Question Can I get some guidance on how to connect RGB fans?

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CRodrig57

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Mar 29, 2019
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Hey there, so I'm very confused on how the RGB fans work. I'm used to the regular 4 pin case fan. So I know there's two cables, 3pin for RGB and the 4 pin for powering the fans. This is where I'm confused: where do I plug both 3 pin and 4 pin on the board? My case does have RGB button to change colors so do I even need to connect the 3 pin to the board?

I bought DeepCool Matrexx 55 A-RGB case with 3 case fans plus an additional 3 of the same A-RGB case fan for a total of 6 A-RGB fans and MSI Arsenal B450 Tomahawk AM4 MB.

I've read the manual but the manual for the DeepCool supplies is extremely confusing and reading online says my motherboard doesn't have a 5V header so then I can't even plug the 3 pin part of the fans in to my board correct? Let me see if I have this correct: So then instead of plugging in 3 pin to the board, do I use the molex connector supplied from the case for RGB controll to power the RGB? And then Daisy chain all 6 of the 3 pin cables together which will go to RGB controller button on the case, and then find a way to get the 4 pin connections together and plug those in on the board? 3 fans per header is the safest I know so I will have to split those up.

Hope somebody could explain how this works. Thank you!
 
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Heya. First off, what board do you use?
Secondly, the power connectors for the fans do not go on the board. You daisy chain them and pop them (Edit: the molex, that is) into a suitable connector of your power supply.
Depending on how you want to control the LEDs (MoBo or manual), you either connect the main rgb cable (coming from your gathered fans) to the motherboard, or to the RGB controller of the case. Your case fans do not need to be connected to the motherboard at all, if you go for the manual solution via button control on the case.

P.S. Your mobo needs a 12V AURA RGB header , not 5V ADD, if you want to be able to connect the fan rgb to the mobo.
 
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McKeu said:
Heya. First off, what board do you use?
Secondly, the power connectors for the fans do not go on the board. You daisy chain them and pop them (Edit: the molex, that is) into a suitable connector of your power supply.
Depending on how you want to control the LEDs (MoBo or manual), you either connect the main rgb cable (coming from your gathered fans) to the motherboard, or to the RGB controller of the case. Your case fans do not need to be connected to the motherboard at all, if you go for the manual solution via button control on the case.

P.S. Your mobo needs a 12V AURA RGB header , not 5V ADD, if you want to be able to connect the fan rgb to the mobo.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. Im purchasing the MSI Arsenal Gaming B450 Tomahawk AM4 Board. It supports Mystic Light Sync . It has a 5050 RGB 12V header . So Daisy chain which cord though? Would it be the 3 pins? And then plug the 4 pin in on the board?

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450-TOMAHAWK
 
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McKeu said:
Hard to say without specifics. Can you make me a pic of your cable assortment :)
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Not a problem ! I'm getting my board in the mail today when it gets here and I install the board, I'll show you the headers and then the cords coming from the case! Thank you so much for help! I'll send link to Google Photos library for you to view images is that okay?
 
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CRodrig57 said:
Not a problem ! I'm getting my board in the mail today when it gets here and I install the board, I'll show you the headers and then the cords coming from the case! Thank you so much for help!
Click to expand...
No prob. Thing should be a lot easier when you actually have the board.
But as I mentioned before: As long as you want to control the LEDs and fans with the button on the case, you will not need to attach anything to the motherboard related to the fans anyway. Connect them to the power unit and to the case, that's it. But with that lot of fans and cables we need to see how we can get them all properly attached
 
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McKeu said:
No prob. Thing should be a lot easier when you actually have the board.
But as I mentioned before: As long as you want to control the LEDs and fans with the button on the case, you will not need to attach anything to the motherboard related to the fans anyway. Connect them to the power unit and to the case, that's it. But with that lot of fans and cables we need to see how we can get them all properly attached
Click to expand...
Okay so I have quite a bit of pictures. Off the bat, my MSI board only has 2x 4 Pin RGB headers as shown in the images. I took a picture of the controller sent to me by deep cooler from 3 pack fan kit, as it came with Daisy chain for more fans. I also showing the wiring coming from the actual case itself showing MAIN for the 3 pin connectors and the chain of the 4 pin connectors connected together.
 
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CRodrig57 said:
Okay so I have quite a bit of pictures. Off the bat, my MSI board only has 2x 4 Pin RGB headers as shown in the images. I took a picture of the controller sent to me by deep cooler from 3 pack fan kit, as it came with Daisy chain for more fans. I also showing the wiring coming from the actual case itself showing MAIN for the 3 pin connectors and the chain of the 4 pin connectors connected together.
Click to expand...
McKeu said:
No prob. Thing should be a lot easier when you actually have the board.
But as I mentioned before: As long as you want to control the LEDs and fans with the button on the case, you will not need to attach anything to the motherboard related to the fans anyway. Connect them to the power unit and to the case, that's it. But with that lot of fans and cables we need to see how we can get them all properly attached
Click to expand...
https://photos.app.goo.gl/bQD8cu4jLiGTaD3WA
 
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So, pic no 7 is a power connector. you can just shove it in one of the fitting connectors coming out of your PSU as cable.
Pic no 3 seems to be the hub that came with your case (the extra fans?) for daisy chaining the fans. It seems to support 4 fans. Pic 4 are the rgb cables. Pic 5 should show the side of the rgb cable that goes into the fans.
You should have one single cable coming from the button in the case for the fans/LED. That's were you plug in the rgb cable from the daisychained fans (possibly the case button is already daisy chained to the fans somehow by default, can you tell me which pic shows that specific one?).
 
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Anyhow, you should notice that all the fans in the case are probably already hooked together, via a cable switch for rgb.
You will need to unplug one of the fans from there and add the hub instead, plugging back the removed fan into the hub and the additional fans you bought. In the end you shoul have all fans going to the one single "main" rgb cable, which you connect to the case button. You do not need to plug in anything to the motherboard, unless you want to use software for controlling the fans. In this current setup you will use the button on the case for that. If you want to use software (Then you cannot use the button on the case anymore), plug the main cable onto the rgb header of the motherboard , instead of hooking it to the case button (which in that case will stay disconnected). You can as well mix things up, if you want the front or top fans to be controlled by software and the rest via button. You will just need to rearrange the daisy chain accordingly and plug the desired amount of fans into the rgb header(s) of your mobo, respectively the case button. You could for example plug 4 fans into the hub and connect the hub to the mobo, which would result in the hubbed fans to be able to be controlled via software, and the other fans via button. Using the hub might result in your controller software showing a weird amount of fans, though. It might only see the hub as one single fan, but that depends on the quality of the hub, I assume.
Then you will need to check how many power connectors you have (as in pic 7). You can normally stack those into each other and then plug them together into a PSU connector. although I would probably not go for more than 2 per psu connector. A good PSU has plenty of available connectors, which you won't need, unless you use a lot of optical drives and HDDs.
 
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In the end you will see that the whole procedure is actually extremely simple. In most cases you just need to worry about where to put the rgb cable and how to arrange the power supply to the fans, so that you don't fill all the empty space of your case with losely hanging cables :)
 
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CRodrig57 said:
You're okay! I actually clicked in my head I got everything to work! I used my coconut :) thank you so much!
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It is way easier than it seems at first glance. The biggest headache normally is arranging the cables neatly so they don't interfere with other, more important cables, components, or just loosely hang around looking ugly in a windowed case.
Btw: Never have any cables running directly over or under the main board. The sharp pins on some motherboards can damage the cables on movement.
 
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