Connecting small usb fan to anything other than usb power

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[U]ber|Noob

Limp Gawd
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Apr 4, 2013
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I have a small fanless computer that overheats in summer without an external usb fan but if you connect a usb fan it will stay on in sleep mode and even when the computer is off.

There is no way to change it in the bios.

Is there a way to connect a very small fan to any other wires on the usb plug that will go off when the computer goes into sleep (for instance I noticed the usb mouse light goes off).

Any ideas?
 
Most BIOS's have a usb power while PC off option. What is your motherboard?
 
It's a gigabyte brix gb-bace-3000.

It has to go off in suspend not just when off though.
 
[U]ber|Noob said:
I have a small fanless computer that overheats in summer without an external usb fan but if you connect a usb fan it will stay on in sleep mode and even when the computer is off.

There is no way to change it in the bios.

Is there a way to connect a very small fan to any other wires on the usb plug that will go off when the computer goes into sleep (for instance I noticed the usb mouse light goes off).

Any ideas?
Click to expand...


Any five volt DC power source will power those fans and bypass the USB source entirely. Or a 12 V source with a resistor.

USB-pinout-to-motherboard.jpg
 
Last edited:
[U]ber|Noob said:
I have a small fanless computer that overheats in summer without an external usb fan but if you connect a usb fan it will stay on in sleep mode and even when the computer is off.

There is no way to change it in the bios.

Is there a way to connect a very small fan to any other wires on the usb plug that will go off when the computer goes into sleep (for instance I noticed the usb mouse light goes off).

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Plug the fan into a $2 phone charger that can be found at a local convenience store. USB fans will easily draw under 500mah which even the cheapest chargers will provide.
 
You guys are missing his problem here.

He wants the fan to turn OFF when the computer is in a sleep state or off.

If there isn't an option in the BIOS to turn off USB power when the computer is off then I don't think you're going to find an easy solution.
 
Yes, thanks Skillz for seeing the point.

I took out the wifi card since I don't need it so not sure if that could be a power source.

It's actually still under warranty so I could wait till next summer and send it back, but it would be an easy fix if there was just a way for the fan to come on and go off with the computer coming on and going into suspend automatically.

I'm asking experts on here because if I take it apart to experiment with things myself I'd probably void the warranty.

I found this site with a lot more pictures of the inside.
http://ru.gecid.com/mmedia/gigabyte_gb-bace-3000/?s=all

There is a cpu fan connector on the back. But reaching that I might void the warranty, which I don't mind doing if I can be sure it will work.
 
Love how people are dumping tons of response how to have the fan running always on.,.. whne in facts its the opposite things OP wants.

Anyway to OP:
have you checked bios to see if you can disable wake on kb/mouse ?
or perhaps there is a jumper to select USB powers source typically iy can go between +5v (goes off) or +5vsb( power on in standby)
They used to be on older board but unsure if t hey are on newer ones.


just for shiggles try enabling "ERP Lowest Power State Mode (Default: Disabled)"
 
Thanks, I tried disabling the wake from usb in the bios. It's on the lowest power state setting already.

Because it's an integrated product (non custom build) they don't seem to provide any motherboard diagrams. The best I can find is this page I posted already, here's the translated version.
https://translate.google.com.au/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://ru.gecid.com/mmedia/gigabyte_gb-bace-3000/?s=all&edit-text=

mini-19_gigabyte_gb-bace-3000.jpg

mini-20_gigabyte_gb-bace-3000.jpg


The obvious choice is the cpu fan connector, but I'm not sure how accessible the back of the mb is yet and whether accessing would void the warranty, so I was looking into the usb options first.
 
i tried reading into the manual (pdf omline) just in case it could have some name i would recognise but didn;t know on top of my head. sadly i found nothing and no jumper layouts either.

the best i couldt find was the ERP. MY guess its the features to control this might just not be enabled on this board :(

A hopeless thing to try is to go into device manager and check that all of the ""Allow the computer to turn of this device to save power) er checked on, on all usb ports/hubs.

I don't think it helps but i would try it just in case
 
I didn't miss the point at all, If you're not not connecting to the USB data lines from my pic and just attach to power and ground under 500ma for USB2 and under 1 for USB 3, it should turn off when the PC does.
 
Is that the same as what a ready made usb fan uses? The ready made ones go off when the pc is off but not when the pc is in standby. It's a tv recording pc.
 
[U]ber|Noob said:
Is that the same as what a ready made usb fan uses? The ready made ones go off when the pc is off but not when the pc is in standby. It's a tv recording pc.
Click to expand...

OK, standby is different from OFF. so you want the fan to shut OFF when the system is STANDBY.

The mouse goes off in standy because it's intelligent and the computer can talk to it, the computer can't talk to the fans.

There is no "fix for this" when it comes to a stupid fan you can't talk to.

Maybe an intelligent fan?
https://www.amazon.com/Patekfly-Intelligent-Automatic-Temperature-Computers/dp/B013MD3GG6
 
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Is the fan noisy or are you running the unit from a battery or something?

I can understand wanting the fan to shut off, but what harm is there in letting it stay running? It's obviously needed, most of the time fans are pretty quiet and draw little power, unless your trying to run this thing off solar or something it shouldn't hurt anything to just leave the fan running. You could do something like get a temperature controlled fan (although I don't know of any directly powered by USB power right now).

That being said - if it's under warranty, and it's overheating - RMA it. If your being silly and trying to run a fanless computer in the summer in 95F+ ambient heat, then maybe you should rethink your choice of systems.
 
What's your ambient temperature like? (if it's below 35C then you might as well RMA it).

As long as you don't destroy any warranty void if removed stickers, then you shouldn't have an issue hooking up a fan to that header.
 
OK thanks, the temperature probably wouldn't be that high but it's hot in summer, it overheats at night as well when watching video but only in summer.
 
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