motherboard - Connecting mother board, power supply, and tower
2014-07
JordanD
I am working on putting together a desktop for the first time and and ran into a problem, I am not sure how to connect the fans that came in my tower, my power supply, and connect them all to the mother board.
There are 3 fans in the tower, each have 3 pin male and female connector that come connected, and 4 pin (larger?) male and female connector which are hanging. How would I go about connecting The fans together then to the power supply and mobo so it is easiest control (or suggest me a smart / better option).
Pictures are from fans on HAF 922 Tower.
Thanks
Psycogeek
If you want to achive asus software control of the fans in the case you do your best to connect them to the 4 chassis fan headers on the motherboard. Making sure that the fans do not go over the amperage max for the MB fan connectors. This is usually possible, though not always easy, or might require some adaption, or extention.
I far prefer this method, because with motherboard control, and the software you can get automated control of the fan based on a thermal profile.
Weird Stuff:
The 4 pin asus MB chassis fan (not cpu fan which is PWM) are more often not PWM controlled, but 4Pin, which can be confusing, because 4pin should mean PWM :-(. So a 3pin put in the correct alignment for the key slot thing, should work in the 4 pin slots, and fully control the speed. Check the manuel, and what people are saying about the PWM (or not) to verify. I only know about this from 4 boards so far.
It all is generally compatable:
So basically 3pin and 4pin Motherboard header pins are all compatable, and key in similarity.
A real 4pin PWM fan put into a 3pin slot will be controlled only via changes in the power going to it, not via actual PWM pulses sent on the missing pwm line.
A 3 Pin fan will Operate on a 4pin real PWM header also, but only at full speed.
Add in Asus having 4pin headers for chassis fans that are not real PWM controlled. It still all works. . . So a simple 3pin MB header type of connection , should still have full control, in the asus 4Pin Chassis fan locations.
The "Molex" (+5v Ground Ground +12V) connectors/adapters, the 4pin larger connections would be the connection used for connecting the fans to a PSU (with molex) Or to possible PSU "Fan-Only" type of connections (some PSUs). Or to connect to some seperate fan controllers. The ones shown are adapters with Passthrough capability, so you can connect something else with the Molex and still power the fan, or to chain more than one together from a single available molex connection.
Basic Idea put 12V on the fan in the correct polarity. (the 5V item on the same is left unconnected)
Also some cases have manuel control of fans, built into the case itself. It is more rare that case control of fans , is a full controller that also can create thermal profiles. Cases have used both MB sized connections, and the big Molex connectors to connect to the controllers. I do not see where the case you have chosen has that stuff. So it kind of makes it easier, because you do not have to decide what method to use.
In the Molex (the big 4 pin plastic connectors)
Red is +5V
Black is common ground or 0V
Yellow is +12V
And the fans usually use +12v and the ground.
On the Fan wiring, they are more often using
Red for the +voltage (yea which is 12v)
Black for the common ground 0V
Yellow for the RPM line back to the MB.
You can see easily what is going on, with these Molex fan adapters, with the yellow +12Volt line headed to the Red +12V line of the fan.
This changing the colors is why it is very usefull to read the manuels, and/or have a voltmeter to verify things.
Virusboy
The power supply has a 12x2 pin alignment. This goes to the MoBo with the 12x2 female pins alignment. the 1x4 large encased pins connected to the fan goes into the power supply's 1x4 on the bottom picture described. This power supply has a bunch of these 1x4 enclosed female pins. The power supply can also house 1x3 connectors, to directly connect the fan to power supply without having to have a need to a converter, such as the one your holding in the bottom picture. When I looked at your power supply via the link given, you can connect maybe 3 of those fan that have 1x3 connectors.
To better connect these fan from the case, you need to connect them to the MoBo itself, but because you do not have the proper MoBo for these fan to directly connect into, your best bet is an internal fan controller. Otherwise, you could zip tie it all, so it does get in the way.
If all else fails, read the manual given to you.
Questioner
I have a problem that is driving me to the edge. My graphics card periodically looses power for a moment, then comes back. Once in a while it takes much longer, like 5 minutes. I have always tried rebooting during that period, since I don't know then. Black screen, with a no power message across my monitor.
All equipment is only a few months old. The Motherboard is a few months old, MSI N9A2 Platinum Revision 1 (AMD). The Video Card is a Gigabyte Radeon HD 4850 1GB. The power supply is an Ultra 700w My OS is Xp Pro, sp3
Any ideas or suggestions how to solve this
hanleyp
Have you tried running a temperature monitor such as HWMonitor to see if your video card is running into thermal issues?
8088
If I got your card correctly, its passive cooled so fan-trouble on the card is ruled out.
But, if the air-flow in the cabinet is not smooth,
you could have trouble as heat builds up around the card (no fans, you see).
I use a nVidia 7950GT which is similarly passive-cooled and the cabinet is designed for proper air-flow.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 4850 1GB (GV-R485MC-1GH)
The same review link declares good power-management on the card (12-22W).
And, a 700W PSU is quite good (though, I have not checked your exact model).
If this card is what you have, you should consider a warranty check.
The card may be malfunctioning.
I presume that that the card seating is confirmed. Some other checks,
- These cards come with management software that taps sensors to show its state
(have you checked these? does this work for your hardware?)
Kez
It does sound like your graphics card or the fan on the graphics card may be faulty.
This would make sense if the Windows desktop is automatically returning after those few seconds of seeing a blank screen. Can you hear the fan on the graphics card spin down and up again or does it remain on constantly? If so, that would be another indication.
Do you have a spare graphics card that you can test with to confirm this?
Adrien
I don't know the details of your PSU and graphics card, but some cards require a certain amperage on each of two 12v rails; basically, are you sure your PSU is putting out enough juice?
Beyond that, possibly check into temperature monitoring. I have an obnoxiously hot office, and periodically have heat-related problems when the graphics card is under load.
Snark
Sorry for the long delay. It is the video card. It behaved fine for two weeks, then the graphics died completely, even though the fan on the card kept working, indicating that it had power. I re-installed my old video card in the PCI-E slot and it is working fine with no loss of graphics. Thank you for your help, ezwi, Adrien and the rest.
It looks like the Motherboard may have its own problems, so two faulty parts at once, lucky me! Life is never simple, lol!