4Pin to 3Pin conversion questions

ToejaM · 6 Aug 2011 at 19:21

Question 1)
All of my fans have molex 4pins, if I converted them down via a changer to a 3pin, would that enable me to monitor the RPM on individual fans?

Question 2)
If I had a fan controller with a digital readout.. obviously you couldnt set 4 fans on the same channel to different speeds but if they were all connected to the same one, would you see the RPM as technically they should all be running the same speed?

I ask because having 13 fans in my case, an rpm counter on a fan controller would be pointless if the answer to the questions above was no.

UnworthyBean · 6 Aug 2011 at 19:27

Molex fans lack the wire for reading RPM so if you converted them it still wouldn't work.

As for 2 - Lets assume the fans have RPM sensors on them, If you linked them all up to the same channel it would just throw up errors and just give erratic readings.

ToejaM · 6 Aug 2011 at 19:31

Cool so for someone with more than one fan going to the connector its not worth looking for something that has an RPM readout then, thanks

UnworthyBean · 6 Aug 2011 at 19:43

Yeah, as far as im aware it just sends a signal everytime it does one rotation, So it would be picking the signals up from all fans.

You could cut the RPM wire from all but one fan and that would still work?

ToejaM · 6 Aug 2011 at 19:53

Doesnt overly matter I guess as as long as its spinning thats the main thing lol and I'm sure by looking I can see a visible decline if it ever happens.

All of my fans are molex though, all 12 (1 of my fans is the cpu, making 13 total) - I can just imagine the carnage of connector changes :/