ASRock Rack 6 pin fan header

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aholmes5

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Dec 19, 2015
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I'm not familiar with the ASRock Rack 6 pin fan headers on the ROMED8-2T motherboard. Are these compatible with 4 pin and 3 pin fans? Can't find information on them anywhere. I'm not even sure what the next two pins are for.
 

Markess

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May 19, 2018
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From the manual, it appears you can connect a 4 Pin fan if you line up the black fan wire with the header ground pin. The first four pins on that side, starting with the Ground look to match the standard 4 Pin PWM pinout. Looks like there's even a separate locking tab for 3/4 pin fans too. I've got no idea what the sensor at Pin 5 does.

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Link to ASRock's product page, including download links:
ASRock Rack > ROMED8-2T
 

aholmes5

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Dec 19, 2015
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Thanks for the replies. Weird that they added additional pins when there don't seem to be any fans that support using them - especially on a board so cramped for space.
 

i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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Intel also used on their 1366 boards 6pin headers for fans. Non intel, 4pin fans would run at 100%...
 

Markess

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May 19, 2018
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Thanks for the replies. Weird that they added additional pins when there don't seem to be any fans that support using them - especially on a board so cramped for space.
It could be that if the board was designed with sale in both the retail and OEM/Enterprise channels, that a "complete solution" in their enterprise channel would include 6 pin temperature monitoring fans. They probably wouldn't sell the fans in the retail channel but made sure the headers worked for both so they could sell one series of boards for all sales segments.

I've got an (ex) Hyve Solutions server with a Tyan motherboard that has both 6 and 4 pin connectors (connectors had different pitch in my case) for just that reason. It came with 6 pin fans, but the Tyan motherboard manual said 4 pin worked as normal for non-OEMs.
 

rsav

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Feb 15, 2021
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I had to dremel down the little plastic fin on two of my fans' connectors to make them fit onto this 6 pin header, just FYI