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I'm having some trouble understanding where all my case fans plug in

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NewToThisOC

Registered
Joined
Aug 10, 2007
OK, so I've got 5 case fans in my Cosmos 1000.

1 on the bottom and inside the case
1 behind the CPU on the back of the case
1 on the CPU cooler
2 on top of the case

I'm reading the mobo manual and don't get where all 5 of these plug in. Seems as if there are 5 fan connections on the mobo but they are labeled differently.

CPU_FAN (4 PIN)
SYS_FAN1 (3 PIN)
SYS_FAN2 (4 PIN)
PWR_FAN (3 PIN)
NB_FAN (3 PIN)

Can any of my case fans plug into these? My Mobo doesn't have a North Bridge Fan, so would I leave that alone? Also, what's a PWR_FAN used for? Sorry for these insanely stupid questions but this is the first time I've built a PC by myself. Here's a pic of my mobo and the location of the fan connections.

my.php
 
CPU fan goes into CPU_FAN.

If your PSU has a power fan plug you plug it into the PWR_FAN. If you have this it is only 1 wire, and is there so your MoBo can monitor the fan speed inside your PSU.

All other fans go wherever you want. NB_FAN is for reference only, and you can plug whatever you want there.

Just so you know none of your fans "need" to plug into the MoBo. If you have high power fans I highly recommend you don't plug them into the MoBo. Sometimes case fans don't even have the right plugs on them to connect to the MoBo. You can connect all your fans directly to your PSU. If you do plug them into the MoBo you can use the BIOS or a program like Speed Fan to control their speed. Personally, I like to use a fan controller. I take the yellow wire off the fans that have one and just attach that wire (RPM monitoring wire) to the MoBo, so that I can see the fan speed using the BIOS or software, and use the fan controller to regulate speeds manually.
 
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