[SOLVED] pc case fan question

bruh000

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Mar 6, 2020
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hi i just bought a gelid pwm 1to4 splitter and it said it supports intel and amd 4pin cpu fan pwm socket but can i use it for case fans?
 
Solution
A motherboard header normally has 4 pins. Hot, ground, speed, pwm signal. A splitter has a single wire that duplicates all 4, the master, so a 4pin PWM fan plugged into it is identical as that same fan plugged directly into the header. The remaining 1-2-3 leads, slaves, only have the first, second and 4th wire. You only use the speed sensor for one fan to control all fans.

Your fans are 3pin, which is not pwm, but voltage controlled. You only really need hot/ground, the header supplies the voltage needed for all the fans, the speed sensor on the master reports how fast the fans are spinning.

As far as connection goes, the 3pin fans are keyed, they fit the splitter extensions in only one way, but mostly 3pin and 4pin are...

Karadjgne

Titan
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A motherboard header normally has 4 pins. Hot, ground, speed, pwm signal. A splitter has a single wire that duplicates all 4, the master, so a 4pin PWM fan plugged into it is identical as that same fan plugged directly into the header. The remaining 1-2-3 leads, slaves, only have the first, second and 4th wire. You only use the speed sensor for one fan to control all fans.

Your fans are 3pin, which is not pwm, but voltage controlled. You only really need hot/ground, the header supplies the voltage needed for all the fans, the speed sensor on the master reports how fast the fans are spinning.

As far as connection goes, the 3pin fans are keyed, they fit the splitter extensions in only one way, but mostly 3pin and 4pin are interchangeable on the same connector. You just shouldn't mix and match, either use all DC 3pin fans on a splitter, or all pwm.

Being an led DC fan, the slower it spins, the lower the light output, this is normal as a DC fan lowers voltage to lower rpm. Less voltage = less light.
 
Solution