2 wire vs 3 wire CPU fans, does it matter?

[-Alby Hewlet]

Hi,

Stan, my brother-in-law just phone to ask about replacing the noisy cpu fan
in his amd system. He bought a new fan for $10 and said it has 3 wires on
it. The one in the system has 2 wires on it. He asked me, the family
computer whiz, if it was OK to plug it in. hmmm.... "Ya got me there,
Stan old boy, but I'll find out for you," hence this post.

Anybody know what's going on with the 3rd wire?

Thanks

 

[SteveH]

Hi,

Stan, my brother-in-law just phone to ask about replacing the noisy cpu fan
in his amd system. He bought a new fan for $10 and said it has 3 wires on
it. The one in the system has 2 wires on it. He asked me, the family
computer whiz, if it was OK to plug it in. hmmm.... "Ya got me there,
Stan old boy, but I'll find out for you," hence this post.

Anybody know what's going on with the 3rd wire?

Thanks

Provided the plug fits, yes, he should be able to use the fan ok.
The third wire is for speed monitoring, which may or may not work. But as he
didn't have speed monitoring before he won't see any difference.

HTH
SteveH

 

[DaveW]

The third wire is used to transmit the RPM speed of the fan to the
motherboard, if you have a monitoring utility.