Enermax UC-A8FATR4 Ultimate (Fan) Controller

Reviews: Cases

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Bradford Day
Kurtis
Maxpoint
Feb. 20, 2004

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The Good

This thing looks nifty as all get out. Pretty colors alone are enough to sell this unit, but it is also quite functional to boot. Enermax has added some nice high-end features to this product that are often times missing from other rheobuses. One example of this is the dimming control knobs. As the fan speed is lowered, the LED in the knob dims, thus indicating that you have turned your fan down. Although it may seem a simple feature, it is rarely seen on other models, plus it helps to score coolness points (note in the pictures below the difference in knob brightness).

The quality aluminum construction is also impressive. Heavy duty and smartly machined, it looks great and will hold up through many installations and removals. Nothing on this fan controller seems cheap or flimsy. The knobs appeared sturdy and didn't wiggle or give. The swappable faces are also a nice touch for the fashion conscious modder. Enermax was smart to include an extra hard drive mounting kit so you can relocate your HDD to a 5.25" bay if so needed. You could also use the mounting kit to lengthen up your UC's mounting brackets if you are having problems securing the device or attaching drive rails.

The UC-A8FATR4 flaunts more than enough fan control power to handle most fans. My two big 120mm fans were easily tamed and there was plenty juice left over to power my CPU heatsink fan as well. Using the included motherboard RPM signal wire(s) will make sure that your BIOS and CPU monitoring software won't flip out on you at boot-up. Out of curiosity, I also tried attaching just case fans (two 120mm and two 80mm) to the unit and each fan controller performed famously.

There are quite a few utilitarian features shoved into this little device. Four fan controllers and four temperature probes for a single device equals impressive in my book. While some may find that the 5.25" size takes up an extra bay, I found it to be just perfect. How many CD/DVD drives do you really need anyway? The unit is even low profile enough to fit into cases, such as my Antec SLK3700AMB, that have bay doors concealing the drives. My bay door closed with ease. Of course you then cover up the pretty lights, but hey that's your own fault pal. And have I mentioned blue and green lighting!it looks quite nifty.

The Bad

First off, what the heck is up with that manual? Most of the relevant product info is already printed on the box, why repeat it in the manual? A few novice builders might get some help on the installation side of things from that waste of paper, but don't expect to learn how to use the unit by reading the instructions. The poor translation I can excuse. As you are no doubt aware, most computer components are manufactured overseas. It would be a bit jingoist of me to assume that every manual would be scripted in perfect Oxford English. Besides, the humor factor is worth it.

Temperature and fan monitoring is somewhat cumbersome to decipher at first. As I mentioned earlier, the fan and thermal wiring was clearly labeled. The fan wiring is labeled as F-1A, F-2A , F-1B and F-2B and each corresponds to the A1, A2, B1 and B2 labeled knobs respectively. But, the fan RPM output on the LCD screen reads just as F1 and F2. What happened to all this A/B and business? The As are the blue knobs and Bs are green (as indicated on the UC's face plate), F1 corresponds to the top knob, while F2 is the bottom knob. None of the 4 knobs are labeled with "F1" or "F2". And although nicely color-coded, the LCD output never changes to reflect the fact that you have switched from the "A" labeled knobs, when you are on the blue lighting, to the "B" labeled knobs once you jump to green. They just keep staring at you with "F1" and "F2" like some mesmerized deer caught in blue-green headlights. I realize that the color display is supposed to tell the user what fans are being monitored, after all that is what makes this controller unique. But the use of so many extra numbers and letters is confusing and somewhat redundant. So in the end what you have to keep in mind is when the display shows the RPMs at F1, that corresponds to the fan being controlled by the top set of knobs, while F2 is the lower set.

The temperature probes also suffer from a similar labeling problem. They are labeled "TA-1, TA-2, TB-1 and TB-2". Temperature readout is displayed next to either a T1 or T2 on the screen with the LCD background color indicating which pair of probes is currently being displayed. Despite the fact that this number/lettering system is slightly different than the fan labeling system, it still tends to confuse. I would have liked to see the color coding idea used on all the wire labeling, rather than the alpha-numeric confusion system. Labeling the wires to match the knobs and LCD screen (such as "blue 1/blue 2" and "green 1/green 2") would have made much more sense. However, I doubt too many will have a problem reading the output once they've figured out the routine.

One more small detail that I found a bit odd was the fact that the fan and temperature monitors will only keep track of their respective details as long as you are on the right color display. Meaning that if you are monitoring the fans and temps associated with the blue display, the green display fans and temps are free to over-heat and under-spin (I guess that is what you would call it) and you would be none the wiser. When I intentionally set off the fan alarms, all I had to do to over-ride the beeping was switch the display color. This effectively turns off the monitoring of the malfunctioning fan. Not a good thing. Should a "green" fan fail while you are in "blue" display mode, you would never know.

In addition, individual fan monitors can not be deactivated. If you decide to leave one fan control lead naked, the warning alarm will think you have a malfunctioning fan and once again beep and flash at you. I remedied this problem by connecting my one left over lead to the power supply's fan speed monitoring connection, the one that typically attaches to the motherboard. I can't control the PSU fan's speed obviously, but it did fool the UC's fan monitor into thinking everything was under control.

The over-abundance of wiring is annoying, but easily cured with wiring loom available for a modest price at most auto parts stores. Also keep in mind that the UC-A8FATR4 will not work with 4-pin molex-type connection fans. You can, however, pick up some 3-4pin converter cables at various places, such as Case-Mod.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Looks & Testing
Page 3: The Good & The Bad
Page 4: Conclusion

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