Be Quiet! Silent Wings 3 PWM fan in old DC only motherboard

ConradWebster · 1 Dec 2021 at 15:08

The exhaust case fan in my 13-year-old pc finally started packing in so I purchased a 120mm Silent Wings 3 PWM fan, to eventually keep as a spare with a new build. The motherboard is an Asus P6 Deluxe with only 3 pin chassis connections and Q-fan control for DC fans. I read that connecting a 4 pin plug to the 3 pin header is okay, merely leaving off the pin that delivers the PWM voltage. I have enabled Q-fan to that fan set to standard and it appears to be acting as a DC fan, HWinfo64 telling me it is spinning at around 1200rpm, slightly ramping up on pc use. Am I right in what I have assumed? Incidentally, HWinfo64 also tells me my CPU fan is either at 0 or around 84000rpm!

ConradWebster · 1 Dec 2021 at 18:15

Thanks for the informative reply. The old fan rattled along like a train which we got used to so this is more than acceptable.

ConradWebster · 6 Dec 2021 at 21:50

The motherboard is an Asus P6T Deluxe 2008 so I only have Q fan control rather than UEFI controls available now. I am running the 4 pin PWM fan on 3 pin DC on standard. True, the ramping up is noticeable but I don't think any better control is possible. The quiet setting might not give enough cooling.

ConradWebster · 7 Dec 2021 at 15:10

Changed it to the quiet setting which runs at 1000rpm to 1200rpm as opposed to the standard which started at 1200rpm. Very quiet and cooling is fine.