Graphics GPU fan 4 pin, how does it work?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by AlienwareAndy, 3 Mar 2014.

  1. AlienwareAndy

    AlienwareAndy What's a Dremel?

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    I've not Googled this yet because I think I did so before..

    Basically last night I had a drug induced accident and ended up breaking one of the fans on my 480 Lightning. It's not broken per se but one of the blades is now a bit loose. What I mean is, it hasn't snapped but it's a bit floppy. Up to 25% fan speed it's OK but anything more and it hits the cowl and makes a terrible racket.

    The problem is that the Dell spins up the GPU fans pre post and they are going to end up breaking off. Sadly the TFIII I have uses 90mm fans (one off) so they are irreplaceable.

    I spent a while looking around Ebay and you can order a set of fans for a TF. Sadly they are all £15+,and too small (75mm).

    In the end I found these at a very respectable £1.85 each (China) so I've ordered three.

    [​IMG]

    Which I like. They'll give it that modern Lightning twist :)

    Any way, so yeah, what does a 4 pin GPU thing do? is there any way I can wire the 2 pin fans to the 4 pin header?

    I really hate being clumsy :(
     
  2. Comrade Woody

    Comrade Woody Obsolete

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    The fourth pin is for PWM control, without it the only way you can regulate the fan speed is by changing the voltage.

    Could the broken blade not be fixed with some glue?
     
  3. AlienwareAndy

    AlienwareAndy What's a Dremel?

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    Sadly no. It's deformed out of shape.. TBH the fans are kinda noisy any way (like a low end grating sound) which would be from age.

    I think the best thing to do is basically wire the two yellow fans to a PCI fan controller knob thing. I won't be gaming on it as it's just not been built for that. It's for design, Photoshop, an emulator ETC (IE all the same thing).
     
  4. LennyRhys

    LennyRhys Oink!

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    Or, better still, epoxy. Re. the 4-pin connector on the new fan, in my experience GPU PWM fan headers all use the same interface so it should be a simple case of plug and play.
     
  5. AlienwareAndy

    AlienwareAndy What's a Dremel?

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    The fans I ordered are two pin. I think I'll just fit one of those fan controller knob things into the back of the rig. That way I can just do it myself. Thing is, I only need them running quite slowly as I'm not really putting a savage load on the GPU.
     

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