Recommended Fan Controller?

[NetTechie]

I wanted to order a Scythe model that shows fan RPM's, but it seems they are out of stock. I could get one on ebay new, but I'm wondering maybe something better has been invented? Any recommendations?

[NetTechie]

Well, I decided to order this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Scythe-KM03-BK- ... 3a884dc653

I'm still interested in feedback on fan controllers, in case I missed something. I could return it if so.

[NetTechie]

Just bumped into another fan controller, looks pretty nice. The Lamptron FC5.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY66Klwpofw

About the same price, Newegg has it. Does 4 fans though.

Edit: I canceled my order above on ebay, and ordered the Lamptron, as it supports 30w per channel apparently. That's enough to power a lot of fans on each controller, and it displays voltage if you prefer. I'm not going to be using the temp sensors, so this voltage readout is nice. It will allow me to quickly set the fans to a known voltage. Plus displaying a bunch of temps that aren't important could be annoying looking.

[Abula]

One fan controller that i would give some though is Sunbeamtech PL-RS-6 Rheosmart 6 Fan Controller, its a very peculiar controller as it can control all fans with the knobs like any other fan controller, but it has a special mode that you switch with the push of a button, to use a PWM signal (like CPU_FAN header produces) and converts it to voltage control, like for the AP181 you could control all 3 fans with it, and be dynamically with the CPU temp.





Watch the following videos for more info,

Sunbeamtech Rheosmart 6 PWM Fan Controller BIOS Setting Tutorial

Product Showcase SUNBEAMTECH Rheosmart 6 Fan Controller (PL-RS-6)

[NetTechie]

Neat, I watched the videos.

Just a random idea, you could get the 3.5 inch drive bay version, mount it inside on a hard drive bay, and leave it switched to PWM mode. The 3.5 inch drive bay version only would do three fans though. Maybe switch it to PWM mode, and mount it in the 5.25 inch bay without taking the front of the bay cover off, then you'd have up to six controlled by PWM. So it would just provide the function of PWM control on 3 pin fans, and not be visible on the case (I don't see a reason to make it visible if it's in 100% in PWM mode).

Edit:

I canceled my Lamptron order, and ordered the one above. All motherboard control now, even the 3 pin fans. Asus Fan Xpert is neat!

Ok, so my configuration plan is as follows. Put my cpu fans, which are 3 pin 120mm, on the fan controller in PWM mode. Potentially hide it in the case as I wont be needing to manually control anything with it. Then run the remaining 3 pin 180mm fans on the three Chassis_Fan headers, which can control 3 pin through Fan Xpert. Then control everything based on cpu temps.

Once the system gets under load it will go from a preset low speed, to top speed and cool the case. For idle it should be silent, or that is my hope. I hate hearing a fan constantly go up and down, a constant noise is better, so I'm not going to give it more than basically two speeds to run on, idle speed, and load speed, which is how I have my current setup. My current setup is with the cpu 3 pin fans on the chassis headers. I have no real case fans on the current case I'm using, with a water cooler mounted on the exhaust (I can't mount intake fans on this case). The water cooler pump is currently connected to the CPU_FAN header, as it was basically useless without PWM fans. This setup was working until the addition of the 180mm case fans for the FT02.

This should fix me up nicely for the Silverstone FT02 upgrade. Thanks for your help, very neat to be able to finally use Fan Xpert for everything.