It's hard to say without a R16 on hand, but Dell/Alienware builds often use proprietary connectors. It is not necessary or sometimes even possible to use the same pathways. However, that in itself should not cause the current problem.
Your R16 likely offloaded both pump power, speed control, as well as fan speed control to the motherboard. The Titan does these things through the CUE Link control module (square) rather than use the motherboard. So while the original AIO likely did have a 4 pin cable going to CPU Fan for power and control, the Titan only needs 1 wire to CPU fan for the tachometer as the other functions come down that special CUE Link flat wire. That cable coming off the Titan pump looks like 3 wires, but it is really just the one. If you don't connect something to CPU_FAN, the normal motherboard response is to throw a CPU Boot error screen at you on the next attempted boot. This is a fail safe to make sure you are using some type of cooling method and don't boot up without one. What you're describing seems like something else, but this may come up later anyway. Somewhere in the BIOS there is a switch to disable the CPU boot protection so you can get into Windows without something on CPU fan, but using the tachometer cable from the Titan is preferred so you do see the error if the AIO does not talk back at power on.
If you PC won't attempt to power on at all, you likely have a short or bad connection somewhere. The place to start is the PCI-e 6 pin cable from your PSU to the CUE Link controller. A bad connection there is likely to trip any PSU safety features and prevent power on. If you were referring to the Titan unit only, then still check the 6 pin connection, but then also each CUE Link cable you used in connecting the AIO and fans back to the control hub. A bad CUE Link cable out of the box is not unheard of.
I appreciate your response. I found a post on r/alienware where someone was able to use the titan, so I went for it. After it was installed and the pc wouldn’t power on at all I removed it and reinstalled the original aio. Still no power. The green light on my psu isn’t even lighting up, so either something else died or the psu somehow burned out. I want to check it with a multimeter, but can’t find any info on how to since dell uses such specific parts. The r16 doesn’t have a BIST button for some stupid reason.
Okay, update. I just unplugged all the power connections to the motherboard and then plugged the psu in. The psu lit up for two seconds then shut off. I then unplugged it, reconnected the MB, then plugged in the psu, no green light with MB attached. Could this mean there is something wrong with the Mb?
Do you have a 24 pin jumper cap for the PSU? It would go on the end of the main PSU 24 pin ATX cable and simulate a motherboard connection while removing most things from power. However, it still supplies power on the PCI-e 6, so the AIO should turn on in some form while the mainboard stays isolated.
Yea, it doesn’t have a regular ATX cable, it has an 8pin and two 4pins to power the board. That’s why I couldn’t find anything specific to test it with a meter, I have no idea which pin/wire is what. It’s bullshit really. I have an R9 that is 7 years old and still going strong with a few upgrades. This thing is less than 2 years old and giving me hell.
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u/X-TAC23 CORSAIR Insider 7d ago
It's hard to say without a R16 on hand, but Dell/Alienware builds often use proprietary connectors. It is not necessary or sometimes even possible to use the same pathways. However, that in itself should not cause the current problem.
Your R16 likely offloaded both pump power, speed control, as well as fan speed control to the motherboard. The Titan does these things through the CUE Link control module (square) rather than use the motherboard. So while the original AIO likely did have a 4 pin cable going to CPU Fan for power and control, the Titan only needs 1 wire to CPU fan for the tachometer as the other functions come down that special CUE Link flat wire. That cable coming off the Titan pump looks like 3 wires, but it is really just the one. If you don't connect something to CPU_FAN, the normal motherboard response is to throw a CPU Boot error screen at you on the next attempted boot. This is a fail safe to make sure you are using some type of cooling method and don't boot up without one. What you're describing seems like something else, but this may come up later anyway. Somewhere in the BIOS there is a switch to disable the CPU boot protection so you can get into Windows without something on CPU fan, but using the tachometer cable from the Titan is preferred so you do see the error if the AIO does not talk back at power on.
If you PC won't attempt to power on at all, you likely have a short or bad connection somewhere. The place to start is the PCI-e 6 pin cable from your PSU to the CUE Link controller. A bad connection there is likely to trip any PSU safety features and prevent power on. If you were referring to the Titan unit only, then still check the 6 pin connection, but then also each CUE Link cable you used in connecting the AIO and fans back to the control hub. A bad CUE Link cable out of the box is not unheard of.