Looking for a fancontroller w/o 'tall' buttons

TheZeroorez · Post by **TheZeroorez** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 4:51 am

OK, been lurking here for a while now, and got myself quite a silent system alltogether. Here are current full specs, and as you can see I've got a Vantec NXP-201 fancontroller with four Nexus 120mm's on it (well, already have one, the others will be installed tomorrow).

As you may know, the vantec ticks a lot, and has crappy blue backlight, which I don't want (it's actually the only part of my computer case glowing up, except for the LAN status and the LED on my mainboard

). The ticking isn't that bad when the controller is behind a door, and when there's some foam on the controller to stop the noise.

However, I can still hear the noise, and the LED's annoy me. Another big issue is that the controller doesn't fit behind the small doorspace of the Cosmos I have, so I had to take off the knobs or mod it so that it's more inside the case, which looks really ugly. (oh, and I smashed the thing up today ^^)

So, I'm looking for a fancontroller that doesn't have too big buttons, and preferably has no light in it (or I must be able to turn them off or desolder them with the controller bit still working). It has to be able to control four fans or more, and can not make any, or not too much, noise.

The only thing I found that may work is the Thermaltake A2349, but it doesn't really fit to my other hardware, or you could just say it's ugly.. Do you guys have any tips?

TheZeroorez · Post by **TheZeroorez** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 4:52 am

Smart way to filter spammers btw

Sorry for this some sort of useless post... I need it to be able to post the links from above.

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 6:07 am

T-Balancer BigNG. All the controller you need. No lights, no knobs, only sheer perfection.

TheZeroorez · Post by **TheZeroorez** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 10:58 am

That's one nice fancontroller, yea.

However, I'll HAVE to control this by some program, which isn't really what I want. I do want to be able to control the fans without having to depend on some OS or driver, as I also want to control fans when I'm busy in the BIOS, some bootdisk, or while gaming.

Besides that, it's quite expensive. As I don't use peltiers/WC/etc., â‚¬70 is waay too much (it's the only store here in The Netherlands which has this thing, afaik).

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 11:39 am

I see you have missed the point. This controller is completely software independent once configured. You can shut down the application and throw away the USB cable, as you will never have to go in there again - unless the configuration needs adjustment.

I bought this exactly for the reason of me wanting cooling to work while I was busy elsewhere, and it does it all on its own.

So, automatic, adjustable and 100% compatible. I don't think 70â‚¬ is too much at all for something that is perfect.

TheZeroorez · Post by **TheZeroorez** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 9:23 am

Das_Saunamies wrote:I see you have missed the point. This controller is completely software independent once configured. You can shut down the application and throw away the USB cable, as you will never have to go in there again - unless the configuration needs adjustment.

I bought this exactly for the reason of me wanting cooling to work while I was busy elsewhere, and it does it all on its own.

Ah, that's quite nice. However, I want to be in control.. The temps are actually not a problem at all, not even at 100% load, but I still want to be able to open up the fans whenever I want, not depending on which temperature the inside of the case is...

So, automatic, adjustable and 100% compatible. I don't think 70â‚¬ is too much at all for something that is perfect.

For me, â‚¬70 is.. Especially when I'm only using it as a simple controller to change the speed of four little fans

I mean.. of that money you could even buy yourself 4GB's of DDR2 RAM, or I could sell my CPU/GPU and buy a way better one... No wai I'm spending that much

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 10:29 am

Here's one that might work for you Available in black or silver, wheel-type fan controllers that supply 5-12v analog. No lights....and you can find these for $15 from time to time. I got a few of these, and they work good.

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 11:15 am

Suit yourself.

I'm done fiddling with knobs!

zorrt · Post by **zorrt** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 4:54 am

I'd prefer knob to control my fans over something thats overly expensive. Rather use Speedfan for software fan control.

Anyway, are you able to just pull the LED on your controller off? And can't you just pull off your knobs and look for shorter replacement from electrical stores or make something yourself? Otherwise search around the for 3.5" Sunbeam ones. You can pulled out the LEDS in those.

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 8:07 am

Oh I thought 70EUR(well actually I paid more like 60EUR) was too much as well. But once I tried it and saw how good it was... I'm never going back again. It's only about one and half times as expensive as a regular, quality 4-knob controller and many times over more useful.

Takes an hour or so to set up once installed, but after that you never need to worry about cooling ever again. Until you buy a new graphics card anyway.

Knobs are arduous and inaccurate. Speedfan is software-dependent. Automated hardware control is bliss.

And Sunbeams? Have a lookie here:
SPCR - My Sunbeam Rheobus almost caught on fire!
Extreme Overclocking - So there I was, with my case on fire, and I was wondering...

Rather just cough up the extra 20.

TheZeroorez · Post by **TheZeroorez** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 10:29 am

zorrt wrote:Anyway, are you able to just pull the LED on your controller off? And can't you just pull off your knobs and look for shorter replacement from electrical stores or make something yourself?

Well, that's the problem... The LEDs are soldered to the board, and it's not clear whether they are in a row or parallel. I contacted Vantec about this, but they 'could not tell me'.
The knobs kan be replaced, yes, but I'll need to find some other knobs for them. That's not worth the effort and money on a cheap, broken and noisy fancontroller ^^.

I looked at sunbeam, and the Chromatic Windmill looks nice, I think I'll go for that one if I'm not getting the A2349 (it's behind a door most of the time anyway, so hence the lame design of both).

Thanks for all the input btw

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 8:03 am

You're welcome. I'm on a crusade to promote this sort of expensive and comprehensive fan control so that when it catches on, prices will come down and people will have proper units.

Mandatory fan voltage monitoring, now!

Imvd85 · Post by **Imvd85** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 2:30 am

TheZeroorez wrote:Ah, that's quite nice. However, I want to be in control.. The temps are actually not a problem at all, not even at 100% load, but I still want to be able to open up the fans whenever I want, not depending on which temperature the inside of the case is...

Hey, in T-Balancer Navigator v.2.9 you can do just that by setting the fans in manual mode and specifying 0% as desired speed value .
I use that setting when I want to check system noise without the fans running.