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PSU Fan replacement Question

Gullerback
By Gullerback
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I'm a little confused so..   My PSU fan has been occasionally making some not so good noises,  I'd prefer not to have to replace the entire PSU itself as honestly it works fine.

 

I wanted to replace the fan with an extra Noctua I have laying around, But I noticed the stock fan is only 2 pin, I have no electrical knowledge when it comes to cutting, rewiring, soldering etc.  

 

Is it possible to connect a 3 pin fan to the 2pin header (noctua wiring is blue green yellow black) and just put the plastic shield back onto the noctua?

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I think on the Noctua the yellow takes place of the red, so if there's room you can probably just plug it in.

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I'm a little confused so..   My PSU fan has been occasionally making some not so good noises,  I'd prefer not to have to replace the entire PSU itself as honestly it works fine.

 

I wanted to replace the fan with an extra Noctua I have laying around, But I noticed the stock fan is only 2 pin, I have no electrical knowledge when it comes to cutting, rewiring, soldering etc.  

 

Is it possible to connect a 3 pin fan to the 2pin header (noctua wiring is blue green yellow black) and just put the plastic shield back onto the noctua?

Indeed it is. the 3 pin fan has a positive, a negative and a sense. The sense can be ignored and the fan run from straight 12V DC (assuming you get it the right way around). You could probably just plug it into the 2 pin header because the ground and +12V pins are next to each other (probable the red and black pins).

Edit: It should also work with a 4 pin fan as the extra pin is the PWM pin. You could also do something like this:

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/123088-power-supply-noctua-mod/

"PSU brands are meaningless, look up the OEM."

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Make sure you identify the positive and negative terminals of the pins from the PSU and connect according to the positive and negatives terminals of the fan connector or get a 3 pin to 2 pin connector is it the alignment is incorrect. 

 

2IN-3PIN-VGADAP.jpg

 

Another option is routing the fan cable outside of the PSU and connect via a molex to 3 pin adapter.

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