Introduction

No other company is as synonymous with quiet computing as Zalman. And today we are going to look at what is arguably the single most important component in quieting a noisy computer, the fan controller. If someone had invented a piano controller, perhaps Beethoven would not have gone deaf, but that's another article entirely. Beginning with the first inspired fellow who soldered a rheostat into a fans electrical loop, fan controllers have allowed us to have our cake and keep it from overheating too. A fan controller allows us the luxury of using high-performance fans for power hungry tasks such as gaming and allows us to slow down the same air thrashing beasts to reasonable levels while surfing for pr0n, um ...I mean researching garden mulchers and stuff. And more advanced controllers such as the ZM-MFC2 keep track of critical temperatures so we know when to crank up the RPM's.

The Zalman ZM-MFC2 allows us to do all this with style. The Zalman Multi has a two-tone black and silver bezel that should blend well with a wide variety of cases and contrast well with others and the low profile jog wheel should allow clearance for most cases with doors. The black portion is entirely covered with a clear plastic giving it a super deep clear-coat finish look. The LED display is well ordered and pleasantly colored. All the information the panel can display, is displayed. There is no digging through presets trying to find what your looking for. The ZM-MFC2 does three things and does them well, and without mucking up the interface with unneeded functions and garish graphics.

Fan control and temp monitoring; check. What's the third you ask? It monitors the power consumption of your PC. I'm not talking the typical DC voltages which are easily covered by onboard utilities, but the total wattage the system is sucking from the wall outlet. This is the first time I've seen a manufacturer include this function and it's a welcome addition. Before the Zalman Multi, you had to use something like the Seasonic Power Angel Monitor which I reviewed here.

Specs from Zalman

The unit arrived in perfect order well packaged in familiar Zalman fashion. The packaging is tasteful and sedate, presented in black and Zalman blue. The included manual is well thought out, telling you everything you need to know about the device in a straight forward fashion. Although I'm one of those people that will seldom stop and ask for directions or read manual, I did find myself reaching for it when I first booted up and the unit started beeping at me. It went a little something like this:

Me, "Manual, I don' neeeed no steeeeking manual!".
Multi Fan Con', "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!".
Me, "I'll just push this button."
Multi Fan Con', "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!".
Me, "Maybe turning the knob?".
Multi Fan Con', "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!".
Me, "Push the button while turning the knob!".
Multi Fan Con', "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!".
Well okay, maybe I'll look at the manual.

Turning off the fan alarm for non-functioning, or in my case, missing fans is not terribly intuitive, but is quite easy once you know how. The only other things to be aware of when you purchase the ZM-MFC2 is that it requires a three pin connection (4pin for the PWM fan) and a fan capable of RPM sensing. The last caveat is that the little deely bobber that looks like a USB connection, is NOT a USB connection. It's not the first time I've seen a proprietary wiring of an existing connector type, Razer rewired a DVI connector for the Razer Barracuda AC-1 Sound Card. I don't care much for the practice and you could be seriously bumming if you do mix things up.