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Ultra Fan Commander


Date
: 08/5/05 – 01:39:03 AM

Author
:

Category
: Misc

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer
: Ultra Components and Technologies

Price:
$79.99 MSRP

Ultra is becoming quite the visitor to the Overclockers Online pages. If you cruise through their web site you will notice a menu of products about half a page long. That list includes their award winning Power Supplies, complete Tool Sets, impressive Memory Modules, various Cooling solutions, Cases and so much more. It really is staggering what this globally known Ohio based company offers to the market in quality products. They back that quality up with one of the best Warranty programs around, the best I have ever seen.

What we are going to look at today is the newly released Fan Commander, of course, brought to you by Ultra. This is not your basic fan controller, it's offering control for up to seven fans, three thermal sensors, and individual temperature alarms that are all brought together by a large LCD display.

Page 2 : Package

The Ultra Fan Commander showed up within a few short days from getting the word that it was sent out. Boxed in a UPS parcel, the package arrived free from any marking on the shrink-wrapped exterior of the retail box. For the photos, I had to remove the plastic to see any details.

The box gives a very large view of the Fan Commander, with a large title letting us know that it is provided by Ultra. We also get a smaller image of the Fan Commander dressed with its additional silver face plate. Being a fan controller, there is not much information required and all applicable details are clearly printed in a list on the left hand side seen above.

The back of the package is almost identical to the front, its getting more in depth into the specifications of the display capabilities of the Ultra Fan Commander, including a close up of the fan commander at work.

As expected, being a fan controller, the package is not big or anything extravagant. It is nicely designed with a good theme and does its job of providing all the info of the product that is inside while branding the Ultra logo and product name on every exterior side. With the large photos of the Fan Commander on the outside, there will be no surprises upon breaking the seal and opening the box, so let's get to a complete list of specifications and then onto the contents.

Page 3 : Specifications

Here is all the information pertaining to the Ultra Fan commander courtesy of the Ultra web site…

This is also pulled from Ultra's web site describing the Fan Commander in words of their own…

Page 4 : Contents

As you can imagine with a product like the Fan Commander, you are going to be faced with a bunch of cables once inside the box.

What you see is a very organized, neat, and damage-proof interior. If you have read previous reviews of mine, you will know I like small boxes unless it is absolutely required; Ultra does a good job of packing everything in to keep the box size down. Upon spreading everything out, you can see just how much is included with the Fan Commander…

Everything comes in plastic bags and is arranged in such a manner that no matter how unpleasant the shipping was, all components will arrive un-harmed. Two bags full of some fine looking braided cables are on the right. On the left, the fan commander itself along with the detailed instruction manual and additional silver face plate. Two, that's right, two batteries are included for use in the Fan commander despite the need for only one. This is the first indication that Ultra is not playing games in this offering. How often have you received a back up battery in an electronic device? We also get a standard bag of mounting hardware and a handful of cable ties. I could not have asked for anything more than what is included, two big thumbs up to Ultra for the complete array of included accessories. I will now run down the list of cables in those bags…

All of the cables that will be used with the Fan Commander are of the highest quality with braided interior linings and a thick plastic sheathing on the exterior for protection. They feel solid and are extremely easy to work with. The small details were not overlooked in their manufacturing as all connections are heat-shrink wrapped at both ends; nice and tight to the actual connectors. These cables will last a very long time with repeated movement from one case to another, should they see that much activity.

Normally I would not take a photo of something as trivial as the contents of a bag of screws, but this needs to be mentioned. Not only do you have the mounting screws, as you would expect, and the allen key to remove the screws to change face plates, but Ultra has actually included a second set of backup screws for mounting the face plate. This is one of those little things overlooked by most, but I noticed right away and figured it was worth pointing out. If Ultra is going to provide such a complete product in the Fan Commander I owe it to Ultra to provide the readers of Overclockers Online with as complete a review of said product.

Its time for the Fan Commander's photo session in front of the lens.

The Fan Commander has a very simple and elegant look to it. The single knob on the left, shown here, is used for adjusting the fan levels, as well as setting the time and temperature alarms.

I changed the face plate using the included allen key and didn't run into any problems. Just loosen the four screws at the corners and it comes right off. Both plates sit flush and the fit is good on both the silver and black face plates.

This is obviously the rear of the unit. All the connections are well labeled by raised plastic molded into the rear of body, eliminating the chance of stickers or printed labels rubbing or falling off. There is also a reset button and access to the battery compartment on the backside, I installed one of the two included batteries at this point. With all the connections being on the outside and labeled as well as they are, the Fan Commander installation should be a piece of cake as there is no need to open the unit up.

There are two sets of mounting holes to secure the unit it in an open 5 1/2" drive bay. The holes are standard spacing and should fit most any case, new or old. We can also see that the front and rear panels are secured and should be easy enough to take off. Now I know I just stated that there was no need to open the Fan Commander up, but where is the fun in that?

Not a lot to see here, just the two board design with a ribbon cable connecting the inputs and instrumentation at the rear of the unit and the display at the front.

That about covers the contents section of the review. Let's see how it fits in a couple different cases.

Page 5 : Installation

The only difficulty in installation will come in trying to manage the extensive amount of new cables due to the Fan Commanders array of capabilities. I hate seeing cables all over a case so I will have to be on my game to make these look tidy.

I decided to follow the guidelines of the manual as it seemed to make sense to plug in all connections first, before mounting the unit. The cables are great to work with and allow you to manipulate them in a manner that allows for easy organization. The connections for the power and temperature probes are quite recessed into the rear of the unit. I was able to secure the connections with my smallest finger, but someone with larger hands will likely have to use a small screwdriver. This is an extremely minor issue but worth noting. The fan connections are not as recessed and were quite easy to plug in. All connections are tight and secure, gentle tugs on the cables have no effect yet, at the same time, they were easy enough to unplug when I was trying to take them out.

In this case I only have four fans that can be controlled so the cables were not that bad to hide. You can see here where the cables make the turn to hide behind my hard drive tower, with the rest of the wiring in the case. I had to tape three of the fan connections because the connectors on those fans did not have the ridge for the Fan Commanders cables to lock onto. This is not a problem with the Fan Commander, instead, an issue with the fans I was using. The one fan that does have that ridge provided a very secure connection with the Fan Commanders universal connector. The alarm sounds when a cable disconnects and after hearing that alarm for the first time, I got the tape out as it was the last time I wanted to hear it, you can be assured you will not miss an alarm from the Fan Commander.

The mounting holes lined up perfectly in both cases which I installed the Fan Commander in, there was also enough play to allow me to precisely align the face of the unit with the front of the case. I am also able to reach in from behind and unplug existing cables or plug in additional fan control cables without removing the unit. The recessed connections for the temperature probes were just as easy to disconnect and re-connect as well. I noted earlier the small difficulty with those but it actually seemed easier to do once the unit was mounted in the case.

Here you see the obligatory head on shot of the Ultra Fan Commander mounted flush in the recently reviewed Aspire X-Cruiser. Like I said above, there is enough play in the mounting holes to allow you the ability to adjust the seating of the unit both up and down as well as left to right. Getting it to sit perfectly in both cases was simple and easily accomplished. I would venture to say the unit will fit well in any standard case out there. Its time to power it up and see if I can get the Fan Commander setup and functioning.

The manual does a really good job walking you through the initial setup as well as adjustments to fan speeds. The button configuration is simple and easy to get the hang of. If you have ever set the time on a microwave or a coffee maker then the process should come intuitively. I will now move on to the function and testing section and go over the abilities as well as test the Fan Commander to ensure it does all that it says.

Page 6 : Function and Testing

The function of a fan controller is just that, to control fans. The difference between a good fan controller and an excellent fan controller is the additional features it provides as well as how it handles its main duties of controlling the fans. I figured we would have a look at the Fan Commanders functions first, then get into some testing.

The display has a nice look to it and the overall layout I found to be quite good. The first observation is that the general color of the lighting is blue. Everything sent to me lately seems to choose blue for the color of lighting, I guess it is the 'in' color this year.

Along the top, we have the Hard Drive activity indicator, the Fan and Speed indicators which cycle through the different fans being controlled every three seconds, and at the top right, not illuminated, is the temp alarm and the button lock indicators. The time and an Ultra logo are shown in the circles on either side. The middle section indicates what each of the potential seven fans are running at with six different settings and the bottom has the date and the three temperature probe indicators that also cycle every three seconds.

Despite how much info is being displayed, there is no real clutter and everything is easily distinguished. The cycling of the temperature probe and fan speed readings allows the relatively small display to provide a lot of information.

There isn't really much to report as far as function goes, as that is all outlined in the specifications section. Adjusting the fan speed is not ideal and does require you to hold down the fan button for three to five seconds before the unit allows you to cycle through the fans to increase or decrease their speed. This makes the lock feature pretty useless as there is no real danger of accidentally changing any of the settings. I would have liked the ability to push a button to cycle through the fans to select which fan I wanted to be viewing on the display at the top, and then adjust it with the dial without having to hold down a button for three to five seconds. This would speed up adjustments considerably.

The dial on the left hand side of the unit is how everything is adjusted. Turn clockwise to increase or counter-clockwise to decrease. I will mention that the dial works just fine, and is easy enough to turn. Two fingers and a little pressure are required as a single finger just won't get it done. It does tend to be somewhat sensitive but works quite effectively.

As easy as it is to read the display both in the light and in the dark, the angle at which you can read the information is fairly limited. In fact, it is limited to pretty much a 20-30 degree angle of view. After you venture out of that 20-30 degree angle, everything gets washed out and the lit indicators become one with the non-lit indicators making it impossible to make out the readings. This limitation goes for both up and down as well as side to side. This forces the user to really be directly in front of the unit on a level field to read the display.

We will now do some testing. The first thing I wanted to see with the Fan Commander was if it was able to power all seven fans that it has the ability to control. I did manage to scrounge up seven fans that had three pin connectors to test, digging through boxes in the closet to do so, I also net some other goodies I forgot about so it was worth the effort.

We can see that all seven fans are being indicated and at their maximum speed. Having gone through the RPM readings of each fan, I am happy to report that they were all spinning at the advertised maximum RPM or higher. This determines that the Fan Commander has no issues with a full load.

I then lowered all the fans to the minimum settings and they all continued to spin within their given ranges. Below is a chart of the fans that were connected along with their part numbers and the minimum and maximum RPM readings averaged out while being ran by the Fan Commander.

The final test that deals with the fans is to see if any alarm goes off when one stops. I already found out that if you unplug a fan, it will sound the loud obnoxious alarm that you will be sure not to miss and upon stopping a fan the alarm roared to life within a second. This means that if a single fan stops functioning whether it gets unplugged, dies, or the cat just gets curious, the alarm will sound for a few seconds then the fan that has stopped functioning flashes on the display.

To complete testing I had to play with the temperature probes to make sure they would fire up the alarm and turn the fans up to 100% should the sensor read above the specified value. The easy way to accomplish this was to set the alarm value lower than what the temp was for any of the 3 sensors, but once again, where is the fun in that? I heated up some water and did it the scientific way. Sure it was overkill but it was late and I was bored. Either way, the alarm responded as it should, giving off that wonderful beep for a few seconds, and the fans were kicked up to 100% until the temperature for the specific probe came down under the set value.

Testing for the unit has completed with the Ultra Fan Commander passing every exam and proving its worth by providing all that was claimed on the box and in the manual.

Page 7 : Conclusion

The Ultra Fan Commander lived up to its name and had no issues in commanding seven fans. The temperature probes seemed quite accurate with steady readings and all the alarms that are built into the unit worked as they should. The alarm being a loud buzzer will easily do its job of getting your attention when something is awry. With solid packaging and an included accessory bundle that makes sure you will have more than everything you need, the Fan Commander impressed me from the beginning to the end of this review.

It goes without saying that the Fan Commander is not perfect. The minimum viewing angle of the display and cumbersome fan adjustment are the only two items that really stand out but they are two things that I feel are most important when it comes to a fan controller. With a MSRP of 79.99 it is not a cheap unit and some additional features would have been nice for that price. Perhaps a couple of saved modes you could quickly switch between. Giving you the ability to set the fan speeds for each mode instead of manually having to adjust all the fans up or down individually. The option of turning off the alarm would also be nice as you could then use the temp sensors as a way to have a variable fan RPM system.

With that said, you really cannot compare the Fan Commander to many fan controllers on the market as nothing can shake a stick at its ability to control seven fans. If you have a case with more fans than PCI slots like me, then the Ultra Fan Commander is a must. The ability to finally control all the fans in my case at one central location is priceless. My computer has never been so quiet when I am not working it hard and the security of the alarms built into the Ultra Fan Commander let me rest better than I have before with my computer running through the night. That is, until a fan dies and I am thrown from my bed from the amazingly loud alarm going off at three in the morning, but it will be worth the interruption as I would rather be safe than sorry.

Advantages

• Controls 7 fans
• Quality cables
• Complete accessory package
• Multiple configurable alarms

  Disadvantages

• Price
• Display viewing angle
• Slightly awkward fan control

  Overclockers Online would like to thank Ultra for use of the Fan Commander for this review.