The fan controller itself is rather nice to look at. The main plate is aluminum and has been anodized wither silver or black. The four knobs are of decent size are are spaced apart enough to so they are easily gripped. The unit’s circuit board is powered by a standard 4-pin molex connector. Each knob has its own dedicated set of power filtering electronics and has a blue LED on either side of the knob. Four 3-pin fan connectors are clearly marked on the circuit board.
Installation
Installation is fairly easy and would be a breeze for the novice user with basic computer knowledge, although some tidy cable routing skills are needed. With 4 fan 3 pin headers on the back of the controller it is kind of hard to mess this up. The 4 enclosed installation screws secure the controller in the case. It is very easy to strip the mounting holes on the controller so you don’t over tighten those screws.
Once the controller is mounted, the fans can be connected to the board’s 3-pin connectors using the supplied fan cables. The fan cables are pretty long, so take your time routing the cables into corners and behind components to make them look as neat as possible. Once the fan cables are neatly routed to your fan, plug the fan into the fan extension.
Operation
The operation of this unit is quite simple and pain free. My old fan controller would default to 12 volts, which caused my three 120mm Delta fans to scream like a banshee. The system maxx tamed these airflow Argonauts so they were actually quiet, thanks to the System Maxx’s 7 to 12 volt variance!
I turned the controller down all the way before the computer started and will only allow 7 volts to the fans all the way down. Holy cow! It is actually quiet. Usually I have the 3 deltas pushing 130 cfm+ when I start my rig but it was actually quiet when I started.
I noticed a few improvements could be made with this product. Most computer fans today have 3 pin headers, so the 2 to 3-pin headers are a niche item and not very useful. Two extra 12-24 inch 3-pin to 3-pin fan cables would be ideal with this product, so that every fan port can use a standard 3-pin fan.
