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)

Powering Up:

It's finally time to power up, and you won't be disappointed. This fan controller looks awesome and the dual color/monitoring system is very inventive. When the LCD screen is blue, the numbers on the screen labeled T1 and F1 correspond to the A1 knob, and T2 and F2 correspond to the A2 knob. When the A-B mode button is pressed the screen color changes from blue to green and the numbers on the display reload to show values T1 and F1 corresponding to the B1 knob and T2 and F2 corresponding to the B2 knob. The A knobs are always blue lit as the B knobs are always green lit, which means it is always easy to know which mode the controller is in and which knobs will change the currently displayed values.

Something I noticed after powering up, and this may just be an isolated issue for me, but my LCD display appears rather faded from directly in front, just as to the sides or below. Looking at the LCD at a downward angle from above the display, the readout becomes clear and sharp. Here are some pictures to better describe the problem (The first number is the CPU temp. but probably due to some type of mishandling on my part the probe is not giving an accurate reading).

Here is a small QuickTime movie (1.76MB) to give a bit of a motion shot of the fan controller:

The high temperature alarm switch has three settings for when the alarm buzzer will go off:  High for 65C/149F, Medium for 55C/131F, and Low for 45C/113F. The default low RPM setting is 1000 RPM, and it can be changed to 2000 RPM by shorting a connector on the controller with the supplied jumper. My only quarrel with the fan RPM alarm is that not all fans have rpm leads, as 2 of mine do not, and it gets annoying having to hear the low RPM alarms for the 30 second period every time I switch to the mode where those 2 fans are located. It would be nice to be able to turn off the alarms manually.

I particularly like the range of adjustment this controller provides for fan speeds. With my last controller turning the fans all the way down slowed them, but it wasn't low enough. This unit will slow the fan until it seems to border on turning off, which is great if you sleep in the same room as the computer. The knobs also dim as you lower the fan speed, which is a nice feature.