4pin pwm fan connected to 3pin fan controller

[Don01]

I am planning on upgrading various parts of my current system (mainly to make it look better).
My new cpu heatsink the Zalman CNPS9900A led
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=207_23_313&products_id=12915
has a 4pin pwm fan.

What I want to do is forget about the pwm control and connect it directly to a fan controller which only supports 3pin fans.
Is this possible?
Will the fan work with just 3 pins connected to the fan controller?

Also I dont know if anyone will know this but my motherboard which I am not upgrading an ASUS M2N-MX SE (which is almost 2 years old) will no longer have a fan connected to the CPU_FAN plug.
Will this cause any problems such as a no CPU fan error message?

I am new to PC modding and this site so sorry i this is in the wrong category this was the most relevant that I could find.

Thanks

 

[curtains]

the 4th pin is just a controller (voltage or speed), sometime motherboards have them some don't, some can control it with software, its not too important, just means you prob can't control the speed. So yes you can just plug 4pin into 3pin

Why aren't you using the CPU fan plug? its good if your fan fails your computer will know to warn you.

I'm not sure if you can do this on all board but some boards (prob most) you can turn off the error messages (for if your using liquid cooling) in the BIOS.

 

[Don01]

Ok thanks for the help thats pretty much what I needed to know.
I thought that it would work but just needed some confirmation since I could not find a straight answer from anywhere else.

 

[one-shot]

My Fan Controller has an alarm that goes off if a fan fails. Maybe the OP has something similar on his.

 

[Zenthar]

The 4pin pwm fan connector was built to be compatible with standard 3pin (both male and female connectors). The 4th pin is just to "lower" the speed if needed. That means that if a 4pin fan is connected to a 3pin connector, it will always run at 100% speed. Therefore, make sure the fan noise is acceptable at 100%.

As for the alarm, that is the use of the 3rd wire: fan speed. The 4th wire has nothing to do with that.