[SOLVED] Question about PWM, RGB and 3/4-pin fan compatibility with older motherboard

[Melio]

Hey everyone, I'll try to keep it short: I have a Gigabyte H170 HD3 motherboard, and I'm trying to understand if it supports RGB lighting despite having no PWM compatibility as per the manual.
What's stated in the manual is that the 4-pin connectors are: SYS_FAN1/2: Pin 1 -GND 2-Speed Control 3-Sense 4-VCC
SYS_FAN3: Pin No. 1-GND 2- +12V 3-N/A
So I have two 4-pin and one 3-pin available (plus the CPU fan), although one of the 4-pin is already taken by a non-RGB fan.
My question is this: if I put my current 4-pin non RGB fan in the 3-pin connector, that shouldn't be a problem, right? So I have two 4-pin connectors without PWM, but they still support fan speed control. Do they also support RGB but without the custom software? I don't care too much about that.
If not, does that mean that there's no way to have RGB on this motherboard without a custom controller?

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

if I put my current 4-pin non RGB fan in the 3-pin connector, that shouldn't be a problem, right?
It's going to run at full speed.
The fan connectors only deal with the RPM of the fan's blade/motor, not it's RGB/ARGB lighting.

The board doesn't have any RGB support, and no RGB/ARGB isn't conveyed via the fan headers, it's an additional header whereby you plug an RGB/ARGB connector to corresponding headers on the motherboard, but not the fan connector. You should look into Cooler Master's RGB/ARGB hub to cater to your RGB/ARGB intentions. Please keep in mind that ARGB and RGB are not the same.

 

[Melio]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

if I put my current 4-pin non RGB fan in the 3-pin connector, that shouldn't be a problem, right?
It's going to run at full speed.
The fan connectors only deal with the RPM of the fan's blade/motor, not it's RGB/ARGB lighting.

The board doesn't have any RGB support, and no RGB/ARGB isn't conveyed via the fan headers, it's an additional header whereby you plug an RGB/ARGB connector to corresponding headers on the motherboard, but not the fan connector. You should look into Cooler Master's RGB/ARGB hub to cater to your RGB/ARGB intentions. Please keep in mind that ARGB and RGB are not the same.

Darn, so there's no way to do it without the connector. A shame but not the end of the world. Thanks for the quick reply!