Case fan doesn't spin, Not enough power from PSU?

[tuesday0108]

I have an coolermaster HAF 932 case. It has a 230mm front case fan, 230mm side fan, 230mm top fan and a 120mm rear fan.


My system setup is

windows 7 64bit
Phenom II X4 955BE
2x2gigs GSKill 7-7-7-21 ram
Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H motherboard
Nvidia GTX 260 core 216
640gb wd hd
1tb hitachi hd
dvd drive
Thermaltake 600watt purepower PSU



I tried plugging the front fan into the "SYS FAN 1" slot. Sys fan 1 has 4 pins while the front case fan has 3. The fan doesn't spin. I tried plugging side fan into sys fan 1. Same thing, doesn't spin.

Today I bought a DC fan wire 4p-3p 5v adapter. It connects the 3pin on the front case fan to my PSU molex. Still didn't spin. I tried connecting the side fan to it. Didn't spin.

The adapter has only 2 wires connected to the fan side. It has 3 pins sticking out, but only two wires connected to 2 out of 3 pins. Red/Black wire, no white wire.

Does anyone know what's going on? Is it because my PSU isn't putting out enough power? I've tried connecting the fans via adapter to different molex on the PSU and it still doesn't work.

 

[tuesday0108]

I just went to a PSU power calculator site and it says my system would require a 445watt power supply to power.

I have a 600 watt, but is this enough? It says I have a total of 18amps on each 12 rail. I have two 12 rails. The information on the box doesn't tell me what my max watt is though.

 

[tuesday0108]

Oh and the reason I posted this on the motherboards section instead of somewhere else is because the original problem had to do with SYS FAN 1.

 

[EXT64]

It only has two wires because the third is only the speed sensor out, which when hooked directly to the PSU is unnecessary. Have you tested to make sure the from fan works by plugging it into a known working port? Often those adapters are made very poorly, inspect it carefully to see if anything is hooked up wrong or is they did a bad attachment/solder job.

 

[RetiredChief]

The molex has 2 outputs +5 (red) and +12(Yellow). Your adaptor has red/blk. If your fan is a +12V fan, make sure the Red wire on the adaptor is mating with the yellow wire on the molex. If +5V fan then mate red to red.

Here is another case where a "Cheap" DVM would solve the problem quickly. You could verify the voltage and verify continuity of the Fan windings.

 

[EXT64]

We'll see what tuesday says, but he might have said in another post that the front fan does work, which would imply to me that the fan power adapter is bad. It is not the PSU, it is somewhere in the connection from the PSU to the fan.

 

[tuesday0108]

The molex has 2 outputs +5 (red) and +12(Yellow). Your adaptor has red/blk. If your fan is a +12V fan, make sure the Red wire on the adaptor is mating with the yellow wire on the molex. If +5V fan then mate red to red.

Here is another case where a "Cheap" DVM would solve the problem quickly. You could verify the voltage and verify continuity of the Fan windings.

The molex part of the adapter is shaped in such a way that only allows me to connect it a certain way to the female molex so I believe the wiring should be correct.

 

[EXT64]

Oh, we aren't saying you are doing it wrong, more wondering if the plug was made correctly.

Try hooking the adapter and fan onto another PSU molex cable.

 

[tuesday0108]

It only has two wires because the third is only the speed sensor out, which when hooked directly to the PSU is unnecessary. Have you tested to make sure the from fan works by plugging it into a known working port? Often those adapters are made very poorly, inspect it carefully to see if anything is hooked up wrong or is they did a bad attachment/solder job.

Yea I plugged that fan into amother molex>fan adapter that I already had and it worked. I tried plugging that fan into SYS FAN 1 and it did not work.

I'm going to go try this adapter again to see if it works with the other fans.

 

[tuesday0108]

Okay I just did some tests and it looks like this adapter i bought is broke. I tested it out on three of my case fans and it didn't work. Im going to return this and try another one.

 

[tuesday0108]

Got a new adapater today and everything is fine.

 

[EXT64]

Good to hear. Several of my adapters were extremely cheaply built, so I'm not surprised someone got hit with a defective one. At least it wasn't a short.

 

[tuesday0108]

Best answer selected by tuesday0108.