Help With Hooking Up Case Fans Properly

[DookieDraws]

Hey guys,

the directions for hooking up my case fans have me a bit confused, and concerned. The directions for installing the PWM hub says to connect it's 4-pin cable to the motherboard's 4-pin "CPU_Fan" connector. But this is where I have the CPU heatsink fan plugged in to. There are other 4-pin fan locations to plug in to, just not sure which I should use. I am also unsure if I am suppose to plug in the SATA power plug or not.

I have the Phantecks Enthoo Pro case and the PWM hub has the 2 pre-installed fans connected to it.

Please see the following screen shots with directions and tell me what I should do. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Case Manual PWM Hub Installation Instructions



Motherboard Layout From The Motherboard Manual The red arrow is where my CPU heatsink fan is plugged into, and where the case manual instructs to plug the hub in.

 

[clutchc]

Not sure why you needed the hub. That board accepts up to 4 x PWM case fans in its 4 CHA FAN headers. Why not use them?

 

[DookieDraws]

Hi clutchc,

The fans are 3-pin and came already connected to the PWM hub. Figured it was best to keep everything as is, but I am unsure.

 

[clutchc]

If you want to use the hub, then yes... plug the SATA power connector into any SATA connector from the PSU. Plug the hub's PWM 4 wire connector into any 4 pin MB header. If you aren't using the 2nd CPU FAN header, use it. Or one of the CHA FAN headers.

 

[DookieDraws]

The case manual states to not use the SATA power plug when connecting it to any other fan connector. This is what I find a little confusing. Here's the quote from the case manual.

Connecting the 4-pin to other 4-pin header (besides the CPU_Fan) Other 4-pin connectors can be found on modern motherboards besides the “CPU_Fan” connector (e.g. “CPU_Fan2”, “CHA_Fan”, “OPT_Fan”), however not all motherboard manufacturers implement a true PWM signal modulation onto these connectors. These type of 4-pin connectors modulate the RPM by voltage, which has a smaller control range compared to modulation by true PWM signal.

The 12V SATA power cable can not be used to power the PWM hub if connecting to these types of 4-pin connectors, due to the interference with the RPM regulation by voltage (resulting in the fans running on full RPM). The PWM hub will draw its power from the 4-pin connector, which is limited to a total device consuming 30W in total.

What do you think?

By the way, thanks for your time. I really appreciate it.

 

[clutchc]

TBH, I am learning from your instructions as I go. I've never seen one of those type PWM to DC voltage controllers before. But from the description you've given and the illustrations you've provided, I'm beginning to see the function now. It would appear that the hub is using the Pulse Width Modulation of the MB fan controller to control the speed of the non-PWM (3 wire) fans connected to it. Rather a neat idea.

All modern MBs with 4 wire fan headers I've come across have used PWM to control those headers. Your MB looks to be the same. It provides Q-Fan control for the chassis fans as well as the CPU fans. So what I would do is leave the SATA power off for now. Connect to either the extra CPU FAN header or one of the CHA FAN headers and see if the fans speeds varies with the settings in BIOS. If it does, you are all set. If not, no harm, you can either leave it that way or disconnect the header and use the SATA instead.