4pins Fan on 3pins connector?

Shou Miko · Oct 29, 2010

i have been wondering about this question bcs i have been thinking about for awhile to buy some Arctic-Cooling F12 PWN fans, 4 for my case and 2 for my CPU cooler but they got 4pins connector so can i use a connector to connect the two fans on to my motherboard for the CPU fan connector?

sneekypeet · Oct 29, 2010

the 4th wire is for RPM sensing, so you will loose the PWM feature of the fan, but it will work at whatever voltage is running through the adapters. That one you posted looks like its straight 12V.

Shou Miko · Oct 29, 2010

i dunno found it on Caseking.de bcs it could be nice to have two fans connected to my cooler so see what my load temps will be on my Q6600 cpu.

It's this connector: 3-Pin Y-Kabel

dr emulator (madmax) · Oct 29, 2010

i'm not sure but you might have to be carefull you don't overload the socket

why do i say this ?

well the other day i bought 2 yate loons and they both draw 500 ma which if you combine them both together on the same wire would be an amp and i'm sure the mosfet controllers on motherboards aren't meant to be loaded that much not really sure :eek:

just a consideration

theirs a page here about fan pinouts :toast:

Shou Miko · Oct 29, 2010

so the best option will be, to connect one of the fans to the motherboard and the other to my fan controller instead?

i got this Scythe Kaze Master ACE KM02 Back Fan controller in my CM690-II Advanced case:

Techtu · Oct 29, 2010

With the Arctic Cooling F series fan's you can connect upto 5 of them together and also allow it to use only one header on your board for them all as they actually link like a daisy chain, I'm currently using 5 of them on my case - all connected together through the daisy chain link to the chassis fan header on my board, despite the fact you would usually overload your board if you was to do this the F series fans have a PST (Patent Sharing Technology) which allow them to function and power normally under this setup.

If you only have 2 fan headers on your board but only 1 4pin header then I would suggest connecting them to the one with the 4pin header so you get the PWM feature as these fan's are pretty noisy when at full speed, or the fan controller would work fine. but I try avoid these as it mean's more wires to hide.

If you have two 4 pin headers then just connect all 5 to the chassis header and keep your CPU fans as they are, which brings me to this question: how are your CPU fans connected to the board? via the same header?

newtekie1 · Oct 29, 2010

sneekypeet said:
the 4th wire is for RPM sensing, so you will loose the PWM feature of the fan, but it will work at whatever voltage is running through the adapters. That one you posted looks like its straight 12V.

I thought the 4th wire was for PWM control, the 3rd wire is for RPM sensing.

Either way, if you remove the 4th wire it just forces the fan to run at full speed all the time. Though it can still be controlled by lowering the voltage. :toast:

Shou Miko · Oct 29, 2010

so it's save enough to connect two fans in that cable on the motherboard?

i got a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P Rev. 1.1

mm67 · Oct 29, 2010

You should connect fans to 4-pin cpu header if you want to control speed with pwm. If you are worried about amperage then you can use this: http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?...es&type_sub=Fan Cable Adapters&model=AK-CB002. That cable takes pwm signal from motherboard but power to fans comes from molex connector, with this you can use pretty much any kind of pwm fans.

newtekie1 · Oct 29, 2010

You can check with Gigabyte about what the maximum amperage each fan header is capable of supply. As long as it is more than what the two fans will pull, you can do that. Most motherboard fan headers are rated for 1-1.5A, so you should be fine.

Techtu · Oct 29, 2010

puma99dk| said:
so it's save enough to connect two fans in that cable on the motherboard?

i got a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P Rev. 1.1

You mean your CPU fan's into the daisy chain link? that might be possible, do take into consideration of the speed differences between the CPU fan's and the F12's as they may effect power/performance/speed and/or cause a problem also Arctic cooling don't recommend linking more than 5 fans in one link, I used to use 4 F12's and then my CPU fan on the end of that link as they all ran at the same rated speeds.

Shou Miko · Oct 29, 2010

Techtu said:
You mean your CPU fan's into the daisy chain link? that might be possible, do take into consideration of the speed differences between the CPU fan's and the F12's as they may effect power/performance/speed and/or cause a problem also Arctic cooling don't recommend linking more than 5 fans in one link, I used to use 4 F12's and then my CPU fan on the end of that link as they all ran at the same rated speeds.

oki, so you will say it's safe to do? ^^;

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Motherboard	ASRock B650M PG Riptide Bios v. 2.02 AMD AGESA 1.1.0.0 \ Lenowo 20L60036MX Bios 1.47
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Cooling	Noctua NH-D15 Chromax.Black (Only middle fan) \ Lenowo WN-2
Memory	G.Skill Flare X5 2x16GB DDR5 6000MHZ CL36-36-36-96 AMD EXPO \ Willk Elektronik 2x16GB 2666MHZ CL17
Video Card(s)	Asus GeForce RTX™ 4070 Dual OC GPU: 2325-2355 MEM: 1462\| Nvidia GeForce MX™ 150 2GB GDDR5 Micron
Storage	Gigabyte M30 1TB\|Sabrent Rocket 2TB\| HDD: 10TB\|1TB \ SKHynix 256GB 2242 3x2 \| WD SN700 1TB
Display(s)	LG UltraGear 27GP850-B 1440p@165Hz \| LG 48CX OLED 4K HDR \| AUO 14" 1440p IPS
Case	Asus Prime AP201 White Mesh \| Lenowo T480 chassis
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Mouse	Logitech G305 Lightspeedy Wireless \| Lenowo TouchPad & Logitech G305
Keyboard	Akko 3108 DS Horizon V2 Cream Yellow \| T480 UK Lumi
Software	Win11 Pro 23H2 UK
Benchmark Scores	3DMARK: https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/89434432? GPU-Z: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/details/v3zbr

4pins Fan on 3pins connector?

Shou Miko

sneekypeet

Retired Super Moderator

Shou Miko

dr emulator (madmax)

Shou Miko

Techtu

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

Shou Miko

mm67

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

Techtu

Shou Miko

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