I appologize if this is not the right forum for this question, if so could you move it for me.

I bought a pny geforce 9400 gt 1gb in Nov/09 to replace the comanche D in my hp pavillion. Ran great for 3+ month and then the fan started driving me insane. to make a long story short, I replaced it with a Manhattan, 45mm Aluminium Radial Fin Heat Sink Video Card Chipset Cooler.

Well, it seems to be working ok keeping the chip at 55-65c

the old fan was 2 wire and plugged into the video card, the new fan was 3 and I had to use the power adapter to hook it into the power supply via the 4 pin connectors.

I posted this on another forum and they said it was a bad idea. Well I canabelized the connector off the old van and spliced it into the new one so it is now plugged into the video card. Does this really matter? tia

Does this really matter?

No. As long as the two fans use the same voltage (+12V, in this case) and draw about the same amount of current (and they do) then there's no problem doing this - assuming your temps are under control, and they appear to be. All fans use 2 wires for power. However some fans use a third for speed monitoring, and some times for speed control too. What you lose by connecting directly to the PSU is the ability to monitor the fan's speed - a minor inconvenience for a very few people. You may, depending on your card, also lose automatic speed control, where the speed of the fan is slowed down (for noise) when everything is cool, and sped it up again when extra cooling is needed. Directly connected means the fan runs full speed all the time, providing maximum cooling at all time - certainly not a bad thing, and something fans are designed to do.

Ty, I've been out of touch as far as building pc's and just wasn't sure anymore

Originally Posted by Digerati

No. As long as the two fans use the same voltage (+12V, in this case) and draw about the same amount of current (and they do) then there's no problem doing this - assuming your temps are under control, and they appear to be. All fans use 2 wires for power. However some fans use a third for speed monitoring, and some times for speed control too. What you lose by connecting directly to the PSU is the ability to monitor the fan's speed - a minor inconvenience for a very few people. You may, depending on your card, also lose automatic speed control, where the speed of the fan is slowed down (for noise) when everything is cool, and sped it up again when extra cooling is needed. Directly connected means the fan runs full speed all the time, providing maximum cooling at all time - certainly not a bad thing, and something fans are designed to do.

You are welcome. And even if you are a seasoned builder, things change so it is always good to double check.