3-pin, 4-pin Fan Plugin Guide

[aceman]

4-pin fans are PWM fans. the first 3 pins/wires are the same as a standard 3-pin fan, the 4th pin/wire is the 'pulse' wire for PWM speed control. you can plug a 4-pin fan into a 3-pin motherboard fan header, but speed control will be lost. depending on the fan, some will run at maximum speed, others will run at minimum speed, few may not run only!



you can also use a 3-pin fan with a 4-pin motherboard fan header. same as above the first 3 pins/wires are the same as a standard 3-pin motherboard fan header, the 4th pin is the 'pulse' wire for PWN speed control. using a 3-pin fan poses no danger or loss of functionality. it will simply run at full speed, just as it would if it were plugged into a standard 3-pin motherboard fan header.



both '4-pin' examples above are in reference to a 4-pin PWM fan connector (looks just like a regular 3-pin fan connector but with an extra pin/wire). some fans have a 4-pin molex connector (same power connector used for PATA hard drives and CD/DVD drives). these connectors do not plug into the motherboard, but directly into the power supply. even though the connector has 4 pins, only 2 of them are actually used. this type is equivalent to a 2-pin fan connector and should not be confused with a 4-pin PWM connector.

NOTE: the 2 pictures used above were taken from www.intel.com

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