confused about fans on my thermaltake tsunami

[Afghan_Soulja]

hi everyone. I have a thermltake tsunami case, and an antec 480W power supply, with the asus a8v mobo.

my problem is that i'm confused about where to connect the fan wires, there are 2 on each of the 3 fans of the case. one type of wire is the power connectors which im guessing connect to the power connectors on the psu, but im not sure where to connect the smaller wires for monitoring the fans.

please can anyone shed some light on this, thank you.

[johnnr892]

they are called 3 pin and 4 pin molex connectors. The larger ones that you connect directly to your psu will give you full 12v on them. The smaller ones I presume you can connect to your motherboard if you have a 3 pin header like the one you connect the cpu fan to. IF you connect the smaller ones to the motherboard, assumming the fans have a a wire for speed sensing (panaflo's don't) then you will be able to read the fan spped using speed fan or MBM5 or similar. Hope that helps

[Afghan_Soulja]

thanks for your reply. I ave already connected the molex connectors straight to the power supply connectors(is that all that needs connecting?)

but i dont have any free 3 pin connectors on the mobo, other than one for the cpu and the psu which are already in use.so im guessing it doesn't matter if i dont connect the fan monitor wires, and as a result, im guessing that i wont be able to see the rpm of these fans in the bios.right?

[Steve]

You won't have a problem leaving them disconnected. However, you assumed correctly; you won't be able to monitor their speed.

[Afghan_Soulja]

im slightly confised now again lol because i just found 2 molex connectors that say "fan only" on them. I'm guessing these ones are a lesser voltage connections?? and can they be used for connecting the case fans to? thanks

[Steve]

Sounds like it.

[johnnr892]

Yes, I have two molex for fan only which are supposed to raise the speed with the temperature of the case. However, they are pretty ineffective, you're better off running silent fans off the 12v rather than getting fans, realising they are too noisy and having to run them off the 7v fan only molex(like i did)

[Afghan_Soulja]

so should i use the fan only connectors or not? i've currently plugged all my fans into the 12v connectors, and bear in mind that i havent even powered up my pc once, i only just put it together, which is why im askin all this

[arthurleung]

The fan only connectors will vary the fan speed at different temperature.

Connecting to 12V will give you full speed.
Connecting to fan only connector will usually give you 50~95% speed depends on the temperature of the PSU.

But becareful do not attach too much fans on the fan only connectors. I once blew the fan only circuit by attaching 6 fans on my Antec Truepower 550. It ended up costing me 20 quids to mail to NL for RMA. 2 or 3 fans should be fine.

BTW that fan circuit connects to the internal fans of the PSU as well, so if that circuit blows, your PSU fans stop too...

/me remembers the large pop sound and burning smell.

[johnnr892]

Well, I have my top 2 fans on 12v and my bottom two on 7v but thats my preference. IF shouldn't matter though if your powering up for the first time. Chesch cpu fan also

[autopilot]

I use a fan bus controler with my TT Tsunami to control all my fans and usually have them all on the lowest posible setting (7v). This keeps the noise right down and makes everything much easier to control. The fans and cooling properties (120mm x 2 & 92mm x1) are so good that even overclocking rarely needs any of my case fans taking off the lowest voltage.

I have this one which matches my case and blue lighting inside really nicely;