Most Popular NZXT SENTRY 2 Accessories 5 25 Inch Touch Screen Fan Controller Black
Band : Nzxt
Model : SENTRY 2 Touch Screen Fan Controller
Product Features :
- Automatic and manual modes of control
- Five fan control through an intuitive interface
- Ultra fast selection and response time
- Display temperatures in both F and C
- With a minimum of at least 10 Watts per channel the Sentry 2 will support almost all high end fans
>> It works
The build quality is pretty cheap but I did not expect much for the price This fan controller does create quite a mess in wires though and it wouldn t be that much of a problem but the tape that it comes with for the temperature sensors don t stick too well so it is quite troublesome if you accidentally move a wire and pull off the tape I also had trouble getting it to fit properly since I have a screwless case and this fan controller is a bit short so it wouldn t lock in place I had to use some velcro tape to hold it in place It is pretty easy to install and straight forward since all the wires are numbered The touch screen is very responsive and require no pressure at all and the microwave like sound doesn t really bother me It s nice to be able to control all the fans you want with this You can hear feel and see that it is working
>> NZXT Sentry 2 Misses the point of a fan controller
I have been in search of a computer fan controller which meets a few basic criteria see below
After reading countless Google searches product reviews good and bad I have come to the conclusion that there just aren t many
fan controllers made that are truly useful
I bought a unit which was made poorly and broke after a couple of months I then found the Lian Li TR 5B controller which meets most of my criteria and is working fine after 2 months of service Its only drawback seems to be that the case style is designed for the Lian cases and would not mount in any other of my cases The NZXT Sentry 2 had mixed reviews but seemed from specs to have the best chance of meeting the criteria This unit in actuality failed to meet most of my needs and I do NOT recommend it So its back to the search
NZXT The Bad
First the reviews were right about the non existent manual
The unit does not sense the fan rpm and only provides open loop no feedback control in 8 fixed steps 0 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 This discreet control would be fine if it went lower their 40 still drove my fans in the loud zone
The 40 and in fact all control steps caused the fans to buzz slightly which only adds to not reduces the noise problem
The automatic mode does NOT work The temperature control in the Auto mode seems to be for an alarm and not a control point for the fan speed I tested this for quite a while setting the temp value up and down and found the unit completely unresponsive to the setting
NZXT The Good
Easy to install and connect in most cases
Manual mode works pretty good still needs to go lower than 40 0 doesn t count
Display light switch works well To turn display back on touch anywhere
Must have specs
1 Reasonable quality of construction to last a long time without crapping out
2 Push button or touch screen operation i have a door which covers the drive bay and very little room for controls which stick out
3 Control of fan speed to a level which reduces its noise by a real amount and still moves air
4 Automatic operation so it can be autonomous in operation this is not the only computer in the room
The control point temperature must be settable cpu fan is different from case or hard drives etc
Control of fan RPM based on temperature set point
5 Fit in a single 5 1/4 drive bay
6 Minimum of 4 control channels each ch includes temp probe fan RPM sence Fan power driver
Nice to have extras
7 Alarm set points
8 Feed through rpm signal so motherboard or raid cage can continue to perform their monitoring/alarm
9 A sheet of paper which details the How To information of the unit everyone thinks their own gizmo s operation is obvious
10 Light switch for the display I do not look at the thing unless I need to know whats going on
11 Fan RPM and temp values displayed
>> Pretty good for the
I haven t had any issues with mine and it works exactly as advertised
Its a decent Fan Bus for the money compared to what else is on the market I like that you can turn the display off and it blends in well with a black case mine being an NZXT Panzerbox it all but disappears when the display is turned off In all reality I didn t need this as I don t mind what fan noise there is from the Panzerbox but I figured they would be a bit noisy after reading several reviews prior to buying mine so I grabbed one just in case
My only knock on this bus is there doesn t seem to be a way to turn off the irritating confirmation beeps that register every input and yes the temp probes aren t all that accurate which is fine since I could care less about that feature actually I find the temp display a bit annoying This thing has been a solid buy for me so far hopefully I wont have any of the mentioned issues others have ran into
