4pin fan in an RGB header...

[Toe_Inspector]

So pretty silly mistake, I plugged a cheap 4pin fan into one of my rgb headers, booted and saw the fan started smoking so turned off the system pretty quickly. Now I've connected it into the system fan header and the fans sorta work, spins but with messed up RBG. My real worry though is that I might have cooked the RGB header on my motherboard, have I?

[YoungBlade]

Quite possibly, you have. Fans run on 3.3v or 5v headers depending on the type. 4 pin RBG is a 12v header.

[Toe_Inspector]

1 hour ago, YoungBlade said:

Quite possibly, you have. Fans run on 3.3v or 5v headers depending on the type. 4 pin RBG is a 12v header.

Fan said it was ran on 12v DC which is what got me confused in the first place, man that sucks 

[YoungBlade]

24 minutes ago, Toe_Inspector said:

Fan said it was ran on 12v DC which is what got me confused in the first place, man that sucks 

Looking into, it seems I misunderstood something. It's that the PWM control (pulse width modulation) is sent at 3.3v or 5v, not the whole fan's power. The motor itself is given 12v, but that's only on one of the pins. The pinout for RGB headers are not the same, so it's possible that it still sent too much voltage down the wrong cable.

 

https://resources.pcb.cadence.com/blog/2020-pwm-vs-dc-fans-fan-speed-control-strategies-for-cpu-cooling-and-case-ventilation

[Toe_Inspector]

19 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Looking into, it seems I misunderstood something. It's that the PWM control (pulse width modulation) is sent at 3.3v or 5v, not the whole fan's power. The motor itself is given 12v, but that's only on one of the pins. The pinout for RGB headers are not the same, so it's possible that it still sent too much voltage down the wrong cable.

 

https://resources.pcb.cadence.com/blog/2020-pwm-vs-dc-fans-fan-speed-control-strategies-for-cpu-cooling-and-case-ventilation

That makes sense, well thanks for your help. Lesson learned I guess.