Enermax UC-A8FATR4 4-Channel Ultimate Fan Controller

Company: Enermax
Product: UC-A8FATR4 4-Channel Fan Controller
Street Price: ~$40 USD
Date Reviewed: February 13, 2004
Reviewed By: Daniel Swords aka rds0811
Rating: (8.5/10)

Installation of the Controller:

The user's guide is less of an instruction manual and more of a repeat of features in 7 languages, plus a few bits of precaution and troubleshooting info. A fan controller isn't a hard piece of hardware to install, but for anyone who should need help the manual is VERY confusing at times because it is obviously a "rough around the edges" translation from another language. 10 of the 50 pages are English, and for people who don't have any experience with fan controllers the manual will probably be too vague to help them install the unit.

This model was designed for use with standard drive rail systems (using screws through the drive rail slots) and I was afraid that my tool less Xaser 3 drive rails would pose problems with installation, but I was able to attach the plastic rail guides easily and the unit slides right into the 5.25" drive bay. The only gripe here would be that for this type of tool less system only the front part of the plastic rail guide connects to the controller so when inserted into a drive bay the rear can possibly pop out of the drive rail, making the controller unstable in the bay (i.e. it could push in our out unintentionally). Also for people with tool less rail systems like mine, they won't be able to use the HDD mounting kit in the same bay without doing some modification, because the plastic rail guide conflicts with the screws. It doesn't look like this controller would work installed behind a door unless you recessed it an extra distance, which would not look attractive. Luckily my case has a special slot for a fan controller in the top bay, so there are no door conflicts.

With the controller installed in the drive bay it is time to connect all the power cables and install the thermal probes. First just plug a 4-pin molex connector from the PSU into the connector on the controller, then plug 4 fans into the 4 fan connectors. I plugged my CPU fan into A1, and a rather loud 120mm case fan into A2, then B1 and B2 are the 2 fans on my side panel. I actually had to remove the 3-pin connector from B1 and B2 and install a 4-pin molex connector. This is a big hassle and the 3-pin to 4-pin molex adapters would have been a big help.

The next big decision is where to put all those thermal probes(4 in all). For the monitoring freak this controller is definitely the way to go because this unit can get temps. from about as many areas in a case as anyone could want. I installed 1 probe in the CPU socket, 1 on the back of the GPU, 1 in a stick of RAM under the heatspreader, and one midair in an open drive bay to get a case temp. reading. Enermax supplies 4 pieces of special tape for attaching the probes.

With all these new wires running around the case it's necessary to put a lot of thought in to wire management and keeping things neat. The spiral loom helped a lot by keeping all the fan controller wires together as one very small bundle, so a few minutes of routing the excess wires and everything is squared away. Also, Enermax has packaged some labeling stickers for "CPU," "CHIP," and "HDD." I used 2 CPU stickers on the controller's front panel to label my CPU and GPU knobs (I had to do a little creative editing with a pen to make one CPU sticker say GPU).