Someone school me real quick on case fan connections. 4-pin vs molex

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Adelitas

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I was looking at buying the Rosewill blackhawk mid-tower case, but just figured out that the case might have the fan connections I thought it did. It comes with 5 stock fans: 2x 120mm front fans (4 pin molex), 1x 120mm side fan (4 pin molex), 1x 120mm on the top of the rear panel (3 pin), and 1x 140mm fan on the back of the top panel (4 pin molex).

My thoughts were that 4-pin meant that it was a PWM and I would be able to control the fan speed by having them plugged into my mobo. Now I think I'm figuring out that 4-pin molex (what this case has) can only be plugged into the power supply and thus run at full blast all the time (not something I want). What I really want is 4-pin fans that connect to the mobo and allow me to control the speed. My board will be an asus z87 pro so it does have support for 4x4-pin fans and I planned on connecting the rear top fan to the CPU-OPT so it was in sync with the CPU fan

I really liked the blackhawk case, but maybe I need to go through all the case options again and select something else with 4-pin connectors. Otherwise, I guess I would have to buy 4-pin fans to replace all of the stock ones? The problem is when I power search for 4-pin fans on newegg, I seem to get ones with molex connectors. So how do I find the ones that I want?
 
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Here's the sorted Newegg list: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007998%20600035674&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&SrchInDesc=pwm&Page=1&PageSize=20

It will be impossible to find a case that has all 4-pin PWM fans so you can control the speed through the motherboard. No manufacturer does this due to extra cost and the "99.9% of people don't care" factor :p You're right that plugging a fan into a 4-pin molex will cause it to run at full speed all the time with no ability to control it or for it to report RPMs. All you need is a cheap $15-$20 fan controller that mounts in an empty 5.25" drive bay and you can control everything like that, just please do not plug the CPU cooler fan into it ;)

Btw, when using a fan...
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robax91

robax91

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For that many fans, you'll just need a fan controller installed inside. You can control fans with 4-pin that are attached directly to the mobo (pwm), but if you want 4pin molex to be controllable... you'll need the add-on. They aren't really expensive. It basically regulates the voltage going to the fans, making them spin slower than full blast.
 
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JohnPMyers

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Here's the sorted Newegg list: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007998%20600035674&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&SrchInDesc=pwm&Page=1&PageSize=20

It will be impossible to find a case that has all 4-pin PWM fans so you can control the speed through the motherboard. No manufacturer does this due to extra cost and the "99.9% of people don't care" factor :p You're right that plugging a fan into a 4-pin molex will cause it to run at full speed all the time with no ability to control it or for it to report RPMs. All you need is a cheap $15-$20 fan controller that mounts in an empty 5.25" drive bay and you can control everything like that, just please do not plug the CPU cooler fan into it ;)

Btw, when using a fan controller, the fans only need to be 3-pin so no need to waste money looking for PWM (4-pin) fans.
 
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Adelitas

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So I guess in a way I'm stuck with spending $50+ on PWM fans or $30ish for a nice fan controller. I had no idea I would need either until tonight, but at least I found out before I bought everything on black friday.
So I'm guessing that a fan controller wouldn't be able to control the 4 molex fans since they aren't 3-pin? That would totally suck. That would mean I would have to buy converters for all of them too.
 
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JohnPMyers

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I'm not saying they don't exist, but i've never seen a fan with a 4-pin molex that didn't also have the 3-pin option. Hang on a second and i'll find out for you so you can be certain.

Edit: lol wow ok, i guess they actually are molex-only fans. That's pretty cheap of them to do that :/
 
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Adelitas

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Thank you, I appreciate it. The reason I'm thinking this is due to the fact that when I re-watched the youtube video on the case, I realized that I only saw one fan with a 3-pin. If you go to about 2:55 you will see that the top fan seems to only have a molex connector.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2a6WbGLqyU#t=181
 
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Adelitas

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yea, it's really weak how they just threw in what are basically filler fans. Now I'm at a crossroad. I'm not sure if I just buy a different case or just slowly change out the fans in this one. Neither option sounds good to me. I really liked this case because it seemed to have really good cooling performance based on the benches that I saw plus a few other features I liked (HDD dock, good amount of usb front ports, side window, etc)
 
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JohnPMyers

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Well, what i would do personally with that case is with the molex-only fan on the side for intake, i'd just plug it into the power supply and not think twice. The molex-only top exhaust i'd relocate to another intake spot and use it as intake, and again plug it into the PSU and not think twice. But that's just me. I'm not all that concerned with keeping fan noise to a minimum or all that worried if one of them dies and i get no alerts because nothing can read the RPMs. I'll notice it eventually lol

Anyway i'm sure the molex-only fans Rosewill used are some cheap $2.49 fans anyway and could be replaced by some equally cheap fans with a proper 3-pin connection. Or you could grab some even cheaper molex-to-3-pin adapters like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Cable-Molex-Y-4-pin-to-3-pin-Female-Fan-Cable-Adaptor-/400588259177
 
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Adelitas

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True, I guess I have a few different options here even with this case. I guess I'll end up sticking with the case and just seeing what I want to do with the fan situation later. Thanks for all of the help!
 
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DW4076

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Hey I just purchased the case, they must've updated it because all the fans have molex and the 3 pin that can connect to mobo. So guess I only need to plug one or the other in. I'm new to this and thought I had to plug in both because they are led fans.
 
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Adelitas

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Wow, that is cool. I wish I got that lucky, I bought the case in early December and all mine were molex besides one. Ended up just swapping almost all the fans out for new jetflo fans because of it.
 
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