hey, whats the best system monitor lcd? all i want is one that is good, bright, and can control at least 4 fans, mebe more on the same line ..does anyone know of a good one? maybe there is one i havent heard of

depends what kinda LCD your talking about, the best LCD stand alone is the matrix orbital ones. But if your wanting something to control fans, monitor your system AND has a display, then id go for the digidoc 5+ i have a digidoc 5, and its quite sugar, controls 8 fans monitors 8 temps, and also voltages. =)

This is buy far the best system monitor LCD and fan contoller unit that I have ever seen.

I warn you, it is not a simple mod, and not for the faint of heart. I have read the article 3 times, and I am still not entirely sure of everything he did, or what that unit is truly capable of!

He basically used a high end matrix orbital display (which we all know can display bios data via MBM, disk space data, e-mail monitoring, win amp displays, etc. etc. etc.).

The he used the high wattage GPO's (general purpose outputs) on the LCD to control fans and lights. Brilliant!

The Digidoc 5 is a decent fan controller as Threat already stated. It also displays temperature from thermistors that are hard wired to the unit.

The downfall of the Digidoc, the Nexus, the Hardcano, etc. is that they are self contained units that actually have no connection to the computer. You therefore can't use the LCD to display your bios data (temps, voltages, fan RPM, CPU usages, etc), your drive space data, your winamp data etc.

Their LCD's will only display stuff that is wired to the unit, temps (from the external thermistors - not the bios), and perhaps fan RPM.

If you don't have the stomach (or the inclination) to do the complex mod I linked above, I know I don't, there is a third option that will give you the best of both worlds.

Buy an LCD module (either a premade CF or MO product, or assemble your own) to display all the groovy data. And also get (or make) a simple fan controller without an LCD. That way you have the ultimate in useful LCD displays, and great fan control!

The last option is what I have choosen to do with my current project.

Here is Clown's article on making your own LCD.

And, here ( in the section marked "labs") are lots of guides and schematics for making simple fan controllers.

Edit:

That Blagged hardware link used to have a 2 minute movie where the guy showed everything he was able to do with that keypad and the GPO's on the LCD. This includes fan control.

The link is gone from the page, but happen to have it on my HD. I would be happy to provide it if people are interested. I would however need a host, the zipped file is 6.9 mb.

It is amazing stuff! I had no idea how truly functional an LCD could be!

thats amazing. its a ton of work to do what that guy did... i think i may get an orbiatl. im thinking about making a better fan controller, right now i have a baybuys...it kinda looks cheesy.. i dunno im blabbing on again. thx a lot

Also check this article at bit-tech. Similar to the one Putwig mentioned, but without a keypad and therefore simpler to build.