different fan power cables

tgbyhn10111

tgbyhn10111

tgbyhn10111

Associate
Joined
11 May 2007
Posts
311
Hi

I have several case fans i want to hook up to a fan controller board already in my case.

I need to use extension cables but have 2 different types; one of them has a red and black wire, the other has a black and yellow wire. What's the difference and which would be best to use?

The fan controller doesn't have an rpm display it only allows me to turn up / down fans speed (I assume)

Thanks

Pete
 
Please correct me if I am wrong but the yellow cable is the speed sensor, so if you have no speed display its pointless for you. just use the remaining colours
mark
 
thanks Markatomic

Does the fan controller use the yellow wire to regulate speed or is that just for one way information going from the fan to a control board / motherboard?

It's only a manual dial adjustment fan controller that will increase or decrease the speed of all fans connected - does it conreol the fans by adjusting their voltage on the black wire?

What are the black and red cables?

I bought an akasa AK-174BK-S quet fan 12cm with 3 pins connected (yelllow, red and black) but I need to use an extension cable. They supplied an extension cable for use with a molex and a 3 pin connector but the molex extension only has red and black connected and the 3 pin connector only has yellow and black wires connected - what gives?

I am just suprised that the the fan will run with just a yellow and a black wire as yellow is just rpm info, it's essentially just running on a black wire, is this right?

Thanks
 
Last edited:
The wires on a fan are usually as follows:


Black - ground
Red - voltage to drive fan
Yellow - fan speed signal

The adaptor you have will have red and black wires going to the molex connector so it can get the power straight from your power supply and the yellow and black wires can be connected to something else, e.g. one of the fan connectors on your motherboard, so you can monitor the speed of the fan.

You'll need to conect the red and balck molex connector to your fan controller, as it is the voltage supplied to the fan that controls its speed, the yellow wire just reports back how fast its going.

Hope that explains things for you!

PK!
 
Yes thank you very much.

So I can't do what I want then as my fan controller has 4 lots of 3 pin headers - I can't plug the molex into it.

I either need to get a fan extension cable with all pins connected to plug into my fan controller and forget about the rpm information

or I could connect the yellow and black cables to my motherboard but I'd still need to plug the ground / voltage into my fan controller which means I would need a female 4 pin molex to a female 3 pin fan connector.

or a fan extension cable that splits into 2 3 pin female sockets one with black and red, the other with black and yellow.

Can you get any of the above?
 
The fan controllers I've had came with extensions, but you can get them. For example, OcUK stock this one, but it might be worth a look around to see if you can get a cheaper one.

PK!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom