For the same reason manufactures fit huge heat spreaders on RAM, it's a gimmick, a marketing tactic.

 

 

 

That's why then in my last PC my HD was running at 50c without a fan and in my current setup with 2 fans at only 26c.

A very useful 'gimmick' I would say.

Normal hard drive operating range is usually from  0 to 55 degrees.
 
If yours was running at 55 degrees then you need to stop blowing dragon breath on it.
 
I've never had a hard drive run that hot in many years of operating and building PC's. Not even in a fully enclosed caddy.
 
As I speak, my hard drive, on the very PC I am typing on, is at 25 degrees. Thats with just the airflow from a single low noise 120 mm case fan, currently running at low rpm.
 

Also just checked my simming PC, using HW Monitor. It's a 1 TB Samsung. Even running a defrag, the temperature was only 24 degrees. That's with a 120 case fan as the only source of moving air, set to very low rpm, courtesy of Asus Fan Xpert 2.

 

 

But of course, this doesn't aid the OP at all, so not relevant to the topic.

For the same reason manufactures fit huge heat spreaders on RAM, it's a gimmick, a marketing tactic. RAM, even overclocked doesn't need huge heat spreaders. Same applies to hard drives, extra cooling is NOT required. Manufacture's will sell all kinds of gadgets that aren't necessarily essential.

 

I have a 1TB Western Digital black hard drive. It's installed in an Akasa hard drive caddy. No cooling, not even ventilation holes. Despite heavy use, no issues whatsoever.

 

As I said, hard drives do not need dedicated cooling, the hard drive will run within the manufactures thermal specifications, courtesy of just the front intake fans, or even with a gentle breeze courtesy of negative case pressure. Hard drive cooling is not something we need to get obsessed with.

 

 

Depends what you mean by large connectors. If they are Molex connectors then of course, they won't fit into a motherboard header. However you can buy a Molex to 3 pin fan adapter. 

 

3 pin fan connectors will fit into a 4 pin PWM motherboard header.

 

If your CPU is indeed throttling back due to excess heat DON'T keep on allowing it to do so. It's not good for your CPU.

 

 

 

Just Amazon primed a 3 pin fan adapter along with a new fan for the heck of it to rule out these possibilities. Thanks, hopefully will update this thread in a couple of days with good news. 

Follow up - Found a PWR Fan slot on my mobo along with the original cpu fan slot it was plugged into. Plugging into either or causes the fan to remain at 0 rpm. Almost certain its a fan failure at this point. 

Guess my 737 is grounded due to fan failure  

Yep, don't operate your PC if the CPU fan has failed. As I said, CPU's are designed to throttle back to prevent damage, but if you keep doing that degradation is likely.

 

Good luck.

Wouldn't that be a motherboard failure if two different fans failed on the same header? Or am I reading your post wrong?

Wouldn't that be a motherboard failure if two different fans failed on the same header? Or am I reading your post wrong?

 

 

Most likely is fan failure, fans fail far more often that motherboards.

 

I think he said two different headers, in both the fan failed.