I recently switched to a new case, and it has a 120mm front inward fan and a 60mm rearoutward fan but Im having problems with them, I want to control there speed so that when I need less background noise and such I can turn them down without them sounding like a plane...But reading about because of the 4pin molex conection it seems there struggles controlling them.

If I get a 4pin>3pin and plug it into a fan controlelr and such will this work?

Cheers, Jim


Edit: Wrong section, sorry!

It will work on a "dumb" controller. But take a look at your motherboard first, most mobos have one or more additional BIOS controlled fan headers.
The problem with those 4 pin molex fans is that they don't have an RPM wire, so a fancy controller will think that the fan has stalled.

These 4pin connectors you're describing, are they the ones which just plug in to the connectors coming out of the power supply? The ones with red, yellow wires on the sides, and two black wires in the middle?

A fan does not need 4 of those wires to work, a fan only needs 2 wires to work. Find the wires which it uses (probably the yellow (12V) wire and one of the black wires (ground)). Disconnect your fan's cable from the power cable. The red wire in the cable from the power supply has 5V in it, so take the black wire coming out of your fan's connector out and place it in line with where the red wire should be when connected. Now plug your fan back in and start your system. This will lower the voltage on your fan from 12V to 7V, and will make it spin much slower (quieter). Good luck.

Which is good if you want a permanent reduction in cooling - Hence why you have controlable so you can up the speed when the internals have to do some work.

I'd say put up with it till you can afford a case with a fan-controller, or buy one and fit it yourself.

Or you can just buy a variable resistor and stick it in series with the connector. Problem solved.

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

Or you can just buy a variable resistor and stick it in series with the connector. Problem solved.

Generally that's not the way you want to limit fan speed. PWM is usually used.

Thanks for all the help

But as a quick yes no soluotion, will this work?
^ Spelling ftw

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136404/show_product_reviews

Quote :

This little Fan Controller was such a good buy for me. Having six 120mm fans in my case means it is very noisy and my ASUS P5K can only control 4 of them. Even with Q-Fan enabled they would only go as low as 1000rpm. But this controller lets me take all six down to 600rpm and all the way up to 2000rpm.

The LEDs on the front of the controller are quite bright but they do vary depending on the speed setting and they are quite a 'cool' blue.



For any future buyers this come with alot of stuff:

1 2-1 3pin Splitter Wire

2 4pin Molex to 3pin Wire's

2 3pin Extension Wire's (about 6 inches long)

2 3pin Extensions with RPM sensor's for your motherboard (this means you can control them on the fan controller while still seeing the RPM reading from your motherboard)

It also comes with a 5.25-3.5 inch mounting adpater so you can mount a HDD behind this fan cooler so no space wasted by it!

^ Review.

Yea that thing uses variable resistors, the more you turn the knobs clockwise, the less resistance, so the higher the fan speed.

And w4h, I sort of agree with you, but for very low-power applications (such as a case fan) a variable resistor will do just fine. A pwm is overkill in this case, unless it's built into the motherboard and can control all the fans from a central location. That would be useful. But one for each fan? Overkill.