Introduction

The DigiDoc 3/5 fan and temperature controller unit from MacPower was one of the very first of it's kind and during the early days of modding and overclocking, they adorn many of the PC enthusiasts uber modified and overclocked PC. They have 8 fan connectors, each able to handle 12Watts of power-sucking fans and also monitor any 8 chosen hotspots in your rig, CPU, vidcards..etc. An alarm system also notifies you if any of the fans go kaput or if any of the hotspots reaches temperature above your specified safe level. And all that information is displayed on a cool LCD (at the time!) in real time so there's no memory hogging software to install.

As cool a product as it was, the DigiDoc still suffers some setbacks in it's design. First of all, many modders gives a boo-boo to the amber backlit LCD as we are all sick of green and amber and a blue backlit LCD was the only thing deemed worthy of any modified case! The 5.25" bracket design allows you to install a hard drive behind the unit to fully utilize the drive bay but with all the cables and a puny 40mm fan, installation is a tight squeeze and cooling is nothing to shout about. A lot of peeps were wondering why the position for the 40mm fan wasn't used for something else, like a USB/Firewire port instead. These are just some of the quirks but other companies take cue from there and soon, there was a myriad of other controllers/monitoring devices available that the DigiDoc simply got buried and forgotten.

But recently, MacPower revived the DigiDoc in it's latest reincarnation, the DigiDoc 5+. The old schoolers amongst us will rejoice at this but will the DigiDoc5+ delivers what it failed to do before? let's take a look shall we?

Specification

• Power source - any DC +12V (Standard 4 pin Molex Coneector)
• 0° - 90° Celcius (32° - 194° Fahrenheit)
• 8 temperature sensors
• Resistance - 0KOhm and 15KOhms
• Temperature sensor accuracy - ±1°
• No of fan connectors - 8
• Max power rating - 1 Amp or 12 watts per channel
• +5V and +12V monitoring

Package

Jab-tech.Com was kind enough to provide us with a review sample and when I took it out of the USPS parcel, I find the familiar DigiDoc package like before. But within the package, there are a few differences from the previous models.

• DigiDoc 5+ Unit
• User manual
• 8 x Temperature Sensors (6 flat/2bulb types)
• 8 x 3-pin to 4-pin fan converter cables
• 8 x fan power cables
• 1 x Power extension cable
• Firewire cable
• USB cables (1 to USB port, 1 to USB header on mobo)
• Mounting tapes and screws

It was a very nice surprise to see the DigiDoc 5+ had it's fan power cables all neatly bundled up in colour-coded sleevings unlike its' predecessor. This will definitely help you in managing your cable jungle in your case. They also provide the converter cables just in case your fans comes with a Molex connector instead of the 3-pin connector type. Another nice addition is the instruction manual which is well written, explaining to you the process of installing and setting up the DigiDoc 5+ from start to finish. Before this, the manual was only available with a CD-ROM. The manual also lets you record down your fan and temperature probes placement at the back of it so you'll never forget your setup

Lots of cables!

And yes, you read the specs correct.. there's USB and firewire cables included as Macpower has replaced the redundant 40mm fan with dual USB2.0 Ports and a Firewire Port. They also provided a USB cable which you can connect directly to the headers on your mobo. Nice touch since a lot of mobos now comes with extra USB headers on them.

Another nice change is that the temperature probes are also colour-coded to match the fan power cables. 6 of them are the flat types so you can use them on your CPU or GPU and the other two are bulb types and you can use them for your case temperature, ambient temp or your water temperature if you're using a watercooled rig.

We've seen the accessories that came with the DigiDoc 5+ so now let's take a closer look at the main unit itself.

<< Back to Reviews Page | Main Unit >>

 

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