6 pin fan headers?

[Tythus]

So I have a workstation board bbut most of the fan headers are 6 pin which I guess are proprietery?

There is 3 x 4 pin headers (2 x cpu headers and one general header) but naturally this isn't much use to me as I need 7 x 4 pin headers in total for everything so I was wondering if anyone knew of any good options for powering these extra 4?

Ideally some kind of pcie card would be best.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Well fan splitters are a simple solution. One header can quite easily run two fans unless they're very high power.

Alternatively a fan hub that takes power from the PSU via Molex or SATA is an option. You can also get these with PWM signal distribution so one PWM header controls several fans' speeds.

Which board do you have? I'm interested in what these 6-pin headers are

 

[Pocah]

If I remember correctly you can connect a three pin fan in to a six pin connector, using pins 1,2 and 3 on the six pin. You can not, however, connect in a four pin fan since the PWM signal is in the wrong place.

The best thing to do really is just ignore that and use a splitter. To be on the safe side you need a powered splitter to make sure you don't overload the motherboard. You can buy powered splitters simply as cables or as small pcb's that need to be placed inside the case somewhere. You can easily tell if a splitter is powered because it will have a power cable! A PWM splitter will only take the RPM from fan 1. It does of course give all the fans the same PWM signal. And a PWM splitter will not work with a three pin fan so all your fans must be four pin. If you want absolute control over all the fans then the best thing is something like the Corsair Commander Pro. That gives you independent control over six fans with multiple monitoring points.