Attach VF900 fan connector to Video Card PCB slot?

cyberknight · Post by **cyberknight** » Fri May 26, 2006 2:23 pm

I just installed my VF900 onto my ATI AIW X800XL AGP. Wow what a difference, the idle temps is immediately 10 degrees lower.

anyways, I have the fan connected to my motherboard which in turn is connected to the fanmate.

This means that I can't take advantage of any thermally controlled fan, (as the stock heatsink had a thermally controlled fan)

the fan on the VF900 is a 3-pin, [black, red, white]. the connector on the video card is two pin, [black, red].

Would I be able to connect the VF900 fan pins directly onto the Video Card? Would it enable me to thermally control the fan through ATI Tool? (which I did before)

it would be relatively safe to experiment with this right?

Bobendren · Post by **Bobendren** » Sun May 28, 2006 3:11 am

Yes you can do that no problem. Remove the fan mate and connect red to red and black to black. You might need an adapter to this unless you're good at wiring stuff.

You could then also connect the spare white wire to the motherboard to monitor rpm (that is what the white is for), just make sure you get it the right way round.

Falesh · Post by **Falesh** » Sun May 28, 2006 4:55 pm

I was just wondering about this myself as I am about to install a VF900-CU onto a 7600gt. The card automatically speeds up the fan when it gets hot so it would be perfect to capitolize on that. I found some more info here

To add a bit to the installation notes, you can plug the Zalman fan into the built-in power socket without any wire cutting, with a small amount of careful work. The plastic guide around the two power prongs on the card (that the original fan plugs into) can generally slide right off the prongs, allowing the three-hole fan plug from the zalman to plug right into the two-prong outlet without any trouble (just use care to gently pull the socket off, not the prongs ).
The colors on the original fan wires make it obvious which side of the zalman plug to use (red and black goes into red and black, just like you'd expect). Since that power outlet is controlled by the card, it runs much slower than maximum speed, making it practically silent. It's amazing that it cools so well. You could probably get even better cooling by using Zalman's power adaptor to plug it into the DVD/RW power plug (you'd need a splitter, not included), but this cools so well at the lower RPMs I couldn't see any need to clutter up the case so with that method, let alone find justification to increase the noise level.

My wondering about this is what the voltages are when the normal card fan is going slowly up to what it does at max is there a hair dryer next to me speed.

cyberknight · Post by **cyberknight** » Mon May 29, 2006 8:15 pm

Success! I now have my VF900 fan thermally controlled via ATI Tool.

the 2-pin connector appeared proprietory, so I initally tried prying off the pins from the stock heatsink. After much frustration, I gave up. (I hope I didn't damage the wires)

So I examined the PCB, and concluded I should be able to yank off the white shell of the pin connector, meaning I would be able stick whatever pins I want in there. Yanking was successful.

Now to the 3-pin on the VF900. I tried inserting it into the right colours, but with the bulky 3-pin, that didn't work. So I just rearranged the pin orders. Pulling out the pins on this one was much easier.

Only drawback is that the length of my white wire is now much shorter and unable to reach a motherboard connector, so I can't get RPM readings of the fan.