[SOLVED] Will I be able to run 3+ fans at full speed by connecting a fan hub to my mobo? Which 4 pin should I plug it into?

[redxspoon]

My PC here.

I'm want to buy 3 of these NF-S12A fans. I already have 4 fans installed(excluding the CPU cooler fan), and no more 4 pin ports on my motherboard.

I want to buy this fan hub, but my question is: If I used this fan hub with 4 fans plugged in, where on my motherboard do I plug it in, and will all 4 fans be able to draw enough power to run at full speed?

 

[redxspoon]

I think I'm dumb, so the fun hub plugs into a sata power port for power, and the mobo connection is just to control speed.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDfrpDoTo0s


If I've missed something let me know, but this makes sense.

 

[Paperdoc]

Yes, that's how it should be done. The key thing here is that ALL of your case fans are of the newer 4-pin (PWM) type. The Silverstone Hub, like almost all of its type, can only work with 4-pin fans and a mobo host header with 4 pins that is using that new PWM Mode for control. You already have your fan headers set that way, so no problem at all.

What that Hub does is, it connects a cable to a SATA power output connector from the PSU and gets ALL power for its fans from that source. That source most certainly can supply the power for eight fans. Then there's a cable that plugs into a mobo SYS_FAN or CHA_FAN header - one of those you already are using. This picks up the PWM speed control signal from the header but draws NO power from the header. The Hub merely distributes that PWM signal to all its fans, and distributes the power from the PSU to all of them, and away you go!

You can, if you choose, connect all of your case fans to that Hub and connect it to ONE mobo fan header. Or, you can group fans differently if you wish. You should understand one factor in using a Hub. Any mobo fan header can deal with the speed signal sent back to it from only ONE fan. So any Hub will send back the speed of only one of its fans (for that Silverstone Hub, it will be the one plugged into the marked Port #1) and will just ignore all the others. You will never "see" the speed of all those "other" fans, although IF they all are the same model, you can assume they all will run at the same speed. This has NO impact on ability to control the fans' speeds - the mobo really does NOT need to know fan speeds to do its job. The only thing it affects is this. Any mobo fan header monitors the speed of its fan to detect FAILURE of the fan and warn you if that happens. When you use a Hub (or a Splitter), the header can only monitor the ONE fan's speed for failure. So you should, from time to time, check that all your case fans are still working.

 

[alexbirdie]

you have "4x 4-pin system fan connectors" on your board.
With simple 3x-y-splitter you can connect 3 fans to 1 header.
That means: 2 splitter to 2 fan-header, and rest of fans to the 2 free fan-headers.

Fan-header usually provide 1A, fans usually need 0.15 A, that means, with 3 fans/fanheader you are completly save.

But the 1-8 fansplitter with sata-powercable is very nice solution.

 

[redxspoon]

Thank you for the replies. I'll receive all the fans and hub in a few days, and test all of this out, hopefully with a significant decrease in temps!