Question Any ideas why my CPU Fan will not spin when other fans are plugged into the same fan/temp controller??

[aaronmcphee]

I recently purchased an STW-5043 Fan speed controller from Amazon for use with my PC, which I decided to moun into a 1U rackmount plate which sits quite nicely in my music workstation/desk. I found that if I connected my CPU fan it ran fine and the temperature sensors all work as they should do, however, as soon as I connected a case fan and booted the PC, the case fan whizzed into action just fine, but the CPU fan would jerk a little as if wanting to spin but would not, as soon as I removed the case fan, the CPU fan would work again. So I connected two case fans and left the CPU out of the equation....both case fans spin just fine together. Now here's the even stranger part, if I unplug the temperature sensors from the controller it will allow me to run the CPU fan, and the case fans together. So the next thing I tried was to turn on the PC, allow the case fan to start spinning...then connect the CPU fan...and hey presto, both ran together along with the temp sensors.

So by this stage I was having a WTF moment! I have trawled through the forums on here, and other sites but could not find a situation like this one, can anybody please tell me what might be going on??

Many thanks in advance.

Aaron.

 

[aaronmcphee]

Solved! Well sort of. Turns out that I can't use a 4 pin cpu fan on the controller for some reason, despite the relevant pins being the same as on a 3pin connector. Anyway I simply bought a 3pin cpu fan and all systems are go.