2014년 10월 4일 토요일

3-pin to 4-pin adapter for DC cooling fans - PWM speed control

About 10+ years ago, mainboard manufacturers made a gradual transition in their cooling fan control method; previously, for the adaptive fan speed control, they had adjusted the DC supply voltage. These days, PWM-based speed control is more common. The biggest change incurred by this transition is the number of pins; from 3 pins to 4 pins.

In the transition period, some makers, such as ASUS, supported both of the speed control methods and allowed users to select the control mode in the bios setting. On the contrary, some only supported 4-pin fans. Unfortunately, even after the transition, some high-end cooling fan makers still provided only 3-pin fans for a while. They would have thought that it would be OK, because 3-pin fans are pin compatible with 4-pin fans. True... at least for the users who were willing to give up the adaptive fan speed control feature.

The following is the 3-pin to 4-pin conversion circuit that I designed 10 years ago for my computer:


댓글 2개:

  1. After doing this mod, is the ventilation speed automatic? I don't want to be controlling it

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    답글
    1. Yes, automatic fan speed control is exactly what this module is intended to do. It may also need some setting changes of your mainboard, though.

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