How many fans can you run off a 3-pin connector on a motherboard?

It totally depends on the amp rating of your fans and your fan headers on your board. If you read your motherboard manual it says what each fan header can do. It's a max of 1amp per header on the rampage III I believe. And if you go the fan manufacturers website they will tell you what the amp rating is for the fan you have. For example the Akasa Viper uses 0.2 amps and can do up to 1800rpm so I guess I could run up to 5 of these. I currently run only 2 using a standard 4pin pwm splitter. A 1200rpm fan probably consumes lesss power so you might get away with 6 or 7 but I doubt it. Anyway, why risk burning out a fan header when there is 7 or 8 to play with on this board already. They are all 4pin by the way though they can take 3pin fans too. If you do want to run lots of fans off 1 header, invest in a few of these and daisy chain them.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-031-AK&groupid=701&catid=48&subcat=153
 
Mmm... Enermax aren't giving the amp rating for their fans. It's giving a power input of 1.8w - but aren't watts and amperes directly comparable?
 
Yes, amps = watts / volts

So assuming that rating ot 1.8 watts is at 12volts then you are talking about 0.15amps per fan which sounds about right for a 1200rpm fan.
 
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