Enter our December 2007 Giveaway! We're giving away 14 prizes worth several hundred bucks! Enter HERE.
Statistics
Visitors: 925176
| FanStorm Deluxe Fan Controller Kit |
|
|
|
| Written by Mattia Pontacolone | |
| Wednesday, 13 June 2007 | |
|
Page 3 of 3
Then attach the fan connectors, and finally stick the thermistors in place. 4 pieces of “sensor mounting tape” are provided. Those have some sort of pad on the non-sticky side, and that’s to insulate the thermistor from the air on the other side. If you want the temperature of a hard drive, you’ll get that alone and not that averaged with air temperature. To ensure best contact, clean the surfaces with the cleaning pad before sticking the mounting tape.
Once everything is installed and held in place by tape/ties, all you have to do is verify it’s actually working. With the case open, power up the system and look at the front panel. All the switchs should be on (lower position), and if there are some blinking LEDs the corresponding fan should be spinning. Try to heat up with your finger the thermistors to make sure all the fans are connected properly. If you see blue smoke, something has gone way wrong, but it’s probably too late for your system, sorry. The front panel has a switch that turns on/off the four channels of fans, each with two LEDs. One, blue, is the one that blinks indicating the fan speed, and the second one is a red led, indicates the fan has been spinning at full speed for more than 30 seconds, and it basically means that hotspot needs additional cooling. One more switch is placed on the far right and it regulates the LED brightness so that during night use you're not blinded by the blue light. In everyday use the fanbus fades into the “plug and forget” type of components, you notice only that your system is quieter than it used to be. The FanStorm is indeed a great unit. It merges some features like temperature controlled fan start with temperature regulated fan speed, that seem to be so similar but are rarely implemented in the same device. The pulse technology is effective in both modulating the fan speed and not generating heat, so that’s another thumbs up. The problem with the jumper instead of the thermistor is a fake one: why would you use the FanStorm to have the fan run at full speed all the time? Just connect it to the motherboard header. The only real problem is the number of cables the FanStorm brings inside your case, but it’s a problem common to all the fan controlling units and it can't be solved. The retail price is $62.50, not cheap but you get a lot of stuff. If you want to save some money, you can get the standard version for $55 or the basic for $37.50 USD. If you buy from FanStorm, delivery is free anywhere in the world for the deluxe version. Pros
|
|
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 27 June 2007 ) |
