Computers & Electronics

A few "noob" PC building questions

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Deal Addict
Dec 9, 2007
2848 posts
327 upvotes

A few "noob" PC building questions

Hi guys, I have actually built PC's part of my life but I haven't in the last 8 years.

I have the Thermaltake View 31 with the Ryzen 3900X, Deep Cool Gammax 240mm Liquid Cooler, Asus TUF x570 WiFi mobo.

There are 2 headers on my motherboard, RGB headers. They are white. To me, it seems like they are ordinary fan connectors (with the ability to do RGB?). I have a few issues...

There is an RGB controller, its physical that came with the View 31 case. One connector goes to the controller itself, which is a 4 pin connector, the other side of it is also a 4 pin connector. Do I connect it to the "CHA_FAN2" or "CHA_FAN1" or "RGB Header_1" or "RGB_Header2"? Right now I have my CPU Fan from the Gammax hooked up to the RGB_Header1 since the fans are closest to that header. Second problem, the 4 pin connector, connects very firmly (in a good way) to the "CHA_Fan2", it has a little indent type thing that makes it secure. However, the 4 pin RGB Headers are literally just 4 pins on the board, when you plug the 4 pin connectors into the RGB headers, they are so loose they basically fall off with any pressure on the cords, why is that?

Another question, it seems this RGB Controller (physical device that came with the Thermaltake 31) has enough room for 4 fans on it. The only other plug is the 4 pin on it. Does the 4 pin actually provide enough power for 4 fans???

The AIO fans to the radiator was like a jungle too, really hope I hooked those up right.
Images
  • RGB.jpg
  • RGB2.jpg
6 replies
Deal Addict
Dec 24, 2008
4249 posts
1672 upvotes
Belle River
I'm not sure how helpful I can be but I'll try.

Those loose 4-pin or 3-pin (1 missing for addressable) RGB connectors are for lighting only, not fans. If I'm understanding correctly the case's built in fans are not standardized RGB which is why they need their own controller. I have a case like that, the controller comes with a remote and has its own effects and such built-in. On standard RGB fans they have 2 cables, one traditional fan cable with that notch and then a standard RGB cable which is that loose style. Standard RGB devices can be controlled by software that accesses them through the motherboard RGB connector. These are an example of addressable RGB fans with standardized connectors: https://www.amazon.ca/Sirius-Addressabl ... B07NNVYFVY

Regular RGB is 4-pin and could be explained as single colour, by that I mean if you were to connect a strip of LEDs they would all be the same colour. The newer "addressable" RGB is physically the same connector as regular RGB but you will see one pin is missing. With addressable RGB individual LEDs can be controlled, so an addressable strip of LEDs could have different colours, have parts of it on while other parts are off, etc.

On the question of powering 4 fans from one connector, I think it's fine because other fans do a similar thing. Those Sirius Loop fans I linked, I just installed them the other day and each fan comes with both male and female fan connectors so you can daisy chain them, which I had to do because the ITX board I was installing only had one chassis fan connector.
Deal Addict
Dec 9, 2007
2848 posts
327 upvotes
hystavito wrote: I'm not sure how helpful I can be but I'll try.

Those loose 4-pin or 3-pin (1 missing for addressable) RGB connectors are for lighting only, not fans. If I'm understanding correctly the case's built in fans are not standardized RGB which is why they need their own controller. I have a case like that, the controller comes with a remote and has its own effects and such built-in. On standard RGB fans they have 2 cables, one traditional fan cable with that notch and then a standard RGB cable which is that loose style. Standard RGB devices can be controlled by software that accesses them through the motherboard RGB connector. These are an example of addressable RGB fans with standardized connectors: https://www.amazon.ca/Sirius-Addressabl ... B07NNVYFVY

Regular RGB is 4-pin and could be explained as single colour, by that I mean if you were to connect a strip of LEDs they would all be the same colour. The newer "addressable" RGB is physically the same connector as regular RGB but you will see one pin is missing. With addressable RGB individual LEDs can be controlled, so an addressable strip of LEDs could have different colours, have parts of it on while other parts are off, etc.

On the question of powering 4 fans from one connector, I think it's fine because other fans do a similar thing. Those Sirius Loop fans I linked, I just installed them the other day and each fan comes with both male and female fan connectors so you can daisy chain them, which I had to do because the ITX board I was installing only had one chassis fan connector.
Hmmm. So, the 3 case fans the view 31 came with, I hook them all up to the little box controller they came with, and the plug the controller into any of the chassis fan connector on the motherboard?

Because I originally thought I should hook it up to one of the rgb headers. I thought it could power the fans and do the rgb stuff... The case I have is the thermaltake view 31
Deal Addict
Jul 2, 2006
1668 posts
1441 upvotes
Toronto
RFDdietpepsi wrote: Hmmm. So, the 3 case fans the view 31 came with, I hook them all up to the little box controller they came with, and the plug the controller into any of the chassis fan connector on the motherboard?

Because I originally thought I should hook it up to one of the rgb headers. I thought it could power the fans and do the rgb stuff... The case I have is the thermaltake view 31
Yes - you can hook up the 3 case fans to the case's fan controller which then can go into any of the CHA_FAN connectors. What you however will lose is the ability to adjust each fan independently.

I would connect the 3 case fans independently to - CHA_FAN1, CHA_FAN2, CHA_FAN3
For the AIO cooler you would connect to the AIO_PUMP and CPU_FAN
For RGB you would connect to whichever RGB_Header is closest
Deal Addict
Dec 24, 2008
4249 posts
1672 upvotes
Belle River
bst wrote: Yes - you can hook up the 3 case fans to the case's fan controller which then can go into any of the CHA_FAN connectors. What you however will lose is the ability to adjust each fan independently.

I would connect the 3 case fans independently to - CHA_FAN1, CHA_FAN2, CHA_FAN3
For the AIO cooler you would connect to the AIO_PUMP and CPU_FAN
For RGB you would connect to whichever RGB_Header is closest
I don't think those case fans can connect directly to the motherboard, they appear to be some kind of 5-pin connector specifically for that case's included controller. Also notice that they don't have a separate RGB connector, ThermalTake combined the fan and RGB into one 5-pin connector for their controller. As I said I have a similar thing in one of my PCs, it came with its own remote controller too but in this case the instructions mention pushing buttons on the controller housing to change RGB modes.
Deal Fanatic
Nov 22, 2015
7849 posts
8797 upvotes
Does it help if I break it down like this?

Each fan should have 2 cables coming out of them... One of them supplies the power to run the fan (4 pin), the other powers the RGB lighting (5 pin RGBW)

For power, you've got 3 options:
1) Connect each fan its own fan header on the mobo
2) Connect the fans to each other, then connect the last fan to a fan header (YMMV, not all fans can be daisy chained)
3) Buy a separate fan hub, connect all fans to hub, connect hub to mobo fan header.

For lighting control, connect all fans to the RGB controller, then connect the controller to a regular 3 or 4 pin fan header. You will only be able to control the lights using the physical buttons on the controller.

If you wanted to control the lights with Aura Sync, you'd need to purchase an RGB Hub - one that has a 5V aRGB connector and Aura Sync compatible

Edit: could be wrong about the first part. If the fans are actually running off a single proprietary 5-pin cable, just plug them into the controller and connect the controller to a regular fan header

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