Quick question about 3-wire fans

tjwilly · 03-11-2007, 06:52 AM

I want to use a proc/heat sink fan as a cooling fan elsewhere. I have an extra 3-wire fan available. My question, is the Blue wire. If I am not mistaken, red=12v, black=gnd, and blue=??. I really don't know what to do with that. My thought was it is used for data reporting to the bios, but I really don't know.

If you are curious, I am building a small gps-pc for my car. And I need some cooling in a external drive bay I built.

Can I just snip it and use power and ground for constant velocity cooling?

Thanks

kobaj · 03-11-2007, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tjwilly

I want to use a proc/heat sink fan as a cooling fan elsewhere. I have an extra 3-wire fan available. My question, is the Blue wire. If I am not mistaken, red=12v, black=gnd, and blue=??. I really don't know what to do with that. My thought was it is used for data reporting to the bios, but I really don't know.

Yep, it reports the rpm of the fan back to the motherboard that way if it goes down to 0 the mobo can alert you and tell you the fan died.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tjwilly

If you are curious, I am building a small gps-pc for my car. And I need some cooling in a external drive bay I built.

Can I just snip it and use power and ground for constant velocity cooling?

Thanks

Ya, its perfectly fine to just cut it off.

tjwilly · 03-11-2007, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kobaj

Yep, it reports the rpm of the fan back to the motherboard that way if it goes down to 0 the mobo can alert you and tell you the fan died.

Ya, its perfectly fine to just cut it off.

Great. Thanks for the timely reply!

Best wishes.

elitehacker · 03-11-2007, 01:14 PM

Why don't you use a cheap two wired ones? Why would you want to waste one?

03-11-2007, 06:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
tjwilly New Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 2	Quick question about 3-wire fans I want to use a proc/heat sink fan as a cooling fan elsewhere. I have an extra 3-wire fan available. My question, is the Blue wire. If I am not mistaken, red=12v, black=gnd, and blue=??. I really don't know what to do with that. My thought was it is used for data reporting to the bios, but I really don't know. If you are curious, I am building a small gps-pc for my car. And I need some cooling in a external drive bay I built. Can I just snip it and use power and ground for constant velocity cooling? Thanks

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03-11-2007, 01:14 PM	#4 (permalink)
elitehacker Diamond Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Sydney, Australia Age: 19 Posts: 2,413	Why don't you use a cheap two wired ones? Why would you want to waste one?