How safe is it to run 120mm fans on Mobo. headers

[pony-tail]

I have been wondering if it was safe to run 120mm fans off the fan headers of the motherboard , in my case either Asus A8N-sli premium or Asus M2N32-SLI deluxe .
In previous generations ( P3 P4 and socket 462 ) this would blow the fan header or even kill the mobo . I was wondering because If this can be done I can use the onboard PWM to control the speed of the fans .
The room temp varies in my area from about 17c in winter to 40+c in midsummer and rather than add and remove extension cables with diodes in series soldered in I could just set it up so that it can survive the worst heat and let the mobo reduce the speed when it is not required .
I used to chase complete silence but in the end I have chosen the route of removing any irritating noise and reducing the others to a level that I can live with rather than total silence .
Currently the loudest thing in my computer room is a Panaflo 120 m at 5v in winter and the ceiling fans (2 x 48 inch ) in summer.
The Panaflo has a smooth mellow tone that is easily ignored and it masks some of the other noisemakers that have a lower volume but less pleasant sound ( one particular noctua comes to mind it is pretty quiet but it has a droning component that fluctuates and is not easily ignored - a P12 or something like that an excellent performing fan for the amount of noise but the character is not to my liking )

[mLy!]

I am running a 120mm Fan on the motherboard 'CPU FAN' connector without problems.

[DonQ]

I think it's a matter of watts or amps (since Watts = Volts X Amps, and the fans are 12 V then there is a direct relationship there) and not size. Check out your manual and see if there's a maximum amperage or wattage on the fan. Like the next poster I've been running 120mm fans on mobo headers for a long time (well, a few years...) without having any problems. I would say that any fan that pretends to be quiet should be fine.

[jhhoffma]

Keep it below 6W (12v x Amp of fan) and you should be perfectly fine. Most mobos will handle more, but if you're looking here you don't want any fans that could draw more.

[widowmaker]

I was actually thinking of hooking up all my case fans to my mobo yesterday. I wasn't even aware that this could have blown my mobo. Luckily, the only thing preventing me from doing so was the fact that I had a 5.25 fan controller and wanted to still use it. The fan headders also appear to be deliberately placed near the bottom right of the motherboard to discourage hooking up top and rear case fans to it. (M2N32 SLI)

[autoboy]

I've run two 120mm Yate Loon fans off the same header for 2 years in the same computer. I don't think you will have a problem unless you go for Delta fans that spin at 4K

[pony-tail]

I asked about this because a few years ago ( when I got my 3750AMB case) I put a panaflo 12L on the mobo header and blew the header as soon as I powered up - The board was an Asus P4B266SE 400FSB P4 board with a 2.0 northwood .
I checked the Manual for the M2N32-SLI that I am using now , it does not give the maximum for a single header but gives a total of 7amps across all headers which is about 1.2 amps per header .

[mg1394]

I asked about this because a few years ago ( when I got my 3750AMB case) I put a panaflo 12L on the mobo header and blew the header as soon as I powered up - The board was an Asus P4B266SE 400FSB P4 board with a 2.0 northwood .
I checked the Manual for the M2N32-SLI that I am using now , it does not give the maximum for a single header but gives a total of 7amps across all headers which is about 1.2 amps per header .

Your analysis is correct. So, do you think the Panaflow fan drew more than 14W of power????

Clearly your historical problem was due to some failure or short, not to the fact you tried a 120mm fan.