Case Fan Speed Control

[dr_roberts49]

One of my recent purchases for my case upgrade, was a CoolerMaster Rheobus. It came with ZERO instructions. I did manage to connect the heat sensors, but the four connections for fan control leave me blank. Here is what I have.

My case has six case fans. Two up front and two in the back. One on the side, and a blow-hole fan up top. All are 80mm with 4-pin molex connectors. Since my rheobus can only control 4 fans, I want to control the front and back ones. The wires coming out of the rheobus have four 3-pin male connectors. As I mentioned, all the fans have 4-pin molex male connectors with a pass-through 4-pin female molex. I purchased adaptors with 4-pin male molex connectors with 4-pin female pass-through molex connectors. It also has a 3-pin female connector, and a 3-pin male connector. I bought 4 of them from SVC and they said in the description, that the 4-pin to 3-pin adaptor allowed RPM monitoring/adjustment through the 3 pin adaptor. It sounded like the adaptor I needed.

My confusion, is how to plug these in. I connected the 4-pin molex adaptor to the the 4-pin molex connector coming off the fan, connecting the pass-through to a 4-pin molex power cable. I then connected the 3-pin female connector to the 3-pin male connector from my rheobus. I did nothing with the 3-pin male connector on the adaptor wire. This was the only way I could see it working, since there were no instructions on the proper connections, and I've never done this before. I still have no control of those fans. Can someone enlighten me? Everything else is running just fine. I installed several case lights and a new CoolMaster Jet-4 fan/heatsink. I paid $30 for the rheobus, and it monitors my cpu, hdd, case, and psu just fine. I just can't control the fans. My Jet-4 has its own fan speed control which I have mounted in a 3.5 bay. It works great. it was all 3-pin connectors, and plugged into my mobo's cpu fan connection. I have 4 other 3-pin fan connectors on my mobo, but can't figure out they would connect to my rheobus with the connectors I now have.

I'm sorry if this is such a long post, but I wanted to give a detailed description of my situation. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I love picture diagrams

Robert

[bombledmonk]

have a digital camera to post a pic....?

[Brangwen]

Originally posted by dr_roberts49
One of my recent purchases for my case upgrade, was a CoolerMaster Rheobus. It came with ZERO instructions. I did manage to connect the heat sensors, but the four connections for fan control leave me blank. Robert

Robert: I am buried in deskwork for a bit. I have an arrangement with 4 Panaflo Whisper fans operating off (or being controlled by) a "fanbus." I am only able to run each fan at "hi" or "lo" speeds, nothing too fancy but I like it.

I shall endeavor to assist you in a bit ... after I find my desk -- though your "Rheo" stat/bus seems a tad fancier.

Brangwen

[dr_roberts49]

Bombledmonk, I do have a digital camera. I'll try to do a picture of the adaptor and the diagram of the rheobus.

Brangwen, take your time. I've been inside this beast enough for awhile I really appreciate the effort to help, from both of you. Considering the elaborate case lighting I did, I thought the fan control would be a walk in the park.

Robert

[Bovon]

Man!! CoolerMaster must not be too proud of that thing.. I was unable to even find a reference to a "Rheobus" at the Coolermaster site.

Did a Google search, hoping to find some kind of wiring setup diagram..nothing.

Brangwen can get you going in nothing flat..but in the mean time, you cannot connect the fan(s) to a molex coming from the power supply if you want the temp/rpm sensors to work.. these are motherboard connections. There is a way to connect a fan directly to the PSU output molex and then connect the sensor wire to the motherboard header, but I don't think this is what you will be doing.

The fans are 12 volt devices (right?) and they have a red, a yellow and a black wire coming from the fan assy. The black would connect to any black from the power supply. The red would connect to any yellow from the PSU. The yellow (in most cases yellow) is the sensing wire and goes to the header on the motherboard... just one wire to a 3 pin header on the motherboard..so, obviously you will need to locate which pin from a fan header is for the sensor wire.

However, what you have in cabling from the rheobus may be setup differently from what I can see in my minds eye

[butch81385]

do i have this right:
you have the fans hooked up to the rheobus and power from the psu?

my fan controller has a power plug going from the psu to it. then i just plug the fans into their and thats how they get their power. then when you turn the dials, it adjusts the level of power it sends and, in turn, controls the speed at which the fans spin.

[dr_roberts49]

Thanks Bovan. I'm sorry that I forgot to post that I had tried the CoolMaster site and a Google search. Found info on Thermaltake and other rheobus units, but nothing on mine. I do follow your line of thought, and with the adaptors I have, it looks like I could plug the 4-pin end of the adaptor to the 4-pin molex on the fan, and then use the 3-pin connector to connect to the mobo fan connectors. BUT, what do I do with the 3-pin male connectors coming out of the rheobus? Back to square one

I'll see what ideas Brangwen will have, and take it from there. I have thought about doing my own wiring. Thanks again.

Robert

[dr_roberts49]

Butch81385, I think I see what you mean. Right now, I'm using the 4-pin molex (from the adaptor) to connect to the 4-pin molex on the fan and then using the pass-through (from the adaptor) to tap back into the power. If I'm reading you correctly, I don't need to have the 4-pin molex from the fan tapping power from the adaptor. I can just have the 3-pin molex (from the adaptor) (plugged into 3-pin molex from the rheobus. And yes, my rheobus has its own plug which I have connected to the power supply.

I already have the 3-pin molex from the rheobus pluged into the adaptor, so maybe all I need to do is disconnect the 4-pin molex from the fan, from the adaptor's pass-through. Seems logical. Are we on the same path? Sounds good to me Thanks, Butch81385

Robert

[butch81385]

i think we are on the same path here. one plug from rheobus to fan is all that should be needed (plus the power going to the rheobus....

[dr_roberts49]

I'm on it, Butch81385, just not tonight I want to have fun with my computer for awhile. I've been under the hood on this thing since I got it last Thursday. I do feel you hit the nail on the head. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for the advice!

Robert