How to make fan leds work?

[Pcstarter]

Hi!

So i am going to install 4 corsair af 120 red led fans to my corsair carbide
R88 case i have an msi b250m mortar motherboard so everywhere i look i see that i have to have some kind of an fan led hub or something like that is it true and can you reccomend something i know that i haveto buy fan pin splitters because msi motherboard doesent have enoigh fan connections so please help and explain everything i need to make my case shine red

 

[superninja12]

https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Fan-Controller-Commander-CL-9011110-WW/dp/B0725HP1J2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1500905358&sr=8-2&keywords=corsair+rgb+led+hub

 

[scout_03]

on page 36 of motherboard user manual they show you a connector for a 5050 led strip on your board .

 

[Paperdoc]

No, it's not that complicated. The Corsair Commander unit is an advanced multi-function device that is used with their RGB fan lines. Those each have three different LED colors in them that can be used for several fancy flashing effects IF you use thier Commander (or a simpler other model) special controller. But the AF120 LED single-colour fan you have chosen does NOT do those things, and does NOT have the special extra connector for LED control separate from fan control.

Your fan has only one colour, and it is always on. It gets power from the same place the fan motor does. It is POSSIBLE that, when the fan is running at slow speeds, the LED's will be a bit dimmer, but that's OK.

Your mobo has two SYS_FANn case ventilation fan headers, and both operate only on Voltage Control Mode, which is exactly what you need for these fans since they are of the 3-pin design. The only thing you WILL need is a couple of Splitters. A single mobo fan header can supply up to 1.0 amps current in total for all the fans connected to it. Your fans draw at max 0.4 amps each, so connecting two of them to EACH of your two mobo SYS_FAN headers is just fine. To do that, for each pair of fans and header, you will need one Splitter - thus, two in total - like this

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812423160&cm_re=coboc_fan_splitter-_-12-423-160-_-Product

Those are actually Splitters for 4-pin fans, but they work perfectly for 3-pin units. Note two things.
1. A Splitter has one input arm with a female connector to plug into the mobo SYS_FAN header, and two (sometimes more) output arms each with a male connector for your fans. It has NO other arm types. (Hubs are different devices with an extra arm.)
2. On each splitter, only one of the two output arms has all 4 pins, and that is the correct design. Thus the speed pulse signal from ONE of the fans is sent back to the mobo to measure, but the speed of the other fan is ignored completely. This has NO impact on ability to control the fans. Since they are identical, they will both do the same thing when they both get the same control signal.

 

[gasaraki]

No you don't need the hub to make the leds work but if you don't have enough fan headers on your motherboard, you'll need the hub.

 

[Paperdoc]

Thanks for Best Solution.