header female connector

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Understanding the difference between the CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT fan headers on the motherboard is a small but crucial piece of knowledge required to build your own PC. Below we will explain the functions of the CPU OPT and CPU FAN connectors and which one is best for what, and provide you with some additional information about alternative connectors on the motherboard.
The connectors on the motherboard are rows of pins that form the "male" (ie, glued out) half of the power connection, and cables with female "socket" counterparts can be connected to these pins.
Unsurprisingly, fan connectors are often used to power the fan cooling system inside a computer, although they can also be used to power water cooling systems, despite the name.
As the name implies, the CPU fan connector is the connector you need to plug the CPU cooler into (whether it is a fan or other form of heat sink). This is very important, otherwise, in the best case, the BIOS will not let your computer start, and in the worst case, your CPU may overheat and malfunction.
The main difference between this connector and other connectors that can be used for cooling is that if a fan is not plugged in, your computer will usually not start to protect your CPU. Similarly, if your computer is already running and the connection is interrupted (due to a cooler failure or other reasons), then your system should automatically shut down.
Almost all CPU fan headers are 4-pin, which means that when the CPU's thermal sensor detects its temperature rise, the fan speed is controlled by the BIOS, operating system, or desktop software suitable for this purpose.
The CPU_OPT connector (abbreviation for CPU Optional) is an auxiliary power connector that can provide extra power to a particularly large CPU cooler, or (although there is a CPU part in the name) sometimes used to power an AIO/liquid cooling system, which is not yours The main CPU cooler.
The key difference between the CPU OPT connector and the CPU FAN is that the CPU OPT connector will not prevent your PC from booting or automatically turn it off when the CPU cooler is not detected to be working properly; therefore, in terms of CPU cooling, it is the same as the CPU fan connector. In comparison, they lack important protection measures. However, if it does detect a problem with the component, it can still warn you.
Similarly, most CPU OPT connectors are 4-pin, so the voltage and fan speed can be controlled based on the data on the CPU temperature.
For everything else that is not a CPU cooling system, it does not need to be able to automatically respond to the measured changes in the CPU temperature: SYS FAN (abbreviation for system fan) or CHA FAN (abbreviation for chassis fan) is used for power supply.
These can be independently modified and set to different voltage levels/fan speeds, depending on how you want to set up the internal cooling system.
As mentioned earlier, you must always ensure that your CPU cooler (whatever it is) is connected to the CPU_FAN connector.
In addition, if your CPU cooler has multiple fans that require multiple connectors to supply power, the remaining fan/power cable can be connected to the CPU_OPT connector, or only one connection cable (if you only have another fan) , Or through a splitter, so that multiple fans can be powered by CPU_OPT.
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