2023-10-02 08:06:59
Noctua, while well known for making some of the best and quietest fans on the market, also started making small amounts of hardware, not just little things like their excellent thermal paste or their CPU thermal paste shields, but now Moving on to the voltage regulator, in this case, a PWM fan hub. While you might say “that’s stupid, I already have one in my case”, the truth is that most fan centers I’ve worked with are either really bad, blatantly ignore software and bios fan settings, or lack functionality or even input, Occasionally all three. Noctua’s solution to this set of problems is a well-made premium solution, an 8-channel PWM fan hub that works either directly on the motherboard via a single cable – which is how we tested it – or via external emulation The controller works like the NA-FC1, which NOCTUA also happens to make. It also supports non-PWM fans, although I can’t remember the last time we tested it with direct voltage regulation. Supports 12V and 5V fans, and 3+4-pin fan cables. This may sound standard, but if a large number of fan hubs are designed primarily for 4-pin fans, they will not support speed control for 3-pin fans. Here’s an ad: To my surprise, I realized that you could actually skip the SATA power cable and just have the fan powered by the motherboard’s single PWM connector, however, this would reduce the power from 54 watts to 24 watts. Seeing that I needed all eight connectors, two of which were large 200mm fans, I honestly did go with the SATA power solution. For those waiting for the classic NOCTUA eyes to learn the details, there is not only overcurrent protection on both power sockets, but also a self-resetting fuse to prevent short circuits. There are even small LED lights that make it easy to read if your fan is working as expected and make it easier to spot errors in the dark. I still find it mediocre but just a smart decision to make it a product innovation with more value than I realized. No more double tape or Velcro-based solutions. Take it as flattery, but I hope everyone else steals this idea and starts doing the same thing. Others have done it correctly before, but this time I hope it sticks – literally. As a testament to reliability, there’s also a six-year warranty, which is nice. So, should you buy one? Well, the local price is 38 euros, and given that your current price doesn’t work as expected, yes, absolutely it does. The magnetic mount and well-made hardware are an amazing upgrade from the usual built-in hub controller found in most high-end cases, or the cheap external controllers often sold by most brands that sell you a fan. Even running without a SATA cable, 24 watts is more than double what most general-purpose controllers (those will actually give you a digit for), and 54 watts is more capacity than most high-capacity controllers, which usually max out at 48 watts now. You can actually use it with the large front fans that are becoming more and more popular. Here’s an ad: It’s a small thing – but if you’ve ever tried a fan that was preset to 100% speed due to a faulty controller, you’ll understand why having a high-quality fan hub is important.
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#Noctua #NAFH1 #PWM #Hub
