So my P193 arrived today - a day earlier than expected So I now have 4 fans, all 2-wire on molex 3x120mm (two top and one rear-top) 1x 200mm Big Boy on the side The three 120mm have individual three-step controllers on the top of the case. The Big Boy has its three-step controller unhandily inside the case with me so far...ok... Now my MSI-GD65 MOBO has 3x 3-pin fan connectors, for controllable fans, and my Be Quiet 650 has 2x fan connectors with a choice of 3-pin or molex (but its all on 2 wire) From the BeQuiet manual: and Ok - so the BeQuiet is going to be able to control my 2-wire fans without having the third (data)wire - cool....So my guess is its best to have two of them on those and turn the pots on the case to 'max', and then I should have the other two connected to standard molex from the PSU and control them via the pots, and leave the mobo's fan controllers well alone Is this right, or would you do it differently? cheers
erm.....probably. Although, I've never been able to control 3pin fans from mobo, because as far as I know, to be able to control the fan speed, a mobo connector must be 4pin, like the CPU headers. And the 3pin headers just send a constant 12v. I assume the be-quiet varies the fan speeds based on the load that the PSU has got on it? So yes, you might aswell use this function if you can. The only advantage of connecting fans to the mobo is you can monitor the speeds with the yellow RPM cable. But from what you've said, it doesn't sound like any of the fans have this wire.
Ah ok - thanks very much for that. So the mobo fan connectors aren't controlling - that yellow wire just reports back RPM - I did not know this. So if I made/bought a converter there'd be no problem having the two-wire's powered from the MOBO. I read in another thread that it might be best to avoid fans going through the mobo if theres no benefit and its avoidable....
I'd just plug the fans into the normal molex connectors from the PSU, not the fan control ones. Then just use the switches to up the fan speed when you need it, i.e. when playing games. That way you have some control over the fan speed rather than relying on the PSU operating sensibly.
I suppose it depends on how good the BeQuiets system is. I'd try them out on the PSU and see what happens. It might not drop the voltage by much, whereas the fan speed switches on the case may well drop it down to 5v on the lowest (5v=low, 7v - mid, 12v=high). Try it out and see which performs the best or keeps the sound levels at what you want.
Thanks guys - yeah I will try both options out. Its really the big boy on the side that would be good if the BeQuiet could control, as the switch is hanging inside the case.... Devil's advocate: I'm Suprised nobody's recommended using the mobo fan connectors - Any takers? What's the score there?
My old Nforce 4 Asus board allowed for software speed monitoring using speedfan with the 3-pin fans connected the mobo. Not seen a decent implementation of it in recent years though to be honest.
Wasn't it only speed 'monitoring' though? Could you actually adjust the fan speeds in software? You won't be able to control the fan speed if you connect it up to the mobo, so I'd just use the controllers that are on the case, and plug the big fan into the PSU. You could of course buy a fan controller and use that to vary the speeds.
oh right. So I assume it'd be like a fan controller then, and the motherboard can vary the voltage thats going to the fan, just by supplying a different voltage through the + pin, instead of using PWM.
Yeah it allowed for fan speed adjustment and monitoring. It was actually very effective, as when combined with the other temp monitoring functions, you could set rules to speed up and slow down fans when required. I'd definitely recommend it if it works with your board.
Hmm..well ok I def want to try it all to see what's best. Why would I be on this forum otherwise So its definitely not a problem to connect a 2-pinned molex fan to the three pin MOBO fan connectors, right? And I would agree: the PC doesn't need to know the PWM in order to change the fan speed....surely...it knows what volts its sending down? Strangely Maplins don't seem to agree this should be done - I can find this, which is rather unclear frankly, or this to convert molex to three pin. Neither would appear to be what I'm after...any ideas?
