I have a Sharkoon Silent Eagle 120mm fan fitted in front of my case's drive bays which is attached to a Molex y-connector (marked "fan-only") attached to a lead from the PSU and to one of the mobo's fan headers, but the fan doesn't spin and is reported as disabled by the BIOS. The y-connector is plugged into another (Antec tri-cool) fan that does work but as the y-connector has only 2 pins rather than the usual four for a Molex, I'm wondering if the sharkoon needs a 4 pin molex? I'll be trying connecting the fan to a 4 pin Molex plug when I get home tonight., but can anyone offer any ideas as to why the fan don't work?
One for power (molex 4 pin) and the other for status signal (small 3 pin)? Are you saying that I don't need the molex power connection?
Yes, you only need the use one or the other, depending on what connector the fan uses. The small 3-pin motherboard connectors are preferable as they allow the speed of the fan to be controlled (which is what the third RPM wire is for), so are by far the most common these days. The Antec Tricool fans only have molex connectors though IIRC.
Sorted out my fan. It's a 120mm Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 which takes power from a Molex and provides a 3 pin connector for the mobo's fan header, but only the signal pin is wired, so I did need to connect both power and mobo connector for the fan to work. The reason my fan wasn't working was because I'd connected the Molex to a y-cable labelled fan-only that was supplied with my Corsair HX520, but only two pins were wired, obviously not suitable for powering the Sharkoon which is now powered from a 4 pin molex. Which begs the question - what use are two pin Molex connectors labelled "fan-only"?
