Help with case fan powering

Sueisfine · 07-21-2008, 10:24 AM

Hi all. First post here :)

I'm building my first rig from scratch and I have a question regarding the powering of the case fans.

My case has 6 standard basic fans (no thermal-control or speed control switch) and each of them has the following connectors built-in:

- 1 MOLEX 4-pin female connector
- 1 MOLEX 4-pin male connector (I guess this is the "passthrough")
- 1 3-pin motherboard header connector

I understand it's not advisable to connect more than one fan per motherboard header (or else you can fry it :P ) so, since my motherboard doesn't have enough headers available, i'll be using the MOLEX connectors to supply power to all 6 fans.

My question is: how many fans can I connect (using their "passthroughs") to a single PSU MOLEX connector ? I mean, since my PSU is modular, the least amount of cables I use the better (less cable mess in the case ;) ) but I don't know if there is a limit of fans per PSU MOLEX connector that I need to worry about...

Can someone around here with experience on this matter give me a hand on this ??

Thanks a lot in advance !!

**simpswr** · 07-21-2008, 06:51 PM

and welcome to the Forum

Fans draw very little load . . you should be able to connect them all to one molex connector

07-21-2008, 10:24 AM	#1 (permalink)
Sueisfine Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 1 OS: Windows Vista 64-bit (SP1)	Help with case fan powering Hi all. First post here :) I'm building my first rig from scratch and I have a question regarding the powering of the case fans. My case has 6 standard basic fans (no thermal-control or speed control switch) and each of them has the following connectors built-in: - 1 MOLEX 4-pin female connector - 1 MOLEX 4-pin male connector (I guess this is the "passthrough") - 1 3-pin motherboard header connector I understand it's not advisable to connect more than one fan per motherboard header (or else you can fry it :P ) so, since my motherboard doesn't have enough headers available, i'll be using the MOLEX connectors to supply power to all 6 fans. My question is: how many fans can I connect (using their "passthroughs") to a single PSU MOLEX connector ? I mean, since my PSU is modular, the least amount of cables I use the better (less cable mess in the case ;) ) but I don't know if there is a limit of fans per PSU MOLEX connector that I need to worry about... Can someone around here with experience on this matter give me a hand on this ?? Thanks a lot in advance !!

07-21-2008, 06:51 PM	#2 (permalink)
simpswr Mentor Hardware Team Join Date: May 2007 Location: Houston, Texas Posts: 4,494 OS: XP, Vista	Re: Help with case fan powering and welcome to the Forum Fans draw very little load . . you should be able to connect them all to one molex connector __________________ Rich MemTest86 \| BenchTest \| Spyware Cleaning \| How to Post a Screen shot \| PC running slow]