Did I fry my fans by wiring them backwards?

I still use 12v fans. Have 4 255cfm deltas in each cab they each have they're own 10a 12v adapter(more headroom=less heat & more life from supply). I didnt even care to build me a pwm. Full speed forever lol. And i just tried, they are TRUE reversed polarity protected not bad for a 60w fan. Its not no 0.6a antec kiddies toy either. Incase anyone was looking for a good 120mm fan to buy. Beware though it is louder than advertised 64dba. My termlab up close reads they are almost 85db! Lol

alesh said:

If I am not mistaken, the current draw needed for proper function is much lower, isn't it? Meaning that a single fan would draw current high enough for the PSU to properly work.

Click to expand...

I don't think an unregulated supply needs any current draw to be stable, in fact, if the voltage source is unregulated, the lower the current, the lower the ripple (which translates to lower noise in chips where signals actually matter). The biggest disadvantage of using an unregulated source is high noise and high distortion, neither of which matter when only turning a motor.

Edit: I'm not sure if I read the question correctly. None of this matters. Connect black to black and red to red, it should work.

Good thread, thanks for all the info guys.

I too fucked up wiring and blew all four Arctic Alpine 64 Plus fans in a split second using a regulated 12 volt 1.25 amp wall wart.

Was pretty shattered as now I have to wait a week for replacement fans to arrive from Hong Kong, but shit happens and as others have mentioned it's a lot better than frying a couple cobs.

For anyone out there that might read this - I'm pretty sure on the Arctic Alpine 64 plus, black is ground, yellow is 12 volt, green is fan speed sensor & blue is pwm control.

After refusing to accept their cooked and trying several other wallwarts to no avail, I can also confirm sending 12 volt to fan speed senor wire (yellow on most other fans) will definitely fry you fans, heard an audible pop and could smell smoke when I gave fan a sniff.

To my defence I had previously read a bunch of posts and watched a couple YouTube videos that said something like with relation to wiring cpu fans - "it will only work one way so try connecting it one way and then the other"...

This is NOT the case with the Arctic Alpine fans, they will die in a split second if wired in reverse polarity. And surprisingly with no audible pops or smoke, I cooked all mine at once by hooking them up to a fan hub thinking I so clever using the hub, in retrospect probably a good idea to test the seperately first..

Rant over, hope it helps someone else..

This is why they made volt multi-meters

I have one, I just originally thought it wouldn't harm the fan to be wired in reverse polarity. I was obviously wrong..

Thought I'd share a reply I got from Arctic, just if any one is unsure about the wiring for the new version of the Arctic Alpine 64 Plus. Also they confirmed reverse polarity will destroy the fan.

"The wire assignment for latest version of Alpine 64 PLUS as below:

Black - Ground

Yellow - +12V

Green - RPM Signal

Blue = PWM Signal


For previous version, as below:

Black - Ground

Red - +12V

Yellow - RPM Signal

Blue - PWM Signal


The fans will get burned if incorrect polarity."