First time building desktop: Fan Questions

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Matthew Proctor

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May 31, 2013
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So I'm trying to put together a computer for the first time. However, I've been having some problems and made some mistakes. So if anyone could answer a few questions about connecting fans for me, that'd be great, and my apologies if any of these questions are just completely idiotic.

1) So my case came with 3 120mm fans. However my motherboard has only one fan connection on it. Can I just connect all the molex cables together?

2) Does a fan need to be connected to both the motherboard and the PSU? Or just one or the other?

3) I somehow pulled out the molex cable from the back fan, any reason I can't just order a cheap fan and replace the now broken one?
 
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J
1) You can connect the fans to molex, but they will run at full speed, rather than only spinning as fast as needed. Alternatively, you can get a splitter cable for the fan connector on the motherboard. Not sure how well these work, but I'm going to be putting a couple in my gaming PC next time I upgrade it.

2) Generally speaking, fans only need to be connected to one or the other. There may be some exceptions, but if they spin at all when connected to just the motherboard, they're probably fine.

3) If the new fan is the same size as the old one then it would definitely be fine. Depending on your case, the size might not even matter.
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jakjawagon

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Aug 28, 2010
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1) You can connect the fans to molex, but they will run at full speed, rather than only spinning as fast as needed. Alternatively, you can get a splitter cable for the fan connector on the motherboard. Not sure how well these work, but I'm going to be putting a couple in my gaming PC next time I upgrade it.

2) Generally speaking, fans only need to be connected to one or the other. There may be some exceptions, but if they spin at all when connected to just the motherboard, they're probably fine.

3) If the new fan is the same size as the old one then it would definitely be fine. Depending on your case, the size might not even matter.
 
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