Question Cooling Fan Upgrade Help

[spectreone3]

My son got some CT120 EX ARGB Sync fans to replace the stock fans in his Thermaltake V200 case (two of the three fans died). He was able to install the new fans. He connected to the RGB_LED1 and CHA/FAN2 ports on his motherboard which is an AsRock B450 Pro.

Only the top fan has power and pulses green. He did say the old fans were connected to a RGB switchboard but that he did not see a way to connect the new fans to that board.

I am trying to help him as I think he probably just missed a step but I am not sure where to start. Thanks for any assistance!

 

[Paperdoc]

FIRST, please verify a connection. The old fans were of the plain RGB lighting variety which means they had connectors with FOUR holes that probably went to the case-supplied lighting hub. But the new fans have DIFFERENT lighting systems, and their cables have THREE holes (looks like it had 4, but one is blocked). These must NOT be connected to that hub, and must be connected instead to just the right mobo header.

That mobo has TWO different types of lighting header. Both are on the mobo bottom edge. The plain RGB header with FOUR pins is toward the rear and labelled RGB_LED1 - see mobo manual p. 7, item 24. That probably was connected to the hub in the case. Do NOT try to connect the new fans' lighting cables there! The new ones need to go to the header with THREE pins toward the front, labelled ADDR_LED1 - p. 7, item 20. You say the connection is WRONG, and I HOPE that is incorrect. Connecting these fans' lights to the 4-pin header (Hard to do!) will burn out the lights in the fan!

From the fan manual it appears each fan comes with two cables coming out of it, and EACH of these has TWO connectors on it - male (with pins) and female. The set comes with three sets of cables to connect all in daisy chain fashion. One type of cable is for the fan MOTORS and has 4-pin smaller connectors. One of these goes to a mobo CHA_FAN header and then the others connect from one fan to another in a chain. In each cable the female connector (with holes) is the power input, and the male an output to the next cable. (For the LIGHTS the cables are wider and have THREE pins. In similar fashion, one goes to the mobo ADDR_LED1 header and the rest connect in chain fashion to the other fans.

 

[spectreone3]

Thank you for the response. I gave bad info in my initial post. He does have the three pin connected to the ADDR_LED1 port and NOT the RGB port as I initially posted.

 

[Paperdoc]

That's a relief. Let us know how it goes getting the fans daisy-chained to the respective headers. Once that's done, control of the lights will NOT use the front panel button. That is done using the software tool Polychrome Sync supplied with the mobo.

 

[spectreone3]

I guess that is where we are confused. The Thermaltake fans connect magnetically to each other so there is only one cable connection. That one cable is connected to the motherboard as described in my previous post.

Perhaps I need to take the new fans off and connect each individually to see that they do work.

 

[spectreone3]

UPDATE - after double-checking the connections I pulled the fans back and out and tested each individually to make sure they all worked, they did, and then reordered them and now everything is working as it should.

I am not sure why the original configuration of the fans did not work as there is no indication they need to be connected in a certain order.

Thanks!