[cammochris]

ive just ordered three 40mm 3 pin fans and was wondering if it would be possible to connect them in parallel to the sys. fan header, if i parallel the power and then use the rpm lead from only one, would they work?


anyone tried this before?

thanks
chris

[serverguy]

It might,, but you don't want to exceed the wattage the motherboard can put out on that header. Does the motherboard only have one extrafn header?

Also, I think the RPM idea would work, technically, but the motherboard might not like it.

Best would be to put them on a molex, wit one on the header.

Have you thought about wirng them up in series, then they would all run a 1/3 slower. Or doing a 7 volt / 5 volt mod to them.. Google it.

Also,, 40mm fans are normally very noisy. The bigger the quieter.

[cammochris]

that looks like a really good idea, ill have a go tomorrow, wonder if i could put a variable resistor on the 5v line and see how low i can drop it before the fans cut out? would that damage the psu?

[serverguy]

Wouldn't damage the PSU but most fans won't start up below 5V.

If you're into electrickery you could build a simple Pulse Width Modulation controller (Google it)

Or just mod them like this.. http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/other/137

You can just play around with it until you get the right speed / noise level.