Enermax UC-A8FATR4 4-Channel Ultimate Fan Controller

[The Boston Dangler]

i'm using MBM5. speedfan doesn't work well with my motherboard. norton's was too big, i like small, tidy programs. i've had good luck with temp and rpm from the software, but no speed control. taping it to the top might work if most of the guts seem to be on that side.

i spent like 12 hours totally stripping down the pc. cleaning, then wiring everything. i stuck on a zalman northbride heatsink while i was at it. i didn't sleeve, bit i tie-wrapped everything like a mental patient. sleeving is clearly the way to go.

i just picked up a controller. lian li tr-3.
3.5 inches
4 pin/floppy power input
3 fans with rpm + speed control + alarm (cpu, sys-f, sys-r)
3 temp probes (cpu, sys-f, sys-r)
hdd activity light
clock

i jammed probes into the bottom center of the cpu and nb heatsinks, 3rd is taped to the side of the ps.
the fans are: cpu, MONSTER sunon 120mm, and power supply (rpm only)

i'll let ya know how it comes out.
sorry, no camera

 

[JE78]

I'll take a pic before I start to show the mess in my case, then the after shot. I have most of my stuff tie-wrapped but I had the extra cash so I decided to give this a try. I'm just worried about having to take off the Molex connectors. The sleeving I got said it "will go over molex connectors" but all but 1 review I read said that they had to take off the molex connectors. So we'll see how it goes.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

this thing is the bomb! it tamed the unholy din that was my pc! it knocked the sound down from 68dB to 52.5dB. it's still breathing heavy, but it's like a whole new machine.

test was cpu burn-in at max heat for 30 min. i verified the probes and MBM5 are accurate with a dmm/thermocouple. room temp 73F. idle temps are cpu 105, case 87, ps 88

cpu fan/probe:
mbm5= low 105, high 126, avg 111
lian li probe= at 100 max(it's not making solid contact with the heatsink)
fan speed dropped from 3400-3500 to 2000-2100.
no change in temperature!

case:
mbm5= low 87, high 91, avg 89 : these are up a couple degrees due to the fanless heatsink, me thinks

sys-f fan/probe:
probe on north bridge: probe read 100 (this agrees with what H20Cool said).
fan on sunon 120mm, controlled by probe (no tach): ? rpm, lots less now.

sys-r fan/probe:
probe taped to side of power supply: 100 max
sys-r fan on ps (tach only): 2000 max

this thing works great. it even starts all fans at 12V, and drops after the fans start moving. but i kinda wish i some manual control.

i neglected to mention this thread

 

[JE78]

I was just playing a game and the hottest the CPU got was 38c which is around 97,98f, this was with the fans on full RPM and my room temp is 67f. My case temp never got above 30c, the probe on my video card came off so i'm not getting a reading on that at the moment, i'll reattatch it tomorrow when I start my wire sleeving process. I have to agree with you about the RPM control, my PC sounds like jet getting ready for take off when the fans are at full but if I reduce the RPM's by just a few 100 rpm's it quiets it down nicely.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

sweet

 

[JE78]

Just an update for you, this stuff is a pain in the @$$. It took almost 2 hours just to do my power supply. Mainly because on each wire I have adapters that branch off, so instead of having just the 4 wires from the 1 molex adapter I have like 12, and it was a huge pain getting them to go through 3/8" sleeving. I also have 2 SATA connectors that I know I won't be sleeving sience I can't get them to come off and there is no way to get anything over them. Oh, and I've also stabed myself once so far with a sharp knife. Ok, back to the fun.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

yeah, i got some bodily damage too, but i'm more that used to it. the fan wiring is totally outta control. i've got it kinda temporarily in place. with a much quieter box, i found out my power supply fan sounds like crap. the cpu probe just won't give a good reading stuck in the heatsink(about 20F low). since it's paper thin at the end, i might try sticking it next to the chip under the heatsink, the athlon xp has a bit of a gap around the chip, i don't think it would work on a64 or p4 ( but then does it matter?)

do you get stuck with like 500 extra plugs in the case? this is just stupid. from now on, i'm doing my own wiring harnesses. a little extra effort will go a long way there. i gonna start looking for the toolkits to do it, probably for my next pc.

put up some info on your puter!

 

[JE78]

Well i'm finally done. I'll try to post before/after pics in a little bit. But wow, what a job that was. My fingers are killing, I have a pretty deep gash in my finger and to be honest I think I should've just bought a bunch of UV zip ties. I have the same problem with extra molex plugs. I have 1 entire wire that comes out of the PSU that has 4 extra hook ups on it. Luckly my top drive bay is open so I was able to stuff it up there along with my SATA connectors, 2 of them. This was my first attempt at wire sleeving and this project took me almost 4 hours to do. PSU, 5 case fans, and my fan controller. I also bought a Molex Connector Kit that replaces the standard molex connectors. I mostly bought it for the Molex remover tool but once I got going i decided to try them. They are pretty much useless. For some reason only a few of them would stay connected when I pluged them in, most of them would push back out when I tried to plug them in so I just went back to the old ones. I'll try to get a few pics posted.

 

[JE78]

Here are 2 pics. Be kind, it was my first time sleeving.

Before

After

By the way, does anyone know what to use to keep the sensor taped down? I have one on my video card right behind the processor on the back of the card and it keeps coming off. I've tried the trape that came with the device and I even have electrical tape on it now but it keeps coming off.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

nice work!! that case looks like it shows of the internals pretty well. it's pretty obvious now that the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. a case with a mobo tray is probably a little tricky compared to a non-tray box, because you have to keep the tray clear.

electrical tape isn't cutting it for me either. i slipped some small wires behind the motherboard, wrapped the edge, and run them to the cpu and northbridge on the surface of the board. i taped the wires down because i'm not about to fool with epoxy at this point. so the tape doesn't stick to anything, including the ps. i cleaned the surfaces with 100% isopropyl, but the tape just quits. there are higher strength tapes, but the best results would be a tiny dab of silicone.

what toolkit did you use? i was thinking the same thing. get a package with the tools and connectors in 1 box. too bad the plugs were junk.

is that ribbon cable for a SB Audigy?

 

[JE78]

I've cleaned everything I have them stuck to as well. Right now the one on my video card is the only one giving me a problem, its barely hanging on. I'm not sure what else to do, epoxy I think is too strong, plus won't it melt it if its not mixed right?

This was the Sleeving Kit I used

And this was the Molex Kit I used

The only use I had for the Molex kit was the removing tool, but sometimes if you put too much pressure on one that didn't want to come out it would bend it. So that was something else that added to my fun.