FC5 In Action

Installing the cables and diodes should be done before installing the fan controller, as you will have a hard time reaching the connectors once the unit is in place. Once installed, it fits right in with the rest of your components, thanks to the straight and simple lines and smooth bezel.


Even though Lamptron only advertises different color options with the display, you may also remove all pins of the R B G array, which results in no backlighting at all. The numbers are still clearly readable if there is enough surrounding light.


As you can see above there are several color options. These are not all of them, especially since blue & white look very similar. Also the unused parts of the numbers, which are not lit up tend to show nonetheless, making it a bit harder to actually read the display. You may turn the dials all the way down to turn off a fan completely, which is a great option when complete silence is required. Turning things up gradually also increases the fan speed right away. As you can see, the RPM of each fan can be read on the top row and the voltage or temperature is on the bottom. It would have been great to see some sort of electronic switch on the outside for both color selection and voltage or temperature display. Having to take out the FC5 every time you want to change things is a huge drawback and may be a deal breaker for those who want to have easy access to all types of information. Another downside is the fact that the alarm will sound - if turned on - at exactly 70°C or the equivalent in Fahrenheit. You cannot raise or lower the threshold yourself and 70°C is certainly easily reachable by CPUs and graphic cards these days, which means that you may not want to place a sensor close to the die of either if the alarm is turned on. You may also set the alarm to voltage mode, which sounds if a fan is not spinning if more than 6.5 V are applied to the cooling unit. This is much more useful, as it lets the user know right away if a fan simply stops spinning, but some fans don't manage to start below 7 or 8 V. As the type of alarm is set by the type of output you have on the screen, I would suggest you leave things on the voltage output, which in turns means that the temperature diodes become somewhat obsolete.