How to add one more fan to desktop (not sure how pin work)

[meiam]

Hello

I want to add one more fan to my desktop, but I'm not quite sure if that's possible while keeping the current fan I have.

I'm using a meshify C case, which came with 2 fans (one in front and one in back), I want to add one more to the front. There's enough place in the case for that, but the front fan is connected to the motherboard with 3 of the 4 pins on the board (board is mag b660m mortar, picture here https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/msi-mag-b660m-mortar-wifi-ddr4). If I buy a new fan, it seems like they all need to use 3/4 pins as well, so I'm not sure if its possible.

All the guide I find on this focus on airflow and such, which is nice, but they don't really seem to talk about this kind of stuff and I'd rather not have to throw out a perfectly working fan if there's a solution.

Thanks

 

[Chimpzy]

You can use a 2-way fan splitter to put two fans on the same fan header on your board. Unless your fans are unusually beefy, your board should be able to handle that just fine. The downside is that only one fan will report, so you can't monitor the other fan and any fan curve you set will apply to both of them.

Not entirely sure if a 4-pin splitter would work. I think it'd be ok. Maybe just get a 3-pin splitter to be safe.

For the new fan I would advise getting another 3-pin fan, because mixing 3-pin and 4-pin fans together can result in some odd behaviours. Nothing too detrimental, just annoying.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Your motherboard has four fan headers.

MSI MAG B660M Mortar WiFi DDR4 Review

Intel's B660 budget-oriented chipset has arrived and brings with it more choices for that new Alder Lake build. The MSI MAG B660M Mortar WiFi comes with DDR4 support, WiFi 6, PCIe 4.0, and M.2 Gen4 sockets to round out the features. At $190, it's considerably more affordable than available Z690...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[meiam]

Your motherboard has four fan headers.

MSI MAG B660M Mortar WiFi DDR4 Review

Intel's B660 budget-oriented chipset has arrived and brings with it more choices for that new Alder Lake build. The MSI MAG B660M Mortar WiFi comes with DDR4 support, WiFi 6, PCIe 4.0, and M.2 Gen4 sockets to round out the features. At $190, it's considerably more affordable than available Z690...

www.techpowerup.com

The only one not used is the one in the middle of the board, which I think is for CPU cooling (?), I don't imagine its a good idea to put a case fan on it, but I'm not too sure.

You can use a 2-way fan splitter to put two fans on the same fan header on your board. Unless your fans are unusually beefy, your board should be able to handle that just fine. The downside is that only one fan will report, so you can't monitor the other fan and any fan curve you set will apply to both of them.

Not entirely sure if a 4-pin splitter would work. I think it'd be ok. Maybe just get a 3-pin splitter to be safe.

For the new fan I would advise getting another 3-pin fan, because mixing 3-pin and 4-pin fans together can result in some odd behaviours. Nothing too detrimental, just annoying.

Didn't realize those existed, I guess I'll get something like this:

 

[Chimpzy]

The only one not used is the one in the middle of the board, which I think is for CPU cooling (?), I don't imagine its a good idea to put a case fan on it, but I'm not too sure.

If Rogue Wolf's link is correct, the header in the middle of the board should be labeled SYS-FAN. SYS-FAN or CHA-FAN headers are meant for case fans, front, back, top, bottom, doesn't matter, whatever is easiest to cable route. The one at the bottom should also be a SYS-FAN, while the two in the top right should be your cpu fan headers, one labeled CPU-FAN and the other probably CPU-OPT.

The CPU-FAN is for the fan on your cpu cooler, obviously. I guess you have something plugged in there because a lot of boards don't even boot if there isn't. Best and easiest to have it be the cpu cooler's fan, again obviously.

Your CPU-OPT is for any second cpu cooler fans you might have. I think you can put a case fan in there if you want, tho I suspect that fan would then ramp up and slow down its speed based on the cpu temps instead of overal system temps. Don't think that's a huge problem, but might be a little annoying to have one case fan change speed (and noise level) a lot.

Didn't realize those existed, I guess I'll get something like this:

Link won't display. Anyways, most fans are 0.5 ampere and most fan headers on modern boards can supply up to 1 amps, so 2 fans should be fine. I wouldn't do more tho.

EDIT: never mind, that second cpu header in the top right is actually a water pump header. Which I think would also work. Might even be better in some ways for 2 fans on one header, since water pump headers are usually something like 3 amps, so it would drive 2 fans for sure. Tho I'm pretty sure a water pump headers signal is 100% by default, so any fans plugged into it would run at full speed all the time. Maybe not the best for noise levels.

 

[meiam]

Okay so looking around, my front fan was plugged into the PUMP-fan, so I guess that's actually meant for water cooler, which I don't have. I can't really tell if that means that it was running at 100% all the time, I guess I'd need to dig into the bios for that?

The middle header is indeed labeled sys fan, so I could use, thought it might be a bit awkward to have the cable go there. The bottom one is connected to my back fan, so maybe I'll move things around to have that connected to one of the front fan, but it's behind the GPU so its a pita to access.

I'll probably just keep things this way and plug the extra fan into the middle header.

Thanks for the help.

Is there much of adifference between the fancy more expensive fan that claim to be quieter and the cheaper one (that also claim to be super quiet)?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Is there much of adifference between the fancy more expensive fan that claim to be quieter and the cheaper one (that also claim to be super quiet)?

Probably.

Check reviews online, if it's a popular fan someone has probably run a test on them checking decibel levels at a set RPM.

We obviously can't tell you if there's a difference if we don't know which fans you're looking at.

 

[Chimpzy]

Okay so looking around, my front fan was plugged into the PUMP-fan, so I guess that's actually meant for water cooler, which I don't have. I can't really tell if that means that it was running at 100% all the time, I guess I'd need to dig into the bios for that?

Yeah, you should be able to find that in the bios.

Is there much of adifference between the fancy more expensive fan that claim to be quieter and the cheaper one (that also claim to be super quiet)?

Kind of. Something like a Noctua NF-A12x25 is probably the overal best in performance to noise level, but expensive. Meanwhile, something like an Arctic P12 or Scythe Kaze is a fair bit cheaper, while not being all that much worse than the Noctua (tho the average Noctua would probably come out on top in terms of long term reliability). Like Dirty Hipster says, check some reviews.