OK, so I've taken delivery of my new Antec SLK3700-BQE and so far, I'm very impressed with the results.
What I'm looking into doing now while testing the machine is tidy up some cabling as best I can. One question before I make a mistake a may end up regreting.
The standard Antec 120mm rear fan that came with the case uses a molex connector to draw power. As some of you may know, this fan has only 2 wires and no RPM sensing lead. What I'm looking at doing is removing this connector and replacing it with a standard 3 pin fan header I just happen to have lying around.
Can anyone see any problems with this? Will the 120mm fan draw too much power from the motherboard header and cause any damage?
The motherboard is an Intel D865PERL but unfortunately I have no more fan details other than what is mentioned. Antec chose not to print any fan specs.
Much appreciated
Changing fan connector
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
-
BarCodeBlack
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Mon May 12, 2003 1:24 pm
- Location: Barcelona
-
silvervarg
- Posts: 1283
- Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 1:35 am
- Location: Sweden, Linkoping
In most cases this will work fine.
I would first check out the rated current draw of the fan (typically printed on the fan label). E.g. 0.2A
If you are really lucky you can find the maximum current draw from your motherboard fan headers in the manual for the motherboard. If you can't find it a typical guess is about 0.3A from case fan headers and 0.45A from CPU fan header is normally safe to use. Some motherboard may provide slightly more or slightly less that this value.
I would first check out the rated current draw of the fan (typically printed on the fan label). E.g. 0.2A
If you are really lucky you can find the maximum current draw from your motherboard fan headers in the manual for the motherboard. If you can't find it a typical guess is about 0.3A from case fan headers and 0.45A from CPU fan header is normally safe to use. Some motherboard may provide slightly more or slightly less that this value.
-
silvervarg
- Posts: 1283
- Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 1:35 am
- Location: Sweden, Linkoping
If you can't find the information for a specific fan you have a few options.
The best is to measure the actual current draw with an amp-meter. This normally means you have to cut one cable or use an extension wire with one wire cut.
Measuring the resistance of the fan is often missleading since the fan does not act as a resistor.
Another less accurate but still fairly usefull option to get close is to compare with a fan of equal size with roughly the same CFM. They tend to draw about the same amount of current. In this case you might not know the CFM value of the fan, but you can probably compare the CFM with another fan by just feeling the airflow from the fans with your hand.
This method is far from accurate, but you will probably be no more than 30-50% off the real value and you don't need any special tools or cut any wires.
The best is to measure the actual current draw with an amp-meter. This normally means you have to cut one cable or use an extension wire with one wire cut.
Measuring the resistance of the fan is often missleading since the fan does not act as a resistor.
Another less accurate but still fairly usefull option to get close is to compare with a fan of equal size with roughly the same CFM. They tend to draw about the same amount of current. In this case you might not know the CFM value of the fan, but you can probably compare the CFM with another fan by just feeling the airflow from the fans with your hand.
This method is far from accurate, but you will probably be no more than 30-50% off the real value and you don't need any special tools or cut any wires.