Testing a Fan Without Connecting it to My Computer?

I am gradually building my new computer (I have only three components remaining to purchase: the video card, the power supply, and the motherboard), and I have several fans that I shall be adding to its case, but I wish to test those fans without needing to connect them to my computer, as doing so would be a major hassle and my current case cannot fit the 200 mm fan that my new case shall be able to.

Therefore, does anyone here have any recommendations on how I can test a fan without needing to connect it to my computer? Can I simply use a battery and attach a wire from each of its terminals to the prongs of the fan connector, or is there a better method than that? Thank you very much.

If it is the large molex connector I usually just use a spare PSU cable. If it is the small motherboard style connector you can do the same thing with an adapter. I don't think there would be a problem connecting a battery to it though (I have done this in the past). Even if it is a 9v, it will still tell you if the fan works.

I have a small 12v wall wart salvaged from a device that went poof years back. I use that to supply the power. You can easily stick a paperclip into the connector pins on the fan. Good for a quick test, just don't short the pins together. Most wall warts will simply trip off. Weaker, poorly designed and manufactured ones may just die from it.

I have a cheap microUSB wall adapter I'm convering to fan just for this. Then again, my dad broke the USB end, soooo....

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Originally Posted by Airbozo

If it is the large molex connector I usually just use a spare PSU cable. If it is the small motherboard style connector you can do the same thing with an adapter. I don't think there would be a problem connecting a battery to it though (I have done this in the past). Even if it is a 9v, it will still tell you if the fan works.

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I attached the 200 mm fan directly to my power supply, and it worked perfectly, but the other fans, dual 120 mm fans on the CPU cooler (to be precise, a Cooler Master V6 GT) used a 4-pin connector that could not be adapted, and I did not wish to remove my existing CPU cooler simply to test the new one, so I was not able to test it, so I shall simply hope that it works when I finish assembling my new computer.

That 4-pin connector would be a PWM controlled fan. You would have to plug it into a PWM capable controller, or your motherboard. There should be more than one PWM capable fan header on your motherboard, if you don't want to/don't have the time to invest in locating new hardware just to test it.

You might look into getting an inexpensive fan controller to use for benchtop testing.

Black/ Red is power on a 4 pin fan, blue yellow are signal and rpm speed i think.

i use my old 12v nintendo adapter for testing fans and stuff, i've also got a 5v and 3.3v power adapter for testing stuff like lighting or CCFL's

=)