# Fans with 4 pins



## Tintai (May 18, 2013)

Hey guys

I looking for three fans with 4 pins.
My mobo have only 4 pins connector.

Hmm, or three adapter from 3 pins to 4 pins. By is good?

Thanks

~Tintai


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## TheLaughingMan (May 18, 2013)

3-pin connectors will fit on 4-pin mobo headers. You do not need 4-pin fans. That is why the plastic guide tab is slight offset to ensure you connect to the 3-pins you need for operation.


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## de.das.dude (May 18, 2013)

as above, 3 pin fits all 4 pins, and all four pins fit 3 pins.

the extra wire is for the motherboard to control the FAN with PWM.

but even the 3pin fans are controllable on motherboards now thanks to inbuilt fan controllers that change the voltage from 5,6V to 12V


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## Tintai (May 18, 2013)

I need only adapters? And evreryfing will be ok?


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## TRWOV (May 18, 2013)

No adaptaters needed:


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## d1nky (May 18, 2013)

is it still called 'backwards compatible' when the board can go from PWM to analog voltage control?

ill keep this thread on my subs because people ask all the time.


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## Geofrancis (May 18, 2013)

Most motherboards with a 4 pin header can only control the speed of a 4 pin fan. A few motherboard can vary the voltage to control a 3 pin fan but that requires extra hardware that is absent from budget boards. Check in your bios in the fan control section you might have the option to switch between PWM and Voltage so you can control the speed of a 3 pin or 4 pin fan. Without it a 3 pin fan will just run at full speed on a 4 pin header.


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## Ikaruga (May 18, 2013)

Geofrancis said:


> Most motherboards with a 4 pin header can only control the speed of a 4 pin fan. A few motherboard can vary the voltage to control a 3 pin fan but that requires extra hardware that is absent from budget boards. Check in your bios in the fan control section you might have the option to switch between PWM and Voltage so you can control the speed of a 3 pin or 4 pin fan. Without it a 3 pin fan will just run at full speed on a 4 pin header.


 Speedfan can control the fans on most of the motherboards quite well, and it's doing it without any kind of bios support. You can set it to spin up/down the fans based on the CPU,GPU load or the temps of other parts, etc. There are similar solutions on Linux as well ofc.


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## Geofrancis (May 18, 2013)

Ikaruga said:


> Speedfan can control the fans on most of the motherboards quite well, and it's doing it without any kind of bios support. You can set it to spin up/down the fans based on the CPU,GPU load or the temps of other parts, etc. There are similar solutions on Linux as well ofc.



The motherboard still has to have the physical hardware on the motherboard to vary the voltage on a 4 pin fan header. Speedfan can only manipulate the fans the bios can.


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## Ikaruga (May 18, 2013)

Geofrancis said:


> Speedfan can only manipulate the fans the bios can.



No? It accesses and controls the hardware directly. It's not the win95 era anymore when operating systems and programs were tied to the bios settings. There are a lot of motherboards out there what Speedfan can control while the bios has nothing for it or option only for 1 fan perhaps. Check out the official list which is far from complete tbh.


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## de.das.dude (May 18, 2013)

Ikaruga said:


> Speedfan can control the fans on most of the motherboards quite well, and it's doing it without any kind of bios support. You can set it to spin up/down the fans based on the CPU,GPU load or the temps of other parts, etc. There are similar solutions on Linux as well ofc.



speedfan is an epic fail on most new motherboards.


Most manufacturers will bundle their H/W monitoring software with it.
ASRock provides a really good one.






i can control all the fans on my motherboard.


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## Geofrancis (May 18, 2013)

Ikaruga said:


> No? It accesses and controls the hardware directly. It's not the win95 era anymore when operating systems and programs were tied to the bios settings. There are a lot of motherboards out there what Speedfan can control while the bios has nothing for it or option only for 1 fan perhaps. Check out the official list which is far from complete tbh.



I used speedfan for nearly 10 years i know whats capable of. What I mean is unless the fan is plugged into a fan header with voltage control or PWM tied to the smbus then you cannot control it with anything. A lot of boards have dumb headers that only supply 12v.


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## Tintai (May 18, 2013)

Nice, I try this. Thanks!

@edit:
It's work, very nice.


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## Ikaruga (May 19, 2013)

de.das.dude said:


> speedfan is an epic fail on most new motherboards.



It was just an example, I know many other programs exists.



Geofrancis said:


> I used speedfan for nearly 10 years i know whats capable of. What I mean is unless the fan is plugged into a fan header with voltage control or PWM tied to the smbus then you cannot control it with anything. A lot of boards have dumb headers that only supply 12v.



I agree, but you said "Speedfan can only manipulate the fans the bios can.", which is not true. I only reflected to that.


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## de.das.dude (May 19, 2013)

i was countering the point when you said speedfan works on most motherboards. which is false. most post 2010 motherboards will not work.

also speed fan is a very bad tool. its confusing. it wasnt made properly for use. it still looks like its a beta version.


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## Jetster (May 19, 2013)

Cougar has some nice 4 pin fans reasonably priced if you get them on sale. You can use ether as they mentioned but the 4 pin fans will change speed as needed


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## Geofrancis (May 19, 2013)

What you can also do is plug 4 pin fans onto a dumb 3pin header then connect the pwm wire to your CPU fans pwm pin so it can control the speed of both fans. My computer has 3 fans controlled by the CPU fan but plugged into 3 different plugs so I can monitor the rpm of each fan.

Speed fan used to be good. It was almost the first program of its type and it was great because there was no alternatives but now every motherboard comes with it's own software.


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## Aquinus (May 19, 2013)

Geofrancis said:


> What you can also do is plug 4 pin fans onto a dumb 3pin header then connect the pwm wire to your CPU fans pwm pin so it can control the speed of both fans. My computer has 3 fans controlled by the CPU fan but plugged into 3 different plugs so I can monitor the rpm of each fan.
> 
> Speed fan used to be good. It was almost the first program of its type and it was great because there was no alternatives but now every motherboard comes with it's own software.



He is talking about his Gene V, which isn't like that. Every fan connector on my motherboard provides a 4-pin connector so I can drive something like 6 or 7 PWM fans with just my motherboard. Most high-end ASUS boards now don't have strictly +12v pass-through. It eliminates the purpose of having the connector on the motherboard in the first place. I would imagine that the Gene has at least 3 or 4 fan connectors with control and sensing.


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## Tintai (May 19, 2013)

Gene V has 3 connector with 4 pins.

For now, two my fans work in ~600 RPM and one ~1600 RPM. It's good?


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## TRWOV (May 19, 2013)

Depends, what's their original specifications?


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## Tintai (May 19, 2013)

Two from case and one I bought. Cooler Master fan but I don't know what's their specifications. But one of them make a noise and then calms down. And again. But temperatures is ok.
Before I had all fans(except fan next to the CPU fan) connected to PSU.


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## Hood (May 19, 2013)

Geofrancis said:


> I used speedfan for nearly 10 years i know whats capable of. What I mean is unless the fan is plugged into a fan header with voltage control or PWM tied to the smbus then you cannot control it with anything. A lot of boards have dumb headers that only supply 12v.



I agree, the BIOS or Windows program can't control voltage in a circuit without a built in (hardware) voltage regulator.  So if a 3-pin fan header has a setting in BIOS associated with it, it has voltage regulation.  I assume that most 4-pin headers on recent motherboards also have voltage reg. on the 2nd pin, (RPM on the 3rd, PWM on the 4th pin), but probably not on the cheapest boards.


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## mm67 (May 19, 2013)

de.das.dude said:


> i was countering the point when you said speedfan works on most motherboards. which is false. most post 2010 motherboards will not work.
> 
> also speed fan is a very bad tool. its confusing. it wasnt made properly for use. it still looks like its a beta version.



At the moment I have these : 
Gigabyte Z68XP-UD4
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H
Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H
Asus Maximus V Formula
Asus Maximus V Gene
Asrock Z68 Extreme3Gen3

And all work great with Speedfan...


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## Hood (May 21, 2013)

Speedfan always gave me bad sensor readings and sometimes the wrong hardware info, and I've tried it on almost every system I've built, rebuilt, or worked on.  Any program exhibiting such behavior is unreliable to say the least.  I only tried it on all those systems to see which temp monitoring program works best on a given platform or configuration, and it always worked worse than the others (Real temp, HWiNFO 32/64, HMonitor, Open Hardware Monitor, etc.) as far as accuracy, resource useage, etc.  I almost always use HWiNFO to monitor temps, and I prefer a manual fan controller for fan speeds.


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## Ed_1 (May 21, 2013)

On most ASUS P8z77 xxx AFAIK the CPU_fan and OPT_fan only is controlled by PWM, you need 4 wire fan at those headers or the 3 wire run 100% .

All other chassis headers run voltage or PWM so support for both 3 an 4 wire fans .


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## drdeathx (May 28, 2013)

The 4 pin headers are for PWM(Pulse Width modulation). Fans with 4 pins automatically adjust to the system needs.


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## Eric_Cartman (May 28, 2013)

drdeathx said:


> The 4 pin headers are for PWM(Pulse Width modulation). Fans with 4 pins automatically adjust to the system needs.



The fans don't do anything.

You make it sound like just plugging in a 4-pin fan will instantly provide the amount of cooling the system needs, like the fan it intelligent enough to do that.

The fans are dumb, the motherboard has to control them, it is the motherboard that adjust the fans to it's needs.

And most of the time, except for the CPU fan connector, you have to go into the BIOS and tell the motherboard to control the speed of the fans before it will use PWM.


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## d1nky (May 28, 2013)

this is getting a bit off subject, the guy wanted to know if he could run a 3pin on a 4pin.

my understanding is most boards and newer boards are backwards compatible allowing voltage control changes through 4pin header to 3pin fans, whereas pwm adjusts fan speed without changing volts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-width_modulation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_control


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## drdeathx (May 28, 2013)

Eric_Cartman said:


> The fans don't do anything.
> 
> You make it sound like just plugging in a 4-pin fan will instantly provide the amount of cooling the system needs, like the fan it intelligent enough to do that.
> 
> ...



Do you make a living trying to prove people wrong? 4 pin fan must plug into 4 pin header Cartman and most of us know PWM is a function of the board but thanks for your utmost knowledge.



d1nky said:


> this is getting a bit off subject, the guy wanted to know if he could run a 3pin on a 4pin.
> 
> my understanding is most boards and newer boards are backwards compatible allowing voltage control changes through 4pin header to 3pin fans, whereas pwm adjusts fan speed without changing volts.
> 
> ...



Sorry d1nky off topic but 3 pin fans can plug into 4 pin headers but no pulse width modulation but they can be controlled through the bios.


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## Eric_Cartman (May 29, 2013)

drdeathx said:


> Do you make a living trying to prove people wrong? 4 pin fan must plug into 4 pin header Cartman and most of us know PWM is a function of the board but thanks for your utmost knowledge.



Here we go again.

You post incorrect information, then argue and insult anyone that corrects you.

Is this how you pay your bills?


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## drdeathx (May 29, 2013)

Eric_Cartman said:


> Here we go again.
> 
> You post incorrect information, then argue and insult anyone that corrects you.
> 
> Is this how you pay your bills?



It is not incorrect forum mascot


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## AsRock (May 29, 2013)

de.das.dude said:


> speedfan is an epic fail on most new motherboards.
> 
> 
> Most manufacturers will bundle their H/W monitoring software with it.
> ...



Best part of the ASRock software is that you set them at max in bios and you can turn the temps controlled ones right down and if the min temp is reached it will automatically speed the fans up.


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## drdeathx (May 29, 2013)

AsRock said:


> Best part of the ASRock software is that you set them at max in bios and you can turn the temps controlled ones right down and if the min temp is reached it will automatically speed the fans up.



Yes, ASRock's software rocks, I believe with Asus Q-fan does the same thing


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## Aquinus (May 29, 2013)

drdeathx said:


> Yes, ASRock's software rocks, I believe with Asus Q-fan does the same thing



I've been fairly happy with what ASUS has to offer as far as fan control.


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## Eric_Cartman (May 29, 2013)

drdeathx said:


> It is not incorrect forum mascot



Yes it is incorrect, it is wrong to say that you just plug in the fan and it automatically adjusts to the systems needs.

A lot of motherboard require you change BIOS settings.


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## Ed_1 (May 29, 2013)

FWIW , On Asus Z77 it only supports 3wire in the chassis headers where you can adjust in bios or 3rd party app . If you put 3 wire in  the 4wire PWM CPU headers you get 100% fan speed, no adjustment .

The other chassis heads do support voltage and PWM fan types which can be adjusted in bios , fan expert or 3rd party apps .


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## drdeathx (May 29, 2013)

Eric_Cartman said:


> Yes it is incorrect, it is wrong to say that you just plug in the fan and it automatically adjusts to the systems needs.
> 
> A lot of motherboard require you change BIOS settings.





> The 4 pin headers are for PWM(Pulse Width modulation). Fans with 4 pins automatically adjust to the system needs.





Does this say to plug them into 3 pin header? No. As the first sentence says, 4 pin headers are PWM. Pulse Width Modulation automaticlly adjusts to the systems needs...... I think your not understanding the thought........Guess your trying to stir the kettle as usual. Maybe the statement was vague and like I mentioned, thank you for your untmost intelligence. It is much appreciated(not that it takes a rocket scientist to figure the statement out).


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## Eric_Cartman (May 29, 2013)

Where are you getting that I'm saying anything about plugging them in to 3-pin headers?

You know a lot of boards have 4-pin headers for things other than the CPU right?

I'm not saying anything about plugging them into 3-pin headers.

I'm saying that just plugging the fans in, into 4-pin headers, doesn't make the fans automatically adjust to the systems needs.

The fans aren't magical, they won't just sense the needs of the system and adjust themselves.

The motherboard has to control them.

And a lot of the time you have to go into the BIOS and adjust the settings for those headers to make them actually use PWM because by default they are set to run at full speeds.


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## drdeathx (May 29, 2013)

Eric_Cartman said:


> Where are you getting that I'm saying anything about plugging them in to 3-pin headers?
> 
> You know a lot of boards have 4-pin headers for things other than the CPU right?
> 
> ...



I think it is time to move on mascot.

You need to read up on motherboards with PWM son.

When the 4 pin fan was invented, it added the PWM logic signal. PWM travels
 from the motherboard to the fan. It tells the fan how fast to run.(through the board)
http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/REV1_2_Public.pdf


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## Eric_Cartman (May 29, 2013)

Sigh, see I was right, you post incorrect information then argue with and insult anyone that corrects you.

I'm not arguing how PWM works.

I'm saying that a lot of the time just plugging the fan in won't enable PWM support, you have to enable it in the BIOS before the motherboard will use PWM.

Your original statement makes it sound like you just plug the fan in and it magically adjusts itself to the system needs, that isn't the case a lot of the time, there are extra steps involved.


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## Mindweaver (May 29, 2013)

Hey guys (_drdeathx and Eric_Cartman_), the constant arguing between you two is not needed in the forum or something anyone want's to see. if you two can't resolve your issues then we/moderators will put an end to it.


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## drdeathx (May 29, 2013)

mindweaver said:


> hey guys (_drdeathx and eric_cartman_), the constant arguing between you two is not needed in the forum or something anyone want's to see. If you two can't resolve your issues then we/moderators will put an end to it.



ty


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## Aquinus (May 29, 2013)

Most motherboards support both PWM and DC voltage control on 4-pin headers. This is a non-issue imho. I would only say that PWM is the better option and will have better and more smoother changes in fan speed as opposed to DC control, but they both work.



Eric_Cartman said:


> I'm saying that just plugging the fans in, into 4-pin headers, doesn't make the fans automatically adjust to the systems needs.



Yes and no, modern motherboards can and will, my current motherboard varies DC fans based on system temp by default. My last motherboard let you pick one or the other, my P9X79 Deluxe auto detects. You don't need PWM to sense how fast the fan is moving, that's the third pin on a regular fan. PWM only controls the output, but you already know that.


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## mm67 (May 30, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> Most motherboards support both PWM and DC voltage control on 4-pin headers. This is a non-issue imho. I would only say that PWM is the better option and will have better and more smoother changes in fan speed as opposed to DC control, but they both work.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes and no, modern motherboards can and will, my current motherboard varies DC fans based on system temp by default. My last motherboard let you pick one or the other, my P9X79 Deluxe auto detects. You don't need PWM to sense how fast the fan is moving, that's the third pin on a regular fan. PWM only controls the output, but you already know that.



Your board seems to be same as my Asus boards, all headers are 4 pin headers but actually only cpu and cpu_opt fan headers output PWM signal, chassis fan headers support only voltage control even though they have 4-pin headers :


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## Ed_1 (May 30, 2013)

mm67 said:


> Your board seems to be same as my Asus boards, all headers are 4 pin headers but actually only cpu and cpu_opt fan headers output PWM signal, chassis fan headers support only voltage control even though they have 4-pin headers :
> 
> [url]http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz182/mm_67/Capture-4_zps555c9ae9.png[/URL]



exactly , you "need" a PWM cpu fan if its HS and most bios have a standard profile for PWM that will ramp up speed with temps .
I would never buy HS w/0 PWM fan , but that is just me .


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