Removing 3-pin male from female connector.

[Melph93]

Hello. This is my first time ever trying to replace a fan, or anything on a computer, and I was wondering how to separate my 3-pin male and female ends.

My old fan has a 3-pin male that is soldered into a touchplate, and the other end is in a 3-pin female connector that runs to my old fan. I am trying to remove this fan, but I can't seem to get the 3-pin male and female connectors seperated. Are these soldered together, or are they supposed to come apart? There is a tab between on the male, but even if I press it in I can't pull them apart. Sorry I'm so bad at this, thanks.

 

[Automata]

In your second picture, those are two different connectors for sure. They are different colors. The male (fan) header should just pull off. I'm guessing that it is probably stuck. Instead of pulling until it separates, you could twist a flat blade screwdriver between the two connectors to get them started.

 

[Melph93]

In your second picture, those are two different connectors for sure. They are different colors. The male (fan) header should just pull off. I'm guessing that it is probably stuck. Instead of pulling until it separates, you could twist a flat blade screwdriver between the two connectors to get them started.

EDIT: Figured it out, theres another piece over it that slid off to reveal screws. Sorry about that. Thanks very much and hopefully that was the last dumb question I had.

Great! Thank you very much. I used the screwdriver and it worked, they popped apart, but now I have one more problem. I need to remove the case mounting piece from my old fan so I can use it on my new one, but it does not want to seem to come off either. In each of the corners of the fan there is a hole that I imagine a screw or something is in, but I can't seem to get them out with any sort of screwdriver (there far enough in that I can't exactly see if they are screws). Any ideas? I'll post pics if I need to but the I don't think they will help since you can't see in there anyway. Thanks!

EDIT: Figured it out, theres another piece over it that slid off to reveal screws. Sorry about that. Thanks very much and hopefully that was the last dumb question I had.

 

[Automata]

Glad you got it figured out.

Sometimes those connectors can get so stuck that it is hard to tell what comes apart and what breaks!