How do I achieve multiple fan control? And other fan questions.

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Bromshow

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Aug 31, 2016
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I will be running 14 fans in this case. the board I will be buying and most boards seem to have 2 4 pin CPU fan connectors and 3 3pin SYS fan connectors. The fans I will be getting are 120-140mm AF and SP corsair quiet editions and run on 3 pin connections.

What is the difference between 3 and 4 pin fan connections?

Would a 3 pin fan work if you put it on a 4 pin connector?

I have heard that some boards like the ASUS Z170-A with built in fan control cant read fan characteristics properly if you have multiple fans hooked up on a fan splitter, is this true? If this is the case is a board like that which touts built in fan control worth getting?

Do you need fan control on board or a fan controller like an aquero or is there a free software solution to do just the same job?

Will a 3 pin system fan connector be overloaded on the board side if you hook up 4-5 fans on one circuit?

Thanks





 
Solution
getochkn
3 pin fans are controlled by voltage. 5v means fan goes slow, pc ramps up voltage, fan goes faster. 4 pin fans uses PWM, pulse width modulation to control the fan speed. Basically the fan always get 12V and a secondary voltage signal in a very low voltage range is sent to the fan and this controls the speed. both ways allow the fan to report back it's speed or RPM via one of the wires.

Some 4 pin sockets can detect if the 4th pin is there or via the BIOS, allow you to control if it works as a 3pin or 4pin fan. Worst case, a 3pin fan would always get 12V, as explained above, and run at full speed when plugged into a 4 pin outlet.

Yes, this is true for all fans via a splitter. If you look closely at a splitter, they usually...
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Bromshow

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It is definetly overkill, this is primarily an enthusiast project.

I will have 1 480 rad, a 560 rad, 3 front 120 fans, and 1 rear 120 or 140 mm fan and 2 140s in the bottom
 
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getochkn

getochkn

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Jul 2, 2006
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3 pin fans are controlled by voltage. 5v means fan goes slow, pc ramps up voltage, fan goes faster. 4 pin fans uses PWM, pulse width modulation to control the fan speed. Basically the fan always get 12V and a secondary voltage signal in a very low voltage range is sent to the fan and this controls the speed. both ways allow the fan to report back it's speed or RPM via one of the wires.

Some 4 pin sockets can detect if the 4th pin is there or via the BIOS, allow you to control if it works as a 3pin or 4pin fan. Worst case, a 3pin fan would always get 12V, as explained above, and run at full speed when plugged into a 4 pin outlet.

Yes, this is true for all fans via a splitter. If you look closely at a splitter, they usually only supply power to the all the fans and only 1 fan replies back the RPM to avoid confusing an reporting.

How many fans a circuit can hold depends on how much each fan draws at full. A powerful fan designed for cooling can draw more AMPS and thus less fans on the same circuit as say a "quiet" model of a fan that uses less power, and thus more fans. Some splitters bypass this by allows you to provide power from a molex or sata power plug. a 5 and 12v molex or sata power could power many, many, many, many fans.

There isn't many fan controllers out there, nor many, if any, that could handle that many fans and be able to get the speed and control each one individually.

https://www.nzxt.com/products/grid-plus-v2

Something like that allows 6 fans with good control and software features, etc, and you could split some. I'm unsure if you can run multiple grid+ units though. If so, 2-3 of them would work.

Most fan controllers are really dumb. This is because they don't interact with the motherboard and gpu and all the different temps of a PC as there is 10055453543543 different MB's and GPU's, etc out there. Grid+ is one of the first to plug in via USB and get these stats. Most fan controllers just allow you to adjust voltage for 3 pin fans via a knob and that's about it.
 
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Solution
kittle

kittle

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Dec 8, 2005
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You would be better off powering the extra fans directly from your PSU. Use the fan headers on your motherboard for just a single fan as they were designed -- this will save you grief in the future. And it will let you control the speed of those fans.

For the rest of your fans - Some can run at a constant speed (like maybe the radiator fans?), and can connect directly to your PSU.
But any fans that require a variable speed will need to be hooked up to a fan controller.
 
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