Chassis fan troubles!

[Sporeky]

Hello all!

I'm working on my first PC, custom built. I've got everything set up and operating smoothly, except for one thing. The chassis fans.
Whenever I plug them in to the motherboard, my PC refuses to boot up. On my motherboard, the Start and Reset buttons light up, and the cosmetic lights come on. The Q-Code LED and the status indication lights (the ones next to the mobo's power plug) do not turn on. No other lights come on anywhere else in the PC.
If I press the Start button on my chassis or on my motherboard, the graphics card light and chassis lights come on for about half a second and then turn off. The CPU fan and the PSU fan also turn on, spin one rotation, and turn off. Nothing happens. If I try to boot it up again, nothing happens. No lights or fan or anything.

Other than this, my computer works flawlessly. I recently updated the BIOS to the latest version, so I know that's not an issue.

My specs:

Motherboard: ASUS Maximus VIII Hero
Chassis: NZXT Phantom 410
PSU: Corsair CX600M 600 watt
CPU: IntelCore i5 6600k
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 980ti
Memory: G.Skillz Ripjaws 4 DDR4 32 GB Pack (4x 8GB)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212EVO
Primary Storage: Samsung M.2 V-Nand SSD 250 GB
Secondary Storage: Samsung EVO SSD 1TB
Optical Drive: ASUS.... disk drive? Not sure what the exact name is with this one.

(Don't know if these even matter)

Monitor: Dell S2716GD
Keyboard: Razer Black Widow Ultimate 2013
Mouse: Razer Deathadder Chroma
Headphones: HyperX Cloud

 

[Paperdoc]

If I understand correctly, all the problems you describe happen ONLY when you plug your chassis fans into the mobo CHA_FAN connectors. If you don't everything works perfectly. Is that right?

One mistake I have seen noted in these forums among new builders is to plug fans into TWO places. Some fans come with two connectors on them: one smaller one with three or four holes in it that plugs into mobo CHA_FAN header pins, and another connector with two pins inside a ¾"-wide connector that plugs into a Molex output directly from the PSU. If that is what you have, you MUST NOT connect both of the connectors on a fan. Use one OR the other. So to have them powered and controlled by your mobo CHA_FAN headers, do NOT plug each fan's wider Molex male connector into a PSU output or anything else, either.

Here's another detail you will need to check. How many wires are in the cable coming out of the fan, and how many holes in the small fan connector on the end? You need to match the fan type to a setting in the BIOS Setup screens. See your manual on p. 3-39. If you have a 3-pin fan, set the Chassis Fan 1-4 Q-Fan Control to DC Mode; if your have 4-pin fans, set that option to PWM Mode. On p. 3-40 under Chassis Fan 1-4 Profile, set to Standard so the mobo will use its automatic control system.

 

[Sporeky]

Ah, well, you solved one problem I was having! 😀

I was attaching the fans to both the CHA_FAN pins on the mobo and the female Pci-E on the PSU. So that explains why my PC refused to boot. However, I'm now encountering a new problem. The mobo's BIOS doesn't appear to recognize the chassis fans. When I go to the BIOS's E-Z mode, it displays the fans connected to the motherboard. The CPU fan is detected and its RPMs are displayed, but all of the chassis, external, and optional CPU fan slots are gray and say N/A next to them.

I also did what you said and went into the BIOS Q-Fan controls. The chassis fans were already set to DC (The chassis fan cord is a 3-pin), and they were all on Standard mode.

One other thing: I'm using a cord that came with my PSU to plug the chassis fans to the mobo. It has 4 female molex inputs along its length (I've plugged the chassis fans into one of them), a 4-pin header one one end (that I've attached to the CHA_FAN pins on the mobo), and a male Pci-E on the other end (that I was previously plugging in to my PSU).
Is this the right cord to use?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Paperdoc]

OUCH!

That power supply cable you describe from the PSU has 4 Molex female connectors and then, at its end, a small connector with four holes, I suspect, that you have plugged into one of your mobo CHA_FAN headers. DISCONNECT THAT LAST ONE IMMEDIATELY!!!

That is NOT a fan connector and has nothing to do with fans. It is the connector used to supply power to a 3½" floppy disk drive, which I bet you don't even have. So what you've done is supply power into a header that is supposed to send out power, and the pin configuration does not even match electrically. Disconnect that one and do not use it for anything.

MAYBE that will resolve your problem with fan detection, I don't know.

 

[Sporeky]

Good lord! I had no idea!
In light of this new information, I've totally unplugged that cable from the case fans and the mobo.
However, this presents a new problem: what wire do I use? The PSU I'm using (Corsair CX600M) says that it comes with a "x4 Peripheral (4-Pin)" cable, which is what I assume I should use for the fans. Simply put, unfortunately, I 'aint got one.
Perhaps I lost it, perhaps I got sent a PSU sans one cable, I dunno. Either way, I don't have it.
Can you recommend any replacements I can buy? Would something like this...

http://www.amazon.com/Syba-SY-CAB65011-5-Inch-Molex-Female/dp/B002KQ5KBQ/ref=pd_sim_147_2/188-9365132-9953244?ie=UTF8&dpID=41t7GEOkOFL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR320%2C320_&refRID=047YT3FN33QWBA4KDT3F

...work for what I need?

 

[Paperdoc]

So now I'm really confused. First you tell us that you have connected your fans to a Molex 4-pin female output connector on the cables out of your PSU plus plugged that cable's end connector (incorrectly) into a mobo fan header. Now you say you do not have a way to connect your fans to the PSU. Huh?

But that may not matter at all. Your original "problem", I thought, was that you also had plugged your case fans into your mobo's CHA_FAN headers but the mobo failed to recognize them. This leads me to believe that you want the mobo's automatic fan control systems to control those case fans. Well, to do that those same mobo headers provide all the power the fans need, and there is NO connection from any of those case fans directly to the PSU!

To do what I believe you want, do this.
1. Unplug all your case ventilation fans from everything.
2. Now, using the small 3-pin connector on the end of its wires, plug each of those case fans into an available mobo 4-pin CHA_FAN header and nothing else. Ensure that the groove on the side of the fan connector mates with the tongue projecting up beside the header pins - it is supposed to fit on only one way. One header pin will not be used.
3. Boot up and check in BIOS Setup. The machine should be able to boot into Setup, and the fans all should show up and display their running speeds. Check their settings, to be sure they are still all set to DC Mode, as they were before. If you change anything, remember to SAVE and EXIT.
4. There will be nothing detected on the CPU_OPT header on on the Extra fan header. You don't have anything connected to CPU_OPT. The Extra Fan connector on your mobo is for use with an additional extra-cost accessory (not included with the mobo) that allows you to connect additional fans to it and use them under mobo control.

So, does that get the fans detected and working?

 

[Sporeky]

Sorry for the confusion, this is my first time and I'm just getting the hang of the terminology.

I am trying to connect the chassis fans directly to the motherboard CHA_FAN pins. Not connect them to a PSU.

I think I'm butchering the description pretty badly, so I'll just use pictures instead.

a) This is my rig:
http://imgur.com/5E0vqKH

b) This is the wire from the chassis fans:
http://imgur.com/Nbijpyi

c) These are the CHA_FAN1 pins on the mobo:
http://imgur.com/Tgbdf72

d) This is the cable that I was using to connect the chassis fans to the mobo and the PSU before:
http://imgur.com/W4lwO5N

What should I use to connect B to C?

 

[Paperdoc]

All right, now I can "see" what you're dealing with. I had several things wrong.

First, that cable you talked about using with 4 female Molex connectors plus one small one on one end, and a "male PCI-e" on the other. You have a modular power supply, and THIS is the cable designed to plug into that unit by the "PCI-E" connector as you call it, and provide power connections to floppy drives, IDE hard drives, some optical drives and a few other things.

Next, now I realize that the three case ventilation fans included with your case are all fitted with non-standard connectors because they are intended ONLY to be plugged into the case's own built-in fan control switch system. The switch for that is on the top right front of the case, and allows you to set the fans to low or high speed, I think. That black connector your photo shows in the red oval is actually a male 4-pin Molex power connector with Pin #3 missing. The pins present normally would be for +12VDC, Ground, (missing) and +5 VDC as they come out of a PSU female output. I fully expect that the intent is that you do NOT plug these into either the PSU outputs or the mobo fan headers. Instead they are supposed to plug into special fan connectors built into your case and coming originally from the switch at the top. That way the switch can supply either 5VDC or 12VDC to your fan(s) for two speed choices. To do this, that switch also must have ONE similar 4-pin Molex male connector that must be plugged into a PSU output - one from that cable we just talked about above - as its power supply. This arrangement gives you fans that do cool the case and allow you MANUAL control of their speed. It is NOT easy to arrange to power and control those fans from mobo fan headers.

If you plug those fan connectors instead directly into PSU outputs instead of the intended case connectors, I don't really know what would happen. The fans would be connected to both 12VDC and 5 VDC supply lines as well as ground, and I don't know what that fan design would do. MAYBE it would simply run at full speed all the time.

It would be possible to replace the connectors on each of those fans with a standard 3-pin fan connector if you wire it properly, and then you could plug it into a mobo CHA_FAN header to achieve automatic fan speed control (if the headers are set to DC Mode). HOWEVER, it appears those fans do NOT have a speed pulse signal wire coming out of them, so the mobo would have to be told to ignore the fan speed and the BIOS probably would tell you that the fan was not detected.

If you really want to have mobo-based automatic control of your case ventilation fans, the best plan would be to replace all three with new ones of a standard fan design. If you were doing that, I'd recommend you choose 4-pin fans which are slightly better for some functions and CAN work with your mobo's CHA_FAN headers. Otherwise, connect them as the original case designers intended and use the manual control switch on top of the case. Your BIOS will have no connection to those fans and will tell you they don't exist.

 

[Sporeky]

Well, I figured it out. For now, at least.
Turns out, the fans plug into the weird 3-pin Molex (picture B in my last post) around the back of the case.
Wires coming from the fans plug into the Molex with this joint:

http://imgur.com/yPW5X1f

So I simply unplugged the wires coming from the fans from the 3-pin Molex to reveal that the fan-wires all had 3-pin female headers on them.
Thus, I just attached the chassis fans directly to the motherboard fan pins, completely forgoing the controller and the Molex and whatever else.
Boom. Problem solved. And I feel like an absolute moron for not figuring it out sooner.

Thank you so much for helping me out with all of this (even though it all turned out to be in vain). I was really stupid and ignorant, but you stuck with me and tried to help as best you could. Thanks a bunch.



I'm gonna go hit my head on a wall now.

 

[Paperdoc]

Do I understand your last post correctly? It appears you say that for each fan that had a 4-pin Molex male connector on its end (but missing Pin #3), these connectors actually were more like adapters and that the actual fan wires had smaller "normal" 3-pin fan female connectors on their ends? Your initial photos did not look like that.

So, do those fans now connected only to mobo CHA_FAN headers change their speed automatically according to workload? If yes, then WOW! And don't feel ignorant. I have never seen such a system, and certainly the case manual said nothing to indicate that system! Not only did it NOT tell you that a other options were possible, but it did not even tell you how to connect them up as originally designed! I have been annoyed before with such brief case manuals that fail to describe important details.

Glad to hear you got it figured out. Congrats.