mutiple fans off one MOBO connector???

[isaacmacdonald]

Well, I finally found software to control fan speed through windows. I'm stoked. It's called speedfan and it rocks. The only problem is that my mobo only lets me control the voltage to 2 of the fan connectors. I'm thinking I wouldn't mind hooking up two of the same fans in series and just taking the rpm readings off the first. I'm just wondering if that's going to fry my mobo. The fans I want to hook up will be 12v <.2 amps each.

 

[CoBRaXT]

Should work fine. I've run a .40amp 92mm fan and an even higher 120mm fan on the mobo connector and it works...

 

[deerslayer]

I don't know anything about how many amps fan headers will handle, but if it were me personally I wouldn't do it. I'm sure someone with more knowledge will come along and give you a better answer

 

[BG4533]

Your motherboard manual might say how many watts each header can support. I have heard of headers only supporting 3 or 4 watts and some supporting up to 8.

Brian

 

[isaacmacdonald]

i'm looking now... but what's the formula for watts?

 

[BG4533]

P=IV

P is in Watts
I is Current (amps)
V is voltage (12 if running at full voltage)

so, your fans are 2.4w each.

Brian

 

[isaacmacdonald]

thanks. Well, I looked through the specs and no mention of how much wattage the headers can handle. I said f*ck it and hooked up the .5amp 120 monster from my old proliant server. Seemed to work fine, so I guess I should be more than covered.

 

[mechBgon]

What motherboard is it? Sometimes mobos stand up to the strain for a while and then blow a trace. I had a Tyan that lost two headers as time went by. Call me conservative but I would rather be safe than sorry. At the very least, don't use the header designated for the CPU fan if your board is one of those which will not POST without an RPM reading on the CPUFAN header (Soyo is most noted for this).