Question Newly purchased fan controller not powering fans

[GethinPetrelli]

Hi guys,

I recently purchased a NZXT Sentry 3 fan controller. I have 4 case fans and want to be able to switch between silent running for browsing and movies and high speed for gaming without dipping into the bios each time.

The model I've purchased claims to support most 3-4 pin fans of which I have two 12v corsair chassis fans that came with my case an arctic f12 that I picked up cheaply and the fan that came packaged with my cooler master evo212. The Sentry 3 states 15w per channel which I'm pretty sure I'm not exceeding.

So when I came to fit it I noticed that the Sentry 3 is powered by a molex with three pins and my semi modular PSU does not appear to have a female molex connection just a bunch or 6/8 pin pcie connections. I dug through all the wires I kept from when I initially built my rig and nothing suitable. Closest I could find was a PCIE to male molex and after digging online I have also bought a female to female molex adapter.

So I fit the fan controller last night and initially when booting pc no response from fan controller display and not fan spinning. So I checked the power connection and it seemes that the pins to my 2 male molex connections don't line up across the adapter. Having re arranged the pins on my own adapter I now get power to the controller, screen powers on, responds to input but fails to register or spin any fans.

I have raised it with nzxt support but end up on this forum a lot when troubleshooting but for once could not find anything similar or helpful so thought I'd ask if anyone had any advice?

Rig info as follows:

• Corsair mid atx case (sorry but can't remember the exact model)
• asrock z270m mobo
• i7 7700 cpu
• 2x 8gb corsair lpx 2133 RAM
• zotac amp! 1060 6gb GPU
• Samsung Evo 850 500gb SSD
• Seagate Firecuda 2tb hubrid drive
• Cooler master hyper evo 212 cpu cooler + 2x corsair chassis fans + arctic f12
• Corsair CSM 650W PSU

 

[Lutfij]

It'd be a good idea if you could host your images of the issue(regarding the pin alignment) on Imgur to give us more meat and potatoes on our troubleshooting plate. Your Corsair PSU should have a molex cable.

FYI, that PSU is not good.

 

[GethinPetrelli]

It'd be a good idea if you could host your images of the issue(regarding the pin alignment) on Imgur to give us more meat and potatoes on our troubleshooting plate. Your Corsair PSU should have a molex cable.

FYI, that PSU is not good.

Thanks for the response. I would put a picture up but can't see the option to attach one and have been able to resolve the issue myself.

I've definitely misplaced the molex connection in the picture you posted so was running a 6 pin pcie to male molex from the psu through a female to female molex adapter to the power lead provided with the controller. At some point along that connection not enough power was being passed to power the fans.

I went to a local pc repair shop today to find a suitable wire and can confirm it's working using a sata to female molex adapter which is connecting the fan controller to an open slot on a multi-point power lead I had in place to power my storage drives. Added bonus of one less wire to squirrel away as well.

Thanks for getting back to me though. Out of curiosity this is my first build and I'm not sure what characteristics you would use to define a good or bad psu. In what way is mine poor quality and what make would you suggest in it's place? I don't currently have the finances to replace it but would like to know for future reference.