work harder, that is running faster and louder, to achieve the same level of cooling.

Static Pressure is measured in mm-H2O and for most fans, you’ll find the specifications for your fans present the Static Pressure as range, because the amount of air a fan can move will increase as the fan speed increases. So, when looking for those replacements, look for fans that say they are designed for use with radiators and achieve static pressure numbers that are broadly similar to what you currently have.

By way of example, let’s say you have the iCUE H100i RGB ELITE AIO cooler and want to update the black fans with ones that have a magic sprinkling of RGB LEDs. The fans that ship with the H100i are AF ELITEs and have a Static Pressure of 0.09–1.92 mm-H2O — you can check this yourself on the Tech Specs for the H100i. If you look at a fan kit such as iCUE LINK RX120 RGB 120mm, then you’ll see that those fans offer a Static Pressure of 0.12–4.33mm-H2O, which is more than enough for the job at hand. Obviously these fans also need an iCUE LINK Hub, but you get the idea.

If you are in the market to upgrade your machine’s RGB, it’s a good idea to look at whole AIO replacements, as these can work out cheaper than you’d think. Newer AIOs are more efficient and plenty of them come decked out in RGB already. There are plenty of AIOs on the main CORSAIR webstore.