Dell T3500 front fans

[jbkelly80]

Out there question. Can the propiatary 120mm fans in a Dell T3500 ( 4 wire/5 pin) be replaced with some Corsair M120 Pro LEDs? Adapter or wire splicing needed?

 

[Barty1884]

Physically, yes. But I believe the T3500's fans run off molex, so there's no headers on the board.

You'd need to splice M120's to molex..... which is probably unnecessarily complicated for a T3500

 

[william p]

The Dell fans are .9A. 120x38 mm industrial fans. Much better than aftermarket LED doolollies. But if you must, the dell 5 pin connector only uses 4 wires just like aftermarket PWM fans. The pinout is different. But you can either put Dell connectors on your fans, or buy a Dell 5 wire to 4 wire adapter.
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/dell-motherboard-cpu-fan-header-question.2489271/
https://www.ebay.com/p/1pcs-5-Pin-Dell-Latch-Fan-Connector-to-4-Pin-Fan-Adapter-Convertion-Cable/529924955?iid=262784103218&chn=ps
The 2 fans are on separate controllers I believe. One is CPU the other is cage fan.

 

[jbkelly80]

Physically, yes. But I believe the T3500's fans run off molex, so there's no headers on the board.

You'd need to splice M120's to molex..... which is probably unnecessarily complicated for a T3500

 

[jbkelly80]

These are the front fans. They plug straight into the board behind the CPU.

 

[Susquehannock]

These are the front fans. They plug straight into the board behind the CPU.

Correct. No molex involved.
The Dell fans are not special. Standard 120x38mm high flow fans. As said above, you must use 4-wire replacements which utilize PWM and speed sense wires. If not the system will stop with fan error since the BIOS "looks" for these signals on start up.

You could get a $1 adapter. Ebay item # 163279753104. Or since only two wires were switched position on the Dell fans, you can easily cut and splice wires ensuring they are set up correctly. This page illustrates:

>> http://pinoutguide.com/Motherboard/dell_5pin_4pin_pinout.shtml