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Enermax UC-A3FATR2 Multifunction Panel |
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Written by Jason Owens
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Wednesday, 13 June 2007 |
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Page 2 of 3
Viewing the unit from the rear shows several things, but doesn’t show one thing I thought would be present. From the left, the first thing noticeable is the speaker mounted on the PCB. Below and to the right of the speaker the power and temperature wires connect to the PCB. The LCD screen is mounted in the exact middle of the A3, below the connection to the upper PCB on the right, which accepts the connections for the 3-pin fan connectors. The one item missing in my opinion is a small battery of the watch or BIOS variety in order for the unit to remember settings. This becomes and issue, as you will see later.
Looking at the A3 from an angle shows the quality construction of the unit. The edges are rounded and not sharp and the pieces are screwed together rather than being spot welded. It appears from examining it that the unit is made of four parts: the bottom, two sides, and the top/front to which to the PCB is connected. All of these are held together by the black screws you see in the picture.
When the A3 is installed into the drive rack of the Shuttle SN45G the length of the cables becomes immediately noticeable. All four leads are much longer than necessary for the XPC and are by design long enough to reach the rear of a full tower case. This presents quite a problem in cases where airflow is at a premium. Luckily there is plenty of space in the unit itself to tuck the spare lengths of wire. A simple zip tie to hold it all together is all that was needed.
As you can see, once the cables are tucked into the unit it leaves plenty of room for airflow around the remaining wires. The only difficulty was in positioning the molex pass-through connector in the tight space so as not to impede airflow. You can see the leads for one temperature sensor and the 3-pin fan lead going down to the left, and one temperature lead running along the top of the power supply in the background.
Once installed, the A3 is ready to use. The aluminum of the unit matches perfectly with the brushed aluminum of the SN45G, although the beige CD drive gives an odd appearance to the whole system. On the left of the A3 are the two knobs that control fan speed. The knobs are small and slightly difficult to turn due to their size, especially for someone who has large hands such as me. The LCD screen sits in the middle of the unit and to the right are three buttons: mode, set, and reset.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 27 June 2007 )
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