So I just got my new case but I'm bewildered as to how I connect the fan controller.
The only cable running from it is a sata cable and 3 fan connectors.
As of now I have the fans directly connected to the MB but am I supposed to connect the fans to the fan connectors from the fan controller and then that goes into the mb ? makes no sense.
Anyone with experience ? help
I realize that this question was asked over 5 years ago, but I recently also purchased a Cougar Panzer Max computer case in November of 2024 and was having the same problem of how to properly connect the 15 pin male SATA power cable that goes to the cooling fan speed controller slide switch on the front of the computer case and is supposed to control the speed of any cooling fans that are plugged into the three 2 pin fan cables coming from the cooling fan speed controller slide switch.
After help from an online technician, from the website where I purchased the Cougar Panzer Max computer case , I was able to connect the 15 pin male SATA cable from the cooling fan speed controller slide switch to a 15 pin female SATA to 6 pin PCIe adapter cable that came with the MSI power supply that I had purchased to use in this computer case.
I plugged the 6 pin PCIe cable end into an unused 6 pin SATA/MOLEX connector on my MSI power supply and connected one of the the 15 pin female SATA connector ends to the 15 pin male SATA cable coming from the cooling fan speed controller slide switch.
Then I plugged the three separate fan cables coming from the three installed 120mm cooling fans into the three fan cables coming from the output side of the cooling fan speed controller slide switch.
The three 2 pin fan connector cables ends have ribs on one side of the fan cable male connector end to prevent you from plugging the fan cable into the wrong side of the matching female fan cable connector.
Here's a picture showing those ribs on the 2 pin fan cable male connector end and also showing what the female 2 pin fan cable connector end should look like.
There are slots cut out on one side of the female fan cable connector end to allow the male fan cable connector ribs to only go in one way.
Here's a close-up of the male end of the 2 pin fan cable connector showing the ribs that I mentioned.
Here's what that 15 pin female SATA to 6 pin PCIe adapter cable should look like and you can see that there are multiple 15 pin female SATA connectors on this adapter cable. I used the 15 pin female SATA connector that was closest to the 6 pin PCIe connector end of the adapter cable, but I would imagine that any one of the 15 pin female SATA connectors could have been used.
Here's what the 15 pin male SATA cooling fan speed controller switch cable end looks like and the three separate 2 pin fan cables.
There were only two wires going to this 15 pin male SATA connector. One wire was black with a white stripe and the other wire was a solid black wire with no stripe.
The black wire with white stripe was going to pin 12 and the solid black wire with no stripe was going to pins 13, 14, and 15.
I looked up the wiring diagram for a 15 pin SATA cable on the Internet and pin 12 is ground and pins 13, 14, and 15 are all + 12 volts d.c.
Here's a picture of the voltages that should be present on the various pins on most computer power supply cables and connectors.
You can see that there is an "L" shaped end on the 15 pin SATA connector and this "L" shaped end will let you know which end of the 15 pin SATA connector is pin 1.
I used a thin sewing needle and my digital multimeter to determine which pins the two wires were going to on the 15 pin male SATA connector.
I set my digital multimeter to check continuity.
I used the sewing needle to puncture the insulation on each wire of the 15 pin male SATA connector, one at a time, and then placed one lead of my multimeter on the needle and then touched each pin on the 15 pin SATA connector with the other lead of my multimeter, one at a time, and listened for a beep from my multimeter to let me know that I had continuity between the sewing needle and the SATA connector pins.
I would recommend using a metal sewing thimble on the end of your fingers to help you puncture the insulation on the wires that are going to the 15 pin male SATA connector. The metal thimble can help to protect the skin on your your fingers from getting punctured when your trying to push the sewing needle through the insulation on the wires.
Here's what a metal sewing thimble should look like.
The sewing needle was very small in diameter so it didn't do any permanent damage to the insulation on the wires.
Here's a picture of the front side of the Cougar Panzer Max computer case showing the front panel cooling fan speed controller slide switch on the far right side of the picture.
I wish the website that sold this Cougar Panzer Max computer case had this information about the proper way to hook up the cooling fan speed controller slide switch and three fan cables.
I hope that this information helps anyone else that has this same Cougar Panzer Max computer case and was also wondering how to properly connect the 15 pin male SATA cooling fan speed controller slide switch to the rest of their computer.
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