Legit Cooling Reviews
NZXT Sentry LXE External Touch Screen Fan Controller Review
| Manufacturer: | NZXT |
| Product: | NZXT Sentry LXE Fan Controller |
| Date: | Sun, Jul 18, 2010 - 12:00 AM |
| Written By: | Brian Giacoletti - |
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The NZXT Sentry LXE Fan Controller
OK, let's go ahead and open up the box. What you will find inside is the touch screen panel, a card that fits inside one of the PCI slots inside your computer and contains all of the wiring for the five fans and the five temperature sensors, a small coin battery just like the ones on a motherboard, the instructions, and a ribbon cable that goes from the PCI card to the touch screen panel.
The panel has a very stylish and attractive design. The screen itself is mounted into an aluminum chassis that I do have to say adds to the sleek styled look that NZXT is known for. Featuring five fan channels each capable of 10 watts per channel, you will not have any problems powering up your fans and keeping your system cool. To go along with the five fan connectors are five temperature sensors that can be taped down to your CPU, GPU, or wherever you deem a sensor is needed.
Installation is really simple, but it does involve giving up precious real estate as it takes up a PCI bay at the back of your computer. With the multi GPU configurations that are fairly normal these days, giving up a slot may be a painful ordeal for some. A good example is a multi card ATI Crossfire or Nvidia SLI setup, I happen to have a Quad Crossfire board and with just two video cards installed I am left with only a few PCI bays, and one actual PCI slot that can be used. If I were running quad Crossfire or a multi card Nvidia SLI setup for that matter, I would have no room to install the card for the Sentry LXE. To start things off just snap in the coin battery; this will help the pci card remember your fan settings as well as the date and time when the unit is not powered up. Much like what the battery on your motherboard does.
Once you get the PCI card installed in your computer you can remove the unwanted fan connectors and temperature sensors to fit your needs. On that subject, another thing that needs to be addressed is that the fan connectors on the Sentry LXE are only for 3 pin fans and does not include any adapters for other fan power types. Having the PCI card centralize the wiring for the fans and temperature sensors may or may not be a blessing depending on how clean you like your case to look as I could see trying to hide these wires coming from the center of your case as being a pain. Once you have your fans plugged in and your temperature sensors set where you want them all you have to do is plug the ribbon cable from the back of the Panel to the rear of the PCI card and then plug the PCI card power to one of the 4 pin Molex connectors on your power supply and you are ready to go.
Once you plug it in the unit will fire up and you will be able to clearly see the speed of your fans as well as the temperatures of the various zones inside your case where you placed your temperature sensors. You can use either "Auto" mode, where you basically set the temperature you want in a particular zone by pressing the channel of the fan on the touch screen twice and using the + and - touch zones to set the temperature threshold you want to maintain in each particular zone and an alarm will sound if the temperature exceeds that threshold. Or, you can use "Manual" mode and you can control everything yourself. In manual mode, to change the speed of the fans all you need to do is press the channel that you wish to adjust twice and simply use the + and - buttons to set the speed of your fans.
Next Page - Sentry LXE Areas Of Concern
| Review Index |
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Page 1 - NZXT Sentry LXE Touch Screen LCD Fan Controller
Page 2 - The NZXT Sentry LXE Fan Controller Page 3 - Sentry LXE Areas Of Concern Page 4 - Final Thoughts On The Sentry LXE |
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