Tech Reaction

How to overclock a fan.

What are we doing?
There are 2 different mods we can do, both of them will increase the voltage going to fan resulting in a higher fan speed. Fans are meant to run at 12v. We are going to run these fans at 17v and 24v. 

Are their any risks?
Of course there are risks, its called overclocking for a reason. It will not be that risky though because we are not dealing with enough electricity that will cause harm to the body. Always proceed with caution though. The main risk here is the risk of killing a fan. 120mm fans will have a harder time running at 24v than an 80mm fan because they have more air resistance. I recommend not running 24v with your 120mm fan,i would limit yourself to 17v. With an 80mm fan, i would say go ahead and go all the way up to 24v.

There is also a small risk of frying a PSU, just make sure all the wires that you have are NOT exposed and are wrapped in electrical tape. If the wires touch the side of the case you may burn out your PSU.  This is not probable because modern PSU’s have things in them to stop from being shorted out, however i would still take the precaution.

Even if the fans last the initial boot up, do NOT expect them to last long running at 24v. I would give them a couple months on a system that people turn on and off. I do not recommend running any of these fans 24/7.

What all do i need for the mod?
You do not need much for this mod. If you have a computer you have every thing you need. If at all possible though, i would practice on an old PC, then move onto your main rig. You don’t want to screw up and fry your main PSU.

You need a…
80 or 120mm fan
and a PSU with a 20 or 24 pin motherboard connector.

How do I do it?

The mod is fairly simple and shouldn’t take more than 1/2 hr.

I will try to make this as simple as possible and write it in steps so that the general user will be able to complete this mod. [:lectrocrew:6]

1. Gather a PSU and an old or new fan.

2. Cut the 3 pin molex off of the fan, so that you are only left with 3 loan wires. A red one, a black one, and a yellow one.

Here is what it should look like at this point:

3. Chose what mod you want to do. A 17v mod or a 24v mod. A 17v mod will give it less power but it will also last longer. A 24v mod will not last long at all.

4. What we are going to do is mod the 24 pin connector so that we can run more voltage into the fan. Find the wires on your 24 (or 20 pin) connector that you need to splice into. Here is a picture of the ones that you need to splice. There is one pin that has 2 wires going into it, one brown and one orange … Using my diagram count how many pins over you will need to do the mod on.

17v mod:

This example is a 24 pin connector, if you have a 20 pin connector, then ignore the last 4pins. The mod is still the same though.

24v mod:

Yes, you will never need to do anything with the yellow fan wire.

5. Scrape off some of the insulation on the wires that you need to splice into until you see a decent amount of bare metal.

6. Wrap the exposed metal on your fan wires around the exposed metal that is on the 24 pin connector’s wires then tape them off with electrical tap really tight. You may need to strip some of the insulation off the fan wire in order to get a little more room. If you have more skill you can solder them on.

Here is what it should look like at this point:

7. Do the same thing for the other fan wire, then you are done! Boot up and watch your fans spin like a bat out of hell.