Case Fan Help.............!!!!

[thedragonreborn82]

Hey I,m in the process of building my first pc. I have everything in the case and ready to wire but I have some questions on the case fans. I have a TT Armor with the big side fan. This thing has 5 fans and no instructions on wiring them up. I have searched the net and cannot find any solid info on fan wiring. All of the fans have 4 pin connectors a male and female accept for the 25cm big side fan wich just has a male. Im a noob so bear with me Am I supposed to hook all the fans together in some kind of chain or plug them in seperately. Im assuming you have to run them in a chain somehow as i don not have enough connectors to do it seperately. The only info that came with the case was a small slip of paper saying that the huge side fan should be connected to the psu. Should i connect the other fans to the psu as well or into the mobo? I know alot of you are probably rolling your eyes but I want to be sure and I want to do it right as I am really anal and dont want wires all over my case and like I said I cant find any good fan wiring info on the net. Like I said I have a TT Armor case, i have a TT 700w toughpower psu, and a evga 680i mobo if that helps...................

Im such a NOOB

[juppy]

With most case fans, it's usually better to connect them to the power supply. And yeah, that's why the fans all have both male and female connectors. Those are pass-through connections, so you can plug the first fan into the power supply and the other plug is there to plug a second fan into the first, and so on. You can chain several fans together on one lead and usually not hurt anything, but I don't know that I'd put all 5 fans on one. Maybe 3 of the smaller ones on one lead, and the other small fan and the big fan together on a seperate lead. Plus, you might try it with just a couple of fans first to see how your airflow is. For instance, try maybe just the big side fan and one back fan first and see if your temperatures stay down. Then you can add another fan to the mix and test the temp again. If your temps are only 1 or 2 degrees cooler with all the fans going, it's probably not worth the extra noise of having all of them going at once. Because that's the main side effect of more fans....you get more noise with every added fan, so always use the least amount of fans that will do a decent job.

Oh yeah, as for connecting them to the mobo.....most case fans don't have the right small power plug to even plug them into the mobo. But even if they do, you'd probably still want to get an adapter or rewire them somehow to plug into one of the PSU molex plugs. If the fan you plug into the mobo pulls too much current, you can burn out the power header on the mobo very easily.

EDIT: 'Bout forgot......don't worry about being a noob or asking a "stupid" question. We were all "noobs" at one point.

[thedragonreborn82]

Than ks for being the only reply to take the time to read my novel of a question. Heres a follow up. I kind of figured it out on my own. At the time I didnt even have the mobo in I just wanted to know for clean wiring purposes. I found something in my power supply booklet about testing it without the mobo being hooked up. I plugged just one fan into the psu and plugged it in the wall and turned it on and it worked. Then I hooked a second fan into the first and to the psu and tried again and so forth till I had all the fans chained and everything worked fine. I then installed my mobo and upon further inspection there is like 6 little three pin connectors that all are for fans. One is for the chipset fan that you have to use and there is one for the cpu fan it says to use so I did that. Since two of my fans also had three pin connectors and it was cleaner to use those and hide the big molex plugs I did. So basically I have 4 fans plugged into the mobo but only two are case fans. The big side fan and the other two I plan on plugging into the psu. Think I should be fine with the ones I have plugged ito the mobo? I figured just two would be fine and it looks alot nicer then trying to chain them two. I was more worried about the designated cpu fan plug on the mobo. It says to use that but I have a zalman 9700 and its huge. What you think? Otherwise everything is going well and looks great...........

[Disgrace]

If you're worried about the Zalman fitting in your case, it fits perfectly into an Antec P150... maybe that could be of some reference?

[thedragonreborn82]

I got the zalman in fairly easy. It clears my huge side case fan by about a half inch so its all good. That thing is a beast by the way. Side note for anyone looking to build, the TT armor case is awesome, room for everything and then some, lots of different configs you can use, no problems with drive bays or quick releases, looks gorgeous, sturdy, tons of fans and they are very quiet actually I was worried about this thing sounding like a Harrier jet..........and then taking off into space. It is pretty heavy loaded though and kind of awkward to carry around especially because you dont want to grab onto and break the front flaps. Thats my only complaint so far. Let me know about my fan post though still looking for opinions. Thanks everyone for embracing my noobness!!!!!!!

[glc]

I recommend whenever possible, power the case fans from the PSU, not the motherboard. If you want to control the speeds, get a fanbus.

[juppy]

I agree with glc.....it's always safer to plug the fans directly to the power supply. Does your motherboard manual give the maximum current or power ratings for the fan headers? The majority of those little headers (or at least the ones I've seen) have a maximum of around 500ma (0.5 A) or around 4 or 5 watts. Some fans can pass that very easily and draw too much current, frying the header, especially if they're lighted fans. If your manual only gives max power ratings and your fans give their current ratings, just take the voltage (12 volts) times the current to get how much power each fan will draw.

[nwarren]

i'm not trying to thread-jack this, but a question of mine is very relevant to the topic at hand. i have two 80mm antec case fans and they are both running off the mobo. the mobo offers three dedicated connectors specifically for case fans. would you still recommend changing them to run directly off the psu? i do have the connectors to re-wire, just wondering if it is worth it at this point. everything seems to be running smoothly at the moment.

[juppy]

Originally Posted by nwarren i'm not trying to thread-jack this, but a question of mine is very relevant to the topic at hand. i have two 80mm antec case fans and they are both running off the mobo. the mobo offers three dedicated connectors specifically for case fans. would you still recommend changing them to run directly off the psu? i do have the connectors to re-wire, just wondering if it is worth it at this point. everything seems to be running smoothly at the moment.

As long as your fans are within the current rating for what the header can handle, it doesn't matter. It's just that sometimes people can't find how much current their headers are rated for or the fan doesn't have it's current rating printed on it anywhere. In that event, it's better to be safe than sorry and just go with hooking them straight to the power supply. Different motherboards will have different current ratings for their headers, so it's pretty much impossible to have just one straightforward rule for whether you can or cannot hook to the header. It's just one of those things you have to look for the ratings on your particular components and see if it'll work.