Hooking up case fans to ASUS Maximus VII Hero, 4 slots, 5 fans....

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raxor30

raxor30

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Aug 10, 2012
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I'm having some trouble with a fan situation I'm going to be encountering soon.

1. I have an ASUS Maximus VII Hero, and on the motherboard is 4 x 4 pin Chassis Fan connectors to control the fans. Now the case I want is an NZXT H440 which I'm going to have a fan configuration of 2 x 140mm for the front, 2 x 140mm for the top and 1 x 140mm for the rear. What do I do in this situation? 4 connectors on motherboard and 5 fans. I was thinking of hooking the front and top fans to the motherboard (4 pin connector fans) and have the rear fan be a 3 pin fan blowing at a constant rate (which it can only do). 2 front are intake, 2 top are exhaust, and the rear fan is exhaust. Is this a good way of fixing this problem? If not how would you solve this problem?

2. 4-pin fans are hard to find, and if you can find them they are not exactly eye-appealing (brown fans????) I'm looking for 4-pin fans that can be controlled by the motherboard and perform as well as look good, any suggestions?
 
Solution
laviniuc
4 pin headers can control 3pin fans without any issues, and you can use a y splitter for the 2 front fans, you want them spinning at the same speed anyway (as in, they would adjust speed as you want them but same for both of them)
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laviniuc

laviniuc

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Nov 29, 2013
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4 pin headers can control 3pin fans without any issues, and you can use a y splitter for the 2 front fans, you want them spinning at the same speed anyway (as in, they would adjust speed as you want them but same for both of them)
 
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Paperdoc

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Sorry, laviniuc misinformed you. When you plug a 3-pin fan into a 4-pin mobo port, the fan will always run at full speed. That is, unless your mobo allows you to change the port type and make it behave like a 3-pin port.

There's a better solution for your situation. Most mobo fan ports can support up to 2 fans per port, so you can use a Y-splitter to connect 2 fans to one of your mobo Chassis Fan ports. Since you say all your mobo ports are 4-pin type, make sure to buy 4-pin fans to use, AND buy a 4-pin fan Y-splitter adapter. Here's an example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812423160&cm_re=Y_splitter_4-pin_fan-_-12-423-160-_-Product

Note that this unit does one other point properly - it connects only ONE of the two fan's speed signals to the mobo for monitoring.
 
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laviniuc

laviniuc

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no i didn't:



 
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Paperdoc

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I stand corrected. The manual for that mobo makes it clear that both the CPU_FAN and the four CHA_FAN fan ports can work in either 4-pin or 3-pin mode. The CPU_FAN port in its default mode will automatically detect the type of fan connected and adjust itself. It is not clear from my reading of the manual whether the four CHA_FAN ports also do this adjustment by themselves, or whether the user needs to set it manually in BIOS Setup. But either way, the mobo CHA_FAN ports CAN control either 3-pin or 4-pin fans. Moreover, it appears that each of these four fan ports can be configured separately.

Thus the only restriction becomes simple. If you use a Y-splitter to power two fans from one port, you really should ensure that BOTH of those fans are of the same pin type, AND the Y-splitter you buy is of that type, too.
 
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