Chaining more than two fans?

Zeebedy

Zeebedy

Zeebedy

Soldato
Joined
28 Jan 2011
Posts
8,092
Hey guys,

quick question. My new case will have 2x140mm and one 120mm noctua’s.

can I use a splitter cable for all three? And then one header on the motherboard?

or should I link the front two and then the rear on its own header?
 
Really depends on what fans are being used .. because not all fans have same amp rating. Fan headers are rated about 1 amp and most fans are rated about 0.1-0.3 amp, but that is running amp load. At startup or if somthing stops impeller from spinning fan will draw 3x to 5x it run load rating. For this reason I don't recommend running more than a couple fans on single header.

There are fan hubs and splitters that use PSU power and motherboard PWM fan speed control. These work very well for controlling up to about 8 fans (PWM) with one fan header.
 
Depends on the header you are connecting too. Not all 4 pin headers are the same - some will be "more juiced up" and better suited.. mind you if its just 3 fans give it a bash.. you will know soon enough if the combo works
 
No more than 3, i've been doing this for years and never had a issue. You can generally tell if its too much for the head if it starts heating up.
 
More importantly, the 120 fan may have a different voltage/PWM-to-RPM ratio than that of the 140s, so at best you'll get false/inaccurate speed readings reported back (whether PWM or not) to the motherboard. At worst you might damage the lower powered fan, as the board sends it the same power as the higher fan requires to spin at the same speed... but I think that somewhat unlikely at such low levels here.

You will probably find one size just ends up spins faster then the other, and one will be noisier while the other is quiet.
Also, if you're using PWM, make sure only one connector on the splitter has all four pins, else this will also throw back erratic readings.
 
I wouldn't connect all them fans to a motherboard header it may blow it.
You can get some real good fan hubs these days.
 
You can also get powered splitters should you need more power. They are usually just a special cable or a small circuit board.
 
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