New power supply, no system fan connector

[Acharn]

I was surprised not to find this question addressed before. I want to upgrade my graphics card, so I was warned that I would need a better power supply. I have an old Acer Aspire M1610, which has a 250W PSU, I intended to buy a cheap 450@, but the salesman persuaded me I needed better than that, so I got a Raidmax RX-630SS. When I started to remove the old power supply I gound a 3-pin connector to what is labeled "system fan" on the motherboard. There is no similar connector among the cables for the new PSU. Should I take i back to the store and get a different PSU?

In addition, the old connector is very hard to remove. Many years ago when I was dealing with hardwar maintenance more often the connector came off easily -- there's no lever to press to release. I'm working with an Acer F672CR motherboard here, and the Service Guide doesn't show anything. Should I just keep pulling harder?

[Yellow Pasque]

The PSU has its own internal fan controller.

[CharlesA]

RAIDMAX PSUs are the bottom of the barrel. You'd be better off getting something else.

The system fan connector on the motherboard should be going to a case fan.

The power supply should have been plugged into two places on the motherboard - a P4 (or P8, maybe) connector with 4 or 8 pins and an ATX connector with 20 or 24 pins.

Specs are here:
http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/de...M1610sp2.shtml

[Acharn]

RAIDMAX PSUs are the bottom of the barrel. You'd be better off getting something else.

The system fan connector on the motherboard should be going to a case fan.

The power supply should have been plugged into two places on the motherboard - a P4 (or P8, maybe) connector with 4 or 8 pins and an ATX connector with 20 or 24 pins.

Specs are here:
http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/de...M1610sp2.shtml

Yes, that's the right spec sheet. The ATX connector is 24 pins, that one's no problem. My problem is with the case fan connector. How do I get the damn thing off? I never had a problem before, they always just slid off. Of course this one has been in place for five and a half years, so mayb it's just stuck and I need to pull harder, but I'm leary of breaking something.

I'm darned glad Acer put their Service Manual for this motherboard online and it has pictures, but sometimes the pictures are not as clear as I would wish.

[Yellow Pasque]

I'm darned glad Acer put their Service Manual for this motherboard online and it has pictures

Link?

[oldfred]

I thought it was one of the cables that plugged into another connector and branched off with the smaller fan connector and another for hard drive or something else.

But last time I had a power supply cable with the 3 pin connector and I need 4 as that gives variable speed or something worthwhile. Fan control is different than all the other connectors.

[CharlesA]

I thought it was one of the cables that plugged into another connector and branched off with the smaller fan connector and another for hard drive or something else.

Probably one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Fan-4-Wire-Mol.../dp/B000BSN5TE

But last time I had a power supply cable with the 3 pin connector and I need 4 as that gives variable speed or something worthwhile. Fan control is different than all the other connectors.

The only fan i've seen use a 4 pin connector is the CPU fan. All other ones I've seen use 3 pins - one for power, one for ground and one for the speed - via PWM usually.

[ahallubuntu]

~

[Acharn]

On older motherboards without system fan connectors (not "CPU fan"), the case fan could be hard wired to the power supply with an adapter. But if you did so, it would always run at 100% speed and could not be monitored or controlled by the motherboard.

If your old PSU truly has a hard wire connector (not an adapter) to connect to a case fan, you could buy an adapter to do the same thing using one of the 4-pin old-style molex connectors and plug the adapter in there. But if for some reason the motherboard really does have a sysfan connector and it was just overlooked before, try to use that instead.

OK, I think this may be the solution. I need to find out what voltage that System Fan power connector is carrying.

[Acharn]

The PSU has its own internal fan controller.

Yes, That's not the problem. According to the Service Manual for the motherboard there's a fan mounted at the back of the case that they call the "System Fan". That fan connects to a point on the motherboard between the CPU and the rear of the case. Just behind the HDD, on the motherboard, is a point with three pins that the Service Manual says,

8. Connect the System Fan power connector to the MB connector.

I used to do maintenance on a bunch of PCs for a school, and some of them had this feature, most did not. Usually when we bought new power supplies they did not have this "System Fan power connector" and I used to just ignore them, never had a heating problem but we're talking ten years ago and more.