Fans with 4 pins

Tintai · May 18, 2013

Hey guys

I looking for three fans with 4 pins.
My mobo have only 4 pins connector.

Hmm, or three adapter from 3 pins to 4 pins. By is good?

Thanks

~Tintai

TheLaughingMan · May 18, 2013

3-pin connectors will fit on 4-pin mobo headers. You do not need 4-pin fans. That is why the plastic guide tab is slight offset to ensure you connect to the 3-pins you need for operation.

de.das.dude · May 18, 2013

as above, 3 pin fits all 4 pins, and all four pins fit 3 pins.

the extra wire is for the motherboard to control the FAN with PWM.

but even the 3pin fans are controllable on motherboards now thanks to inbuilt fan controllers that change the voltage from 5,6V to 12V

Tintai · May 18, 2013

I need only adapters? And evreryfing will be ok?

TRWOV · May 18, 2013

No adaptaters needed:

d1nky · May 18, 2013

is it still called 'backwards compatible' when the board can go from PWM to analog voltage control?

ill keep this thread on my subs because people ask all the time.

Geofrancis · May 18, 2013

Most motherboards with a 4 pin header can only control the speed of a 4 pin fan. A few motherboard can vary the voltage to control a 3 pin fan but that requires extra hardware that is absent from budget boards. Check in your bios in the fan control section you might have the option to switch between PWM and Voltage so you can control the speed of a 3 pin or 4 pin fan. Without it a 3 pin fan will just run at full speed on a 4 pin header.

Ikaruga · May 18, 2013

Geofrancis said:
Most motherboards with a 4 pin header can only control the speed of a 4 pin fan. A few motherboard can vary the voltage to control a 3 pin fan but that requires extra hardware that is absent from budget boards. Check in your bios in the fan control section you might have the option to switch between PWM and Voltage so you can control the speed of a 3 pin or 4 pin fan. Without it a 3 pin fan will just run at full speed on a 4 pin header.

Speedfan can control the fans on most of the motherboards quite well, and it's doing it without any kind of bios support. You can set it to spin up/down the fans based on the CPU,GPU load or the temps of other parts, etc. There are similar solutions on Linux as well ofc.

Geofrancis · May 18, 2013

Ikaruga said:
Speedfan can control the fans on most of the motherboards quite well, and it's doing it without any kind of bios support. You can set it to spin up/down the fans based on the CPU,GPU load or the temps of other parts, etc. There are similar solutions on Linux as well ofc.

The motherboard still has to have the physical hardware on the motherboard to vary the voltage on a 4 pin fan header. Speedfan can only manipulate the fans the bios can.

Ikaruga · May 18, 2013

Geofrancis said:
Speedfan can only manipulate the fans the bios can.

No? It accesses and controls the hardware directly. It's not the win95 era anymore when operating systems and programs were tied to the bios settings. There are a lot of motherboards out there what Speedfan can control while the bios has nothing for it or option only for 1 fan perhaps. Check out the official list which is far from complete tbh.

de.das.dude · May 18, 2013

Ikaruga said:
Speedfan can control the fans on most of the motherboards quite well, and it's doing it without any kind of bios support. You can set it to spin up/down the fans based on the CPU,GPU load or the temps of other parts, etc. There are similar solutions on Linux as well ofc.

speedfan is an epic fail on most new motherboards.

Most manufacturers will bundle their H/W monitoring software with it.
ASRock provides a really good one.

i can control all the fans on my motherboard.

Geofrancis · May 18, 2013

Ikaruga said:
No? It accesses and controls the hardware directly. It's not the win95 era anymore when operating systems and programs were tied to the bios settings. There are a lot of motherboards out there what Speedfan can control while the bios has nothing for it or option only for 1 fan perhaps. Check out the official list which is far from complete tbh.

I used speedfan for nearly 10 years i know whats capable of. What I mean is unless the fan is plugged into a fan header with voltage control or PWM tied to the smbus then you cannot control it with anything. A lot of boards have dumb headers that only supply 12v.

Tintai · May 18, 2013

Nice, I try this. Thanks!

@edit:
It's work, very nice.

Ikaruga · May 19, 2013

de.das.dude said:
speedfan is an epic fail on most new motherboards.

It was just an example, I know many other programs exists.

Geofrancis said:
I used speedfan for nearly 10 years i know whats capable of. What I mean is unless the fan is plugged into a fan header with voltage control or PWM tied to the smbus then you cannot control it with anything. A lot of boards have dumb headers that only supply 12v.

I agree, but you said "Speedfan can only manipulate the fans the bios can.", which is not true. I only reflected to that.

de.das.dude · May 19, 2013

i was countering the point when you said speedfan works on most motherboards. which is false. most post 2010 motherboards will not work.

also speed fan is a very bad tool. its confusing. it wasnt made properly for use. it still looks like its a beta version.

Jetster · May 19, 2013

Cougar has some nice 4 pin fans reasonably priced if you get them on sale. You can use ether as they mentioned but the 4 pin fans will change speed as needed

Geofrancis · May 19, 2013

What you can also do is plug 4 pin fans onto a dumb 3pin header then connect the pwm wire to your CPU fans pwm pin so it can control the speed of both fans. My computer has 3 fans controlled by the CPU fan but plugged into 3 different plugs so I can monitor the rpm of each fan.

Speed fan used to be good. It was almost the first program of its type and it was great because there was no alternatives but now every motherboard comes with it's own software.

Aquinus · May 19, 2013

Geofrancis said:
What you can also do is plug 4 pin fans onto a dumb 3pin header then connect the pwm wire to your CPU fans pwm pin so it can control the speed of both fans. My computer has 3 fans controlled by the CPU fan but plugged into 3 different plugs so I can monitor the rpm of each fan.

Speed fan used to be good. It was almost the first program of its type and it was great because there was no alternatives but now every motherboard comes with it's own software.

He is talking about his Gene V, which isn't like that. Every fan connector on my motherboard provides a 4-pin connector so I can drive something like 6 or 7 PWM fans with just my motherboard. Most high-end ASUS boards now don't have strictly +12v pass-through. It eliminates the purpose of having the connector on the motherboard in the first place. I would imagine that the Gene has at least 3 or 4 fan connectors with control and sensing.

Tintai · May 19, 2013

Gene V has 3 connector with 4 pins.

For now, two my fans work in ~600 RPM and one ~1600 RPM. It's good?

TRWOV · May 19, 2013

Depends, what's their original specifications?

Tintai · May 19, 2013

Two from case and one I bought. Cooler Master fan but I don't know what's their specifications. But one of them make a noise and then calms down. And again. But temperatures is ok.
Before I had all fans(except fan next to the CPU fan) connected to PSU.

Hood · May 19, 2013

Geofrancis said:
I used speedfan for nearly 10 years i know whats capable of. What I mean is unless the fan is plugged into a fan header with voltage control or PWM tied to the smbus then you cannot control it with anything. A lot of boards have dumb headers that only supply 12v.

I agree, the BIOS or Windows program can't control voltage in a circuit without a built in (hardware) voltage regulator. So if a 3-pin fan header has a setting in BIOS associated with it, it has voltage regulation. I assume that most 4-pin headers on recent motherboards also have voltage reg. on the 2nd pin, (RPM on the 3rd, PWM on the 4th pin), but probably not on the cheapest boards.

mm67 · May 19, 2013

de.das.dude said:
i was countering the point when you said speedfan works on most motherboards. which is false. most post 2010 motherboards will not work.

also speed fan is a very bad tool. its confusing. it wasnt made properly for use. it still looks like its a beta version.

At the moment I have these :
Gigabyte Z68XP-UD4
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H
Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H
Asus Maximus V Formula
Asus Maximus V Gene
Asrock Z68 Extreme3Gen3

And all work great with Speedfan...

Hood · May 21, 2013

Speedfan always gave me bad sensor readings and sometimes the wrong hardware info, and I've tried it on almost every system I've built, rebuilt, or worked on. Any program exhibiting such behavior is unreliable to say the least. I only tried it on all those systems to see which temp monitoring program works best on a given platform or configuration, and it always worked worse than the others (Real temp, HWiNFO 32/64, HMonitor, Open Hardware Monitor, etc.) as far as accuracy, resource useage, etc. I almost always use HWiNFO to monitor temps, and I prefer a manual fan controller for fan speeds.

Ed_1 · May 21, 2013

On most ASUS P8z77 xxx AFAIK the CPU_fan and OPT_fan only is controlled by PWM, you need 4 wire fan at those headers or the 3 wire run 100% .

All other chassis headers run voltage or PWM so support for both 3 an 4 wire fans .

Processor	Intel Core i7-2600k @ 4,4 GHz
Motherboard	Asus Maximus V Gene
Cooling	Corsair H80i
Memory	Corsair Vengeance 16 GB @ 1866 MHz
Video Card(s)	EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Superclocked
Storage	Corsair SSD Force GT 120 GB & Seagate Desktop SSHD 2TB
Display(s)	BenQ XL2420T & BenQ T720
Case	Fractal Design Define R5
Power Supply	OCZ ZT 650W
Software	Windows 10 Pro 64bit

System Name	ODIN
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
Motherboard	Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite AX V2
Cooling	Dark Rock 4
Memory	G Skill RipjawsV F4 3600 Mhz C16
Video Card(s)	MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X OC LHR
Storage	Crucial 2 TB M.2 SSD :: WD Blue M.2 1TB SSD :: 1 TB WD Black VelociRaptor
Display(s)	Dell S2716DG 27" 144 Hz G-SYNC
Case	Fractal Meshify C
Audio Device(s)	Onboard Audio
Power Supply	Antec HCP 850 80+ Gold
Mouse	Corsair M65
Keyboard	Corsair K70 RGB Lux
Software	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Benchmark Scores	I don't benchmark.

System Name	Monke \| Work Thinkpad\| Old Monke
Processor	Ryzen 5600X \| Ryzen 5500U \| FX8320
Motherboard	ASRock B550 Extreme4 \| ? \| Asrock 990FX Extreme 4
Cooling	240mm Rad \| Not needed \| hyper 212 EVO
Memory	2x16GB DDR4 3600 Corsair RGB \| 16 GB DDR4 3600 \| 16GB DDR3 1600
Video Card(s)	Sapphire Pulse RX6700XT 12GB \| Vega 8 \| Sapphire Pulse RX580 8GB
Storage	Samsung 980 nvme (Primary) \| some samsung SSD
Display(s)	Dell 2723DS \| Some 14" 1080p 98%sRGB IPS \| Dell 2240L
Case	Ant Esports Tempered case \| Thinkpad \| Antec
Audio Device(s)	Logitech Z333 \| Jabra corpo stuff
Power Supply	Corsair RM750e \| not needed \| Corsair GS 600
Mouse	Logitech G400 \| nipple
Keyboard	Logitech G213 \| stock kb is awesome \| Logitech K230
VR HMD	;_;
Software	Windows 10 Professional x3
Benchmark Scores	There are no marks on my bench

Processor	Intel Core i7-2600k @ 4,4 GHz
Motherboard	Asus Maximus V Gene
Cooling	Corsair H80i
Memory	Corsair Vengeance 16 GB @ 1866 MHz
Video Card(s)	EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Superclocked
Storage	Corsair SSD Force GT 120 GB & Seagate Desktop SSHD 2TB
Display(s)	BenQ XL2420T & BenQ T720
Case	Fractal Design Define R5
Power Supply	OCZ ZT 650W
Software	Windows 10 Pro 64bit

System Name	Dell-y Driver
Processor	Core i5-10400
Motherboard	Asrock H410M-HVS
Cooling	Intel 95w stock cooler
Memory	2x8 A-DATA 2999Mhz DDR4
Video Card(s)	UHD 630
Storage	1TB WD Green M.2 - 4TB Seagate Barracuda
Display(s)	Asus PA248 1920x1200 IPS
Case	Dell Vostro 270S case
Audio Device(s)	Onboard
Power Supply	Dell 220w
Software	Windows 10 64bit

Fans with 4 pins

Tintai

TheLaughingMan

de.das.dude

Pro Indian Modder

Tintai

TRWOV

d1nky

Geofrancis

Ikaruga

Geofrancis

Ikaruga

de.das.dude

Pro Indian Modder

Geofrancis

Tintai

Ikaruga

de.das.dude

Pro Indian Modder

Jetster

Geofrancis

Aquinus

Resident Wat-man

Tintai

TRWOV

Tintai

Hood

mm67

Hood

Ed_1

System Name	Zotan
Processor	i9-10850K
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z490 Gaming X AX
Cooling	H100
Memory	32GB Viper 3200
Video Card(s)	Zotac RTX3080
Case	Airflow 275R
Power Supply	RMX850
Benchmark Scores	d1nky@hwbot.org

System Name	Machine XV
Processor	Dual Xeon E5 2670 V3 Turbo unlocked
Motherboard	Kllisre X99 Dual
Cooling	120mm heatsink
Memory	64gb DDR4 ECC
Video Card(s)	RX 480 4Gb
Storage	1Tb NVME SSD
Display(s)	19" + 23" + 17"
Case	ATX
Audio Device(s)	XFi xtreme USB
Power Supply	800W
Software	Windows 10

System Name	Juliette // HTPC
Processor	Intel i7 9700K // AMD Ryzen 5 5600G
Motherboard	ASUS Prime Z390X-A // ASRock B550 ITX-AC
Cooling	Noctua NH-U12 Black // Stock
Memory	Corsair DDR4 3600 32gb //G.SKILL Trident Z Royal Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 3600
Video Card(s)	ASUS RTX4070 OC// GTX 1650
Storage	Samsung 970 EVO NVMe 1Tb, Intel 665p Series M.2 2280 1TB // Samsung 1Tb SSD
Display(s)	ASUS VP348QGL 34" Quad HD 3440 x 1440 // 55" LG 4K SK8000 Series
Case	Seasonic SYNCRO Q7// Silverstone Granada GD05
Audio Device(s)	Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 // HDMI to Samsung HW-R650 sound bar
Power Supply	Seasonic SYNCRO 750 W // CORSAIR Vengeance 650M
Mouse	Cooler Master MM710 53G
Keyboard	Logitech 920-009300 G512 SE
Software	Windows 10 Pro // Windows 10 Pro

System Name	Apollo
Processor	Intel Core i9 9880H
Motherboard	Some proprietary Apple thing.
Memory	64GB DDR4-2667
Video Card(s)	AMD Radeon Pro 5600M, 8GB HBM2
Storage	1TB Apple NVMe, 4TB External
Display(s)	Laptop @ 3072x1920 + 2x LG 5k Ultrafine TB3 displays
Case	MacBook Pro (16", 2019)
Audio Device(s)	AirPods Pro, Sennheiser HD 380s w/ FIIO Alpen 2, or Logitech 2.1 Speakers
Power Supply	96w Power Adapter
Mouse	Logitech MX Master 3
Keyboard	Logitech G915, GL Clicky
Software	MacOS 12.1

System Name	DEVIL'S ABYSS
Processor	i7-4790K@4.6 GHz
Motherboard	Asus Z97-Deluxe
Cooling	Corsair H110 (2 x 140mm)(3 x 140mm case fans)
Memory	16GB Adata XPG V2 2400MHz
Video Card(s)	EVGA 780 Ti Classified
Storage	Intel 750 Series 400GB (AIC), Plextor M6e 256GB (M.2), 13 TB storage
Display(s)	Crossover 27QW (27"@ 2560x1440)
Case	Corsair Obsidian 750D Airflow
Audio Device(s)	Realtek ALC1150
Power Supply	Cooler Master V1000
Mouse	Ttsports Talon Blu
Keyboard	Logitech G510
Software	Windows 10 Pro x64 version 1803
Benchmark Scores	Passmark CPU score = 13080

Processor	i7-2500K @ 4.5 GHz
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4
Cooling	EK Supreme HF
Memory	Kingston HyperX Genesis 2 * 4 GB
Video Card(s)	Radeon HD 7950
Storage	OCZ Agility 3
Case	Bitfenix Shinobi XL
Power Supply	Super Flower SF-700P14XE

System Name	Ed-PC
Processor	Intel i5-12600k
Motherboard	Asus TUF Z690 PLUS Wifi D4
Cooling	Noctua NH-14S
Memory	Crucial Ballistix DDR4 C16@3600 16GB
Video Card(s)	Nvidia MSI 970
Storage	Samsung 980, 860evo
Case	Lian Li Lancool II mesh Perf
Audio Device(s)	onboard
Power Supply	Corsair RM750x
Software	Win10 Pro 64bit