Hi all,

I'm trying to install a Scythe Shuriken Rev. B SCSK-1100 (4-pin female) on an old socket 478 motherboard, which has a 3-pin male connector. It should work afaik, the fan connector plastic also matches perfectly the mobo connector (leaving the 4th pin unconnected of course).

Surprise surprise, it does not work! The fan does a half spin when I boot, but then it does not move anymore. The BIOS complains that there's no CPU fan. Ignoring the warning and booting anyway (for a short while ) does not help.

I am sure the fan is all right as I tried it on a more recent desktop.

So let's look at the old dinosaur: it's an HP Compaq d530 Small Form Factor Desktop PC:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Home.jsp?cc=us&lang=en&prodSeriesId=316713.

The motherboard identifies itself as a HP d530 SFF (PE105S), but I suspect it's an ASUS. The closest I found (with Intel 82865G chipset) is the ASUS P4P800-VM:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_478/P4P800VM
which looks almost exactly the same as I have. All links on HP site seem to be bogus, but I could find back the Hardware Reference Guide for my model, which is nearly useless:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00059123/c00059123.pdf

At some point I found a much more useful technical reference guide (for d530 and d330), where they give a detailed scheme of the fan circuitry.
I can attach the whole document if needed (it does not seem to be on HP site any more so I will have to upload it somewhere else).

Unfortunately the BIOS is a bit limited, so here's what I could try so far, with no success:
-attach the fan to the chassis fan plug instead
-disable/enable ACPI in the bios
-change "Fan Idle Speed" setting in BIOS (between 1 and 4, I guess it just sets the voltage of the fan)
-measured voltage on fan connector, it is indeed 12V with fan idle speed 4

Any idea how to proceed (excluding "buy a new pc/mobo" ) is very appreciated!

I was also thinking: is there some alternative way to power up a 4-pin fan on such a motherboard (with some adapter/controller) that would allow me to use PWR?

Thanks a lot!

Do you have a 3-pin to power supply adaptor handy? (Most case fans come with one). If that doesn't work, then you know the problem is with the fan, not the motherboard.

I'm sure the fan works (tested in a different computer with 4-pin header).
Now I'm thinking, would the Zalman PWM Mate do the job? It's supposed
to be connected to the mobo with a 4-pin headere as well, so I'm not sure..

Try using the other fan connectors?