Cooling your PC has come under the utmost scrutiny in the past few years. Peltier,
phase change, water cooling: all of these are hardcore alternatives to keeping
your PC’s innards cool and also as a result quiet. Sometimes in fact a computer
enthusiast will change the cooling he has just to achieve the silence that comes
with it. Such is the case with many of the users that go from regular air cooling
to water cooling. That can be an extremely expensive solution to a simple fan
noise problem. So what’s another more economically sensible solution…
The Multi-Function FAN CONTROL PANEL as it says on the lower half
of the package. Unfortunately I’m unable to discern whether or not the “User
DIY” message on the upper half is the name of the company or just a slogan.
Anyway you can see the model number at the top, ATN-TP-02E, and you can pick
it up over HERE at SVC’s
webstore. Oddly enough, if you look at that link the model number has a “-SV”
at the end of it. If you look at some of their other products made by manufacturers
such as Nexus, they often have a few letters in the model number indicating the
company’s name, i.e. “NX” for Nexus. So could it be that this is one SVC’s
own products? It’s possible…but not all that important anyway. Heheh, just
thought I’d point it out. At any rate, this thing is going to set you back about
$15 after shipping so who makes it is less important than how well did they make it,
and does it do its job.
Here are the specs copied directly from SVC’s web site…
Specs
- The panel can adjust 3 fans of speed at the same time
- Aluminum material design, suits 3.5″ bay of pc
- The panel can transfer 2 USB ports to the front panel of
your pc - Input 12VÄ… 10%, output 6-12VÄ… 10%; there are 10% allowance
in each - Max output 10 watt, each channel
- Convenient and easy installation
Well let’s jump right into this shall we. First we’ll take a look at what came in the package…
Shown above is the controller in all its shiny glory. It’s meant to be installed
in a 3.5″ external bay so naturally it’s roughly the same size as a floppy drive as far
as width and height go. The length of the two side “brackets” are a bit shorter than the
depth of a FDD however and obviously this thing is hollow/empty in the center.
The body is constructed of a lightweight aluminum but the knobs unfortunately are just cheap
plastic. It’s not that they look terrible or feel as though a good turn would snap them off, but
holding tightly and wiggling them a bit you get the feeling that your getting what you pay for (which
isn’t much), as far as knob quality goes anyway. So while the knobs don’t exude quality, I’m happy
that whatever company made this thing decided to only use plastic for the knobs and not the whole body.
The USB 2.0 ports are…well…USB 2.0 ports. They don’t scream quality either but when I was plugging
in my digital camera I didn’t feel any give, like I was going to push right through as it feels when I use
the ones on the front of my case (a knock-off of the Chieftec case in Tekime’s latest review).
More on those ports later, also included in the package were the wires and screws shown below…
The wires, from left to right, are USB, fan connectors, and power (as if the big ol’ molex connectors
didn’t give that away), and of course the four basic drive screws in the plastic bag on the bottom. And
last but not least the super-duper-all-inclusive-pimp-daddy instruction sheet seen below…
Behold it’s absolute magnificance, oooohhhh aaahhhhh, behold all it’s grammar
and spelling errors (heheh).
The back of the controller doesn’t contain anything fascinating either but items of interest do
include the various connections on the small piece of PCB shown below…
The black connection on the left with the gold colored prongs is for the USB wire, the small
white one in the middle is for the power, and the large white one on the right is for the fan
connections. So now that you’ve seen the connections on the PCB let’s check out the connectors
that go on them, first the power and fan connectors…
So as you can see nothing special with these, a positive and negative wire for the power connector,
and a positive and negative wire for each of the three fan connectors. As for the USB connector, I
thought it was pretty basic on the end that connects to the controller but on the other end rather
than give you a nice simple all-in-one deal, they decided to split all the wires up and label them
individually for those who might be using a mother board that doesn’t use the standard connections
shown below (in blue, duh)…
What this means, in case you don’t already know, is that you will have to look in your motherboard’s
manual and find out which pin is which and match them up with the individual wires and then plug them
carefully in one at a time. This can be a major PITA but it isn’t so uncommon though and I taught
myself a simple little trick to keep you from ever having to do it more than once. Simply do as I said
and look up the correct configuration in your manual and then once they are all connected use your thumb
and forefinger to pull them off all at once as though you were unplugging a single connector with many
wires. It’s important to hold it tight and not lose the exact configuration from when all the wires
were connected, now grab some scotch tape and get yourself a piece about 1 1/2″ long and carefully wrap
the wires together so that they hold the correct order. WALLAAH!!(I know that it’s spelled differently in
French like voila or something, but I’m not French so there)…
Anyways yeah, so now you don’t have to look that crap up again if you ever
have to disconnect everything from your motherboard only to hook it all back
up again shortly thereafter, which will happen sooner then you think trust
me.
The USB ports did work the way they were supposed to but I won’t be keeping
them connected for a few reasons. For one thing I don’t need to add to the
clutter of wires already residing in my case. But really I chose to disconnect
them because I can’t shut my case’s door while anything is connected like
I can with the ports located on the upper part of the intake vents on the
front of my case. Really most cases now days have USB ports on the front somewhere
so I feel that the manufacturers should have used that space for another fan
header and knob.
So let’s install this bad boy shall we. The case I am using, as I have already
mentioned, is a Chieftec Dragon style knock-off. More importantly my fan setup
in said case is as follows, 2 80mm fans in the lower front doing the intake
job, 2 80mm fans in the rear handling the exhaust, 1 90mm fan on a Zalman PCI
bracket pushing air towards my cpu, and a cheapo PSU with two fans. One of the
PSU’s fans sucks air from underneath it and the other blows it out upper rear
of my case. Everything is pretty standard fare, the two fans in the back are
Vantec UV reactives, the 90mm fan is just a no-name fan I picked up at my local
computer store that probably pushes around 45-50cfm, one of the front 80mm fans
is a LED fan by PC Toys, and the other is a Vantec Stealth.
So taking into consideration my current setup and the obvious reason one gets a fan controller,
namely to reduce fan noise, I decided that (a)the 90mm fan needs to be hooked up,(b)the LED fan
rattles a bit and it’s in front so that’s next to get hooked up, and(c)the 80mm Stealth
can do without for obvious reasons. So that leaves me with one fan connector and two rear fans
(the Vantec UV’s in case you haven’t been following). Some quick thinking and a bit of rummaging
through my parts bin and I came up with a 3-pin splitter wire. Using this I would connect both fans
to the final connector so that they would then be controlled by the same knob.
So now all I have
to do is quit planning and start doing. Luckily my case came with a removable drive cage so I can show
you cool pics like this one…
Installation was a breeze as you can imagine. The only problem I ran into was a bit of a quality issue
with the fan connector…
As you can see in the above pic the small piece of plastic on “F2″ that
locks the two connectors together snapped right off and I was being fairly
gentle with it even…no really I was. I didn’t have any trouble with the
other two connectors though so maybe it was just a faulty one. Anyhow the
fit was a snug one anyway so it didn’t matter all that much in the end.
My test setup up consists of the following:
| Pentium 4 2.4c 800mhz FSB |
| Abit IC7 |
| Swiftech MCX462 CPU cooler with a YTech Fan |
| Sapphire Radeon 9600xt |
| Chieftec Dragon style case |
| 4 80mm case fans |
| 1 92mm case fan |
The first thing I need to say is that unfortunately I have not yet aquired
a temperature sensor. Therefore I am forced to use the motherboards onboard
temp sensors which I can tell you right now, are not known for their accuracy.
While the actual temperatures will be off from the readings I’m going to give
you, the important part should still be accurate and that is the change in
temperature from when I have the fans on low and when I have them on full blast.
For load temps I ran the new Farcry demo while playing an MP3 and playing
divX flick (Matrix Reloaded).
As you can see above the difference is about 2 degrees Celcius on either load or idle. In my
eyes this is a good thing because it means that even with my fans on low/silent mode, I can
still do just about anything and not worry about temps getting out of hand. Then, should the
occasion arise, I can kick on the fans (and put on my headphones) to enjoy some serious gaming.
So let’s talk about the noise issue now. First of all let me say that I have
headphones on or the music bangin’ pretty loud about 85% of the time BUT when
I’m out in my living room or even in my bedroom I can still hear the fans
in my case. Well that was the case until I installed this mofo.
Once again I’m sorry to report that I don’t own the expensive tool required
to record the decibel level put out by my case’s cooling system. Plus I don’t
have a REALLY nice microphone, just the one that came with my Soundblaster
Live X-Gamer sound card. So please take the following recordings w/ a grain
of salt. Even though the recording setup wasn’t very glamorous I think you
can get a good idea of what this controller could do for you and your case.
With the first one I had the case all closed up like normal and I put the
mic in front by the bottom where the intake vents are. For the first 5 seconds
the fans are all on low, then I turn them all on high for 5-6 seconds and if you
turn your volume up you can hear a distinct rattle that my front LED fan makes on
high, then for the last few seconds I turn them down again…
(click to listen)
Hopefully you could hear that one all right. You don’t notice the difference so much when I turn the
fans up but for me I can hear the quietness that comes after I turn them down again. Okay, for the
next clip I put the mic inside the case, right about in the center, and then closed up the side as best
I could…
(click to listen)
It’s a lot easier to hear the difference in that one huh? The main thing your hearing though is the
90mm fan but that is what creates the most noise anyway so it’s not completely biased.
//
Well overall I was pretty impressed with this little fan controller as far as functionality goes.
They could have spent a bit more on the knobs but even with the plastic ones the aesthetics don’t
suffer to much. When I started this review I had two 3.5″ external bays, one with floppy and one
with a modded switch that controlls three UV lights within my case. I wanted to keep the switch
because, as my first mod, I’m quite proud of how it looks and works. So that means I said bye-bye
to the floppy drive. I started with this…
and I ended up with this…
It looks a whole helluva lot better than it did with that ugly old beige floppy drive I picked up
for six bucks on my local computer store’s discount rack. They are also available in white or black
from SVC.
Pros
- Aluminum material for body
- Strong USB ports
- Aesthetically appealing
- Fairly easy to install
- Does what it’s supposed to
- Really great price
Cons
- Plastic material for knobs
- USB ports, although solid, still seem a bit cheap
- USB ports would be better as another knob for a fourth fan
Thanks for reading this review today.
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