[SOLVED] Fan wire meaning

[Cyphien]

Hi all,

I have a Corsair Fan with a 3pin connector. There's 3 wires connected, the first has long dashes, the second is black and the third has short dashes... What's the meaning of each?

Thx,

 

[CountMike]

Hi all,

I have a Corsair Fan with a 3pin connector. There's 3 wires connected, the first has long dashes, the second is black and the third has short dashes... What's the meaning of each?

Thx,

https://allpinouts.org/pinouts/connectors/motherboards/motherboard-cpu-3-pin-fan-connector/

 

[Cyphien]

https://allpinouts.org/pinouts/connectors/motherboards/motherboard-cpu-3-pin-fan-connector/

Thx for this link but it doesn't answer my question. All the wires are black. The first has long grey dashes the second is all black, the third has short grey dashes. According to the link I would guess one is ground, one is +12VDC (in my case) and one is Tachometric Signal... Whatever that means. So which is which?

 

[Paperdoc]

OK, so don't focus on the wire colours. Focus on the locations of the HOLES in the fan connector, and compare that to the drawing that CountMike linked to. NOTE on the connector that it has two ridges down one side. Those fit around a mating plastic tongue sticking up beside the mobo header pins so you can only plug in one way. Now, turn the connector on your fan wires so that those ridges are DOWN like the drawing shows, and the wires are pointing up to the left, like the drawing. NOW you can identify the pin NUMBERS - 1 to 3. See the table below the drawing, and "correct" it for the actual colours of the wires YOU have.

 

[Cyphien]

OK, so don't focus on the wire colours. Focus on the locations of the HOLES in the fan connector, and compare that to the drawing that CountMike linked to. NOTE on the connector that it has two ridges down one side. Those fit around a mating plastic tongue sticking up beside the mobo header pins so you can only plug in one way. Now, turn the connector on your fan wires so that those ridges are DOWN like the drawing shows, and the wires are pointing up to the left, like the drawing. NOW you can identify the pin NUMBERS - 1 to 3. See the table below the drawing, and "correct" it for the actual colours of the wires YOU have.

Now that's pretty clever, I should have thought of that
So in the case of this Corsair 120mm 12v stock fan. For the 3 pin connector.
-The long dash is #1 and therefore ground
-The full black is #2 so +12VDC
-The short dash is #3 so Tachometric Signal

Now the first image confused me a second because the yellow and red wires are inveted from the table but a quick look at the 4-pin connector page (https://allpinouts.org/pinouts/connectors/motherboards/motherboard-cpu-4-pin-fan/) again showed me that color standards are really not followed and that order or pin number is more accurate. No matter what #1 seems to be always ground and #2 always VDC.

Thx for the help!

 

[Paperdoc]

You say, "color standards are really not followed". Well, that's only partly true.

For THREE-pin fans, almost every fan (yours appears to be an exception) uses the same convention:
Pin #1 - Black - Ground
Pin #2 - Red - +VDC, voltage varying to change fan speed
Pin #3 - Yellow - Speed pulse signal from fan back to mobo header.

Now, FOUR-pin fans do NOT use that set of COlLOURS - in fact, there is one set used most commonly, and a second set used moderately often. Becasue of the difference in fan sype design, the functions of the pins are SLIGHTLY altered.
Pin #1 - Black - Ground (no change)
Pin #2 - Yellow - +12 VDC supply NOT changing
Pin #3 - Green - Speed pulse signal again (same function, different colour)
Pin #4 - Blue - PWM signal from mobo, used by fan chip to control speed

For your purpose, OP, IGNORE the 4-pin system. You have a THREE- pin fan.