A noob question

Clinkz said:

Yeah you should be fine if your only running 120mm fans, its when you start running fans like this Thermaltake Case Fan

Ouhk. I won't be needing those big fans. 120mm fans will do just fine. :) Thanks.

D3ftOn3Z said:

ignatzatsonic said:

The controller is not mandatory.

Most fans use under 1 amp. Many under .5 amps. Unless you are using powerful fans, you can normally connect 3 to a single header by splitters.

Any fan will run off the PSU if you have a Molex connector for the fan, rather than the standard tiny 3 pin or 4 pin connection. Molex connectors go directly to the PSU, unlike 3 pin or 4 pin connectors, which go to the motherboard.

If you use Molex connectors, you don't have to wonder if you might be overloading the motherboard fan header.

I see... So the recommended amp for each fan to be able to use a splitter must be 5 and below? Or any 120mm fan will do?

If you dig deeply into your motherboard specs, you may find out how many amps are available at the fan headers. It will vary from motherboard to motherboard as far as I know.

Each fan you buy will have an amp rating. I bought two 120 mm fans recently. One was rated at .3 amps. The other at .1 amp. So both on the same header would draw .4 amps. I am running both off Molex and did not look up how many amps I could run off the fan headers---but I'm sure it was more than .4 amps, so I would have been OK. I chose Molex because I had Molex connectors.

D3ftOn3Z said:

Thanks for the info. I've checked my mobo manual. It's using a 3-pin connector. The total amp it can support is 3.48 A.

So 3 of these fans should be ok right?

Looks ok to me. Each of those fans is only .07 amps.

ignatzatsonic said:

Looks ok to me. Each of those fans is only .07 amps.

Now i know what kind of fan to look for... :) Kudos to you for your thorough explanation. Cheers!