3 pin case fan

monokiller

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Feb 27, 2015
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Hello everyone ! :) i have a question. So i have a 120mm arctic f12 fan i plugged it in pwr_fan1 connector so can i controll the speed or not ?
 
Solution
Correct. If you want it controlled through the motherboard, you need either a fan cable splitter or you need to get a fan controller. The CPU has to be on that header, since there's only one fan header and it's listed as chassis/system/cpu, you would need to split the signal or get a controller.
Depends on the motherboard, but yes, it should be compatible with voltage controlled BIOS options. It's just not PWM controlled, but 3 pin fans are generally voltage controllable through the motherboard headers. Simply plug it in, and set your fan profile accordingly in the BIOS.
 

JimF_35

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The fan speeds are usually under the PC HEALTH section. There are two ways to control a fan PWM and Voltage. If you have a 3 pin connected to the PWM then you will need to set the speed control through Voltage. Hope this helps.
 
Yeah, that's a pretty old board, and was rather minimal even when it was new. It only has a single fan header for use by the entire system. I guess they expected you to just run everything unregulated back then, or use a fan controller.

With your board, a front panel fan controller might not be a bad idea. You can get one of these splitters though, that will allow control of all the fans. It probably isn't manually voltage controlled and has to be automatically controlled for the cpu or whatever is connected. Check the bios.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812987007&cm_re=fan_splitter_cable-_-12-987-007-_-Product

You can also get further adapters that allow you to power on one end through a 4 pin molex but connect a single RPM signal wire to the appropriate connector on the motherboard header. If you need many fans and don't want to just get a fan controller, that would be what you had to do. For just a CPU fan and a single case fan, the above item will work. You can also get them in a 1 into 3 splitter, but I don't recommend using them as it may draw excessive power through the single header.
 
Correct. If you want it controlled through the motherboard, you need either a fan cable splitter or you need to get a fan controller. The CPU has to be on that header, since there's only one fan header and it's listed as chassis/system/cpu, you would need to split the signal or get a controller.
 
Solution