5 case fans but not enough motherboard headers, any advice?

Hey everyone, I’m currently hanging out at a buddy's place and we just finished mounting five fans into his chassis, but we completely blanked on a major detail until just now. It turns out his motherboard only supports four fan headers—one dedicated to the CPU and three for the case fans... So, what's the move here? We've seen plenty of people on YouTube running massive setups with way more fans than this. How do they actually pull that off? Is it just because they're using high-end enthusiast boards with a ton of extra headers, or is there some kind of specific adapter or splitter we should be looking for? Any advice would be appreciated...

You might already have adapters included with your fans, or the fans themselves may feature built-in Molex connectors.
Generally, people use these kinds of adapters to chain an unlimited number of fans together, though these types are also available.
If they weren't provided with your hardware, you can pick them up at this link:
http://www.amazon.com/cable-splitter-fan/dp/B00XYZ123

Thanks, man, you're a lifesaver. So, if I just plug this into the Molex connector on the power supply and use an adapter to hook up a few more fans, I should be good to go... 🙂

You can connect one fan to the adapter I linked.
In most cases, these adapters come included when you buy a fan, so it might be worth checking inside the packaging first.
If it's not there, head over to Best Buy and ask; they might carry a different version that allows you to hook up multiple fans.

Look, I get it, I totally mixed things up there—this is actually the part I'm most curious about..

http://www.gbeelectronics.com/gbe/co...34544A88AQ.jpg

If this turns out to be the right part, it would be a total game changer.. I'll head over to Best Buy or one of those local computer shops and ask them about it. LP..

With that adapter, the red and black wires run at 5V. It keeps the fans running quietly and the LEDs a bit dimmer, which is how I have all of mine set up. However, if you use the yellow and black combination for 12V, you'll get maximum airflow and standard LED brightness, but the fan noise becomes much more noticeable.

Look, I wasn't aware of that 😁 👍 So, does the red and black wire combination always indicate a lower voltage?

Not necessarily, at least not across every single cable. On power supplies, you'll always find a red wire for 5V, yellow for 12V, and black for ground. As for what kind of cables manufacturers decide to use on fan connectors or other adapters, that’s entirely up to them. However, you can always tell by seeing which specific power line they've tapped into.

Forgive me, but what exactly do you mean when you use the term "mass"?

Zero guide, a fundamental electrical concept http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_%28electricity%29

Honestly, this is irrelevant to our discussion 😁