Joe42 said:
Does the T-balancer do anything that speedfan can't do?
Obviously it can use fans and external temperature sensors that speedfan can't.
The T-Balancer is a PWM fan controller. It does not vary the voltages so your fans always run at 12V. Speedfan has to have a motherboard where the BIOS allows the voltage across the 3-pin connector to be varied between 5V and 12V.
The way fans work means they have to have at least 5V to kick them over and keep them going. So the best Speedfan can ever do is reduce the fan speed to about half the normal speed.
A Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) controller actually varies the time that the 12V is applied to the fan. The DC 12V is applied in pulses - the more pulses per second, the faster the fan runs, the fewer pulses per second, the slower it runs.
Normally these pulses are applied so fast that they are almost continuous. In this way the fan runs flat out.
The T-Balancer can apply the pulses as slowly as 1 per minute so you can theoretically run a fan at 1rpm! Not all fans can do this, but high quality ones do. By supplying no pulses, the T-Balancer can stop a fan.
So the T-Balancer can vary the fan speed much more widely than Speedfan.
The other major difference is in the software that controls the T-Balancer. Speedfan has 1 temperature sensor linked to 1 fan. You cannot pick there the sensors are located, and you need to have the relevant fan plugged in to the relevant header which is not always sensible due to cable lengths.
The T-Balancer allows any temperature sensor, or combination of sensors, to be linked any number of fans assuming you have an adequate number of ports available.
So if my SLi setup starts to get hot, I can turn up just the Side intake fan and the rear fan on my Eclipse. If the HDDs start to get a bit toasty, I can turn up the front fan and the rear fan. In this way the cooling is targetted to where it is needed and noise is kept to a minimum.
You can also change the rate at which the fan speed changes.
Say that my Eclipse has a normal PSU exhaust temperature of 40C. The PSU exhaust is a good indicator of case air temperature as it gets all of it's cooling air from there. If my PSU exhaust temperatutre rises to 45C I bring up the side and front inlet fans to 50%. If it goes to 47C I bring them up to 80% and if it reaches 50C I bring them up to 100% and switch the rear fan down to 20% to force air through the PSU. These sort of complicated stratagies are not possible with Speedfan.
The T-Balancer is pretty much the most complex and adjustable fan (and water pump) controller on the market today. And it starts at £35 - which is not a lot more than you would pay for a 5.25" bay cover with 4 rheostats in it.