Packaging:

*We do need to point out that on the box it has “Power Output: Up to 10w per Channel.” It also mentions 10w per channel in the instruction manual. This is wrong. It’s real power output is 20W per channel. This typo has been fixed in retail samples.*

Features:

• CNC-milled face plate from blocks of 3/4″ thick solid aluminum
• Bring out that full aesthetic appeal you always wanted in the 5.25 inch bay
• Four knobs to control four 3-pin connectors
• User’s choice of displaying Celsius or Fahrenheit for the bottom line readout

Specifications:

The Lamptron -FC6-:

Once we opened the box we finally got to see this beauty. We took everything out for a quick picture in order to show everything inside that you would get when you purchase this fan controller. Here are a few quick notes on the wires. The power connection extender is just under 10 inches. The fan connection extenders are about 20.5 inches long. The 4 temperature sensors are 32 inches from end to end. This should provide enough length to place the sensors anywhere you would like in a mid-size case.

Most skeptics out there have an idea that most fan controllers are wimpy, with cheap aluminum and/or plastic. For the FC6, this could not be further from the truth. You will find this out once you pick up this unit. It feels heavier than the other average fan controllers on the market and there is a very good reason why. This fan controller is CNC milled from blocks of 3/4″ thick solid aluminum.

This is solid craftsmanship. Nothing felt cheap or loose on the back of the PCB, and the fan connections are placed in the middle and labeled nicely for ease of use.  The power connection is placed in the top right out of the way. It is always a plus to have big connections and wires off to the side, however, Lamptron did put the temperature sensor connections under the power connection. We were curious as to why? There are a lot of other options they had and they chose that area. I guess we could let this slide for now, but maybe in the future they might consider looking into a new location for the temp sensor connections.

Setup and Installation:

The one thing that had us scratching our heads was the power connection which was an extremely tight fight with the power connector. We had to jam it on to the point of bending the PCB. We have noticed this on previous models as well. Hopefully you only have to plug it in once or twice, as we are not sure how much it could really take when using this kind of force.

Here is a look at one of the wires installed on a hard drive. A quick side note: the Lamptron FC6 does not come with tape so you will need to use your own. The temperature probe installs just as easily as any other probe you will use and takes very little time. Temperature probes are always nice to have around your system, especially if you are overclocking. You can install them on your RAM, North Bridge, CPU, inside your water cooling setup to know how hot your water is, and outside the case to gauge ambient temperatures. There are a lot of uses that can be very helpful to the average computer user and especially the more extreme overclocker.

With the FC6 installed into our testing case, you can see how great it looks matched with a solid black case. This fan controller adds a lot to the aesthetic look of the case.

Front Panel Display:

You can choose from a couple different readouts on the front panel display. It all really depends on what you want to look at.

• Alarm Status Display: The alarm is indicated by the alarm character
• Bottom Line Readout Mode Displays: Temperature Mode (Celsius and Fahrenheit) indicated in units of 0.1
• Fan Channels: Adjust the fan RPM’s with the corresponding switch (knob)
• RPM Display: RPM is displayed in units of 10 RPM for each channel, fans need sensor wires for this function to operate

The seven color options: (Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Purple, White)

The seven color choices are always nice. It gives you some options so that you aren’t stuck with one or two colors you may not like very much. The colors are vibrant and the display crisp, which is a big deal because there are some cheaply made fan controllers and other peripherals where you have to be at just the right angle to see what is on the screen. There is nothing like spending $40-$50 on something you can’t even read! However, with the FC6 you will not have to worry about that problem because Lamptron provides quality in this regard.

Conclusion:

The Lamptron FC6 receives the TechREACTION.net Silver Silicon Award!







You can purchase the Lamptron FC6 fan controller at Performance-PCs.
Thanks to Lamptron for the review sample.

• Compatible with K-, J-, T- and E- thermocouples (others should work but these are the recommended types)
• User programmable offsets
• Internal memory stores 100 sets of temperature readings that can be transferred to PC software
• Data logging software for real time testing (good for working with fan and component placement and viewing their effects in real time)
• Ability to export data sets from software in .xls format to do comparative studies and graphing

The graph capabilities of the 72-7712 software are not phenomenal, it does however serve the purpose. Though dual software readout (T1 & T2) would be preferred; the logging capacity and decent feature set, as well as an Excel export feature make up for the software weaknesses.

Thermocouple 1 reading

Thermocouple 2 reading

Thermocouple 1 - thermocouple 2 reading. Temperature difference. This screen is most effective when trying to move case temperatures closer to ambient room temperature.

Example of exported data to .xls format

Thermal conductivity of the heat sink material is an important factor in air cooling. Copper and aluminum are the most widely used materials in PC HSF (heat sink & fan) construction. The properties of these two materials are critical to proper cooling of the processor.

The Chart below shows the thermal conductivity of materials for comparison. The only three that matter for this testing are aluminum, copper and air (water and the other items may be of interest to those who like to get a little wet).

:More information about thermal conductivity and conductive heat transfer:

Some simple ideas for improving the PC enthusiast experience:

Checking the case for hot spots.

Keeping your entire case as close to ambient is probably the most important thing that can be done to keep the HSF operating at its maximum efficiency. A heat sink can not lower temperatures below case ambient and will usually level out 4-12 degrees centigrade above case ambient no matter how much money is spent on it.

By identifying hot spots, proper fan placement can be made. Though these areas may not seem relevant to CPU cooling; they are. Air circulating throughout the case creates eddies, (a current of air running contrary to the main current; especially: a circular current : whirlpool) which in turn, remain hot and by cross circulation make  air circulating around them heat up.

Working in a similar fashion to the eddy, dead zones (hot area where there is no mechanical air circulation) may seem harmless, it is critical to circulate or eliminate this air to alleviate convection (heat transfer in a gas by the circulation of currents from one region to another). For dead zones a fan may not be an option and directed air may be needed. If directed air is not possible then closing in/sectioning off this area may be the only option.

Knowing where the hot areas of the case are allows for fixes that otherwise would not be possible.

Testing for efficiency.

Methodology: Air can only dissipate a fixed amount of heat due to its low thermal conductivity. Having a material of higher thermal conductivity does not always mean better temperatures, but it does allow a potential for lower temperatures, depending on other contributing factors. Testing the two most common heat sink materials to see these differences helps gain an understanding of what the conductivity numbers really mean.

Copper and Aluminum heat sinks tested for conductivity.

Copper; 56.8 seconds to reach maximum efficiency with a variance of 3.9 degrees centigrade

Aluminum 59.8 seconds to reach maximum efficiency with a variance of 7.9 degrees centigrade

This is the point where temperatures stabilize and heat is dispersed through natural convection. This is not a scientific test as the blocks were not exactly the same and some variables were omitted. What it does show is that copper will transfer heat faster and more evenly.

A double boiler is used to allow for better temperature control

Test equipment and stop watch used (phone) for testing. A Tenma 72-8540 is used as a control.

The copper and aluminum heat sinks used for the test

A two minute test of both materials (copper and aluminum) showed a 3.7 degree centigrade variance, copper being hotter (this is good, it means it will draw that much more heat to be dissipated). It must be taken into consideration that these heat sinks did not have a fan and the variance would have been lower during operation.

The results of this test correlate directly to the previous test results.

Testing your Heat Sink and Fan assembly

Using an Arctic Cooling AF64 PRO

If the HSF is not equalizing temperatures within a reasonable variance or running 10+ degrees above ambient case temperature (check the temperature at the intake area of the HSF to eliminate the possibility of a hot spot causing the problem) then a re-seat of the HSF may be needed and possibly a replacement HSF of higher quality may be in order.

Using information gathered with a good temperature meter will help guide the process of lowering case temperatures and in turn allow for a cooler processor, memory and hard disk drive.

Shots of the 72-7712

All display elements

Temperature readout screen

Variance screen

Setup: Offset adjustment screen

Front view of meter showing controls

Conclusion

Using a dual probe temperature meter with capabilities comparable to the 72-7712 is a definite step up from the volt meter type single probe units that were used in the past. With the data logging capabilities and other features available with this unit it is much easier to maximize case cooling and potentially gain a few hundred MHz from a heat limited overclock.

With acceptable quality, useful software and features the 72-7712 makes an excellent addition to the tool box of the overclocker or small PC mod shop.

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/06/01/tenma-72-7712-dual-chanel-temp-probe-what-happens-with-tempratures-inside-a-pc/feed/ 4 http://www.techreaction.net/2010/04/14/review-cooler-master-690-ii-plus/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=review-cooler-master-690-ii-plus http://www.techreaction.net/2010/04/14/review-cooler-master-690-ii-plus/#comments Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:39:28 +0000 mav2000 http://www.techreaction.net/?p=6016 Introduction

Cooler Master’s current best seller, the CM 690 was initially launched in 2007 and has been one of their mainstays ever since then. The popularity of this chassis was such that it spawned a number of variants, amongst them a windowed version and later the pure version with an all black interior. The chassis was very simple in design and construction and what made it such a great product was that it was designed keeping a lot of the market requirements in mind.

With changing times and a lot of competition in the same price bracket, it was time for CM to look at a redesign of its current mainstay and that’s exactly what they have done. They worked on the relevant additions required in today’s market place and cam back with the CM 690 II advanced and the CM 690 II pure. The Pure is an Asia Pacific specific model and is a little less customizable than the Advanced, but it still retains most of the practicality and all of the looks of its more expensive sibling. So without wasting anymore time, lets start by taking a look at the features of the CM 690 II pure.

Available Color
Black

Material
Steel body / Plastic + Mesh bezel

Dimension (W / H / D)
214.5 x 511.8 x 528.8 mm / 8.4 x 20.1 x 20.8 inch

Weight
Net Weight: 9.56 kg / 21.08 lbs
Gross Weight: 11.56 kg / 25.49 lbs

M/B Type
Micro – ATX / ATX / Mini-ITX(supports)

5.25″ Drive Bay
4 (without the use of exposed 3.5”drive bay)

3.5″ Drive Bay
6 Hidden
1 Exposed (converted from one 5.25” drive bay)

I/O Panel
USB 2.0 x 2 , eSATA x 1 , MIC x 1 , Audio x 1 (supports HD / AC97 audio)
Expansion Slots
7 + 1

Cooling System
Front: 140 x 25 mm Blue LED fan x 1 / 1200 RPM / 19 dBA
Rear: 120 mm fan x 1 / 1200 RPM / 17 dBA
Top: 120 x 25 mm fan x 1 / 1200 RPM / 19 dBA (supports 120 / 140 mm fan x 2)
Bottom: 120 mm fan x 2 (optional)
Right side: 120 / 140 mm fan x 2 (optional)
Left side: 80 x 15 mm x 1 (optional)
HDD cage: 120 mm fan x 1 (optional)

Power Supply
Standard ATX PS2 / EPS 12V (optional)

As you can see, the cabinet is a bit bigger than the 690 and also has a slight change over the configuration of drive bays. Overall the extra room is a requirement of most modern mid to high end systems and CM has done the right thing by increasing the space available.

Unboxing and Accessories

The chassis come packaged in a nice glossy white cardboard box. The front of the box has an image of what you can expect inside.

The rear has some more pictures of the chassis with the main features highlighted. This helps uninformed customers to get a good idea of what they are buying.

As usual the chassis is covered in plastic and is saved from any major damage with the help of some styrofoam inserts on each side of the case. The packaging has been the same for quite some time now, and since it seems to work well, there is no reason to change it.

Now lets take a quick look at the accessories that come along with the case, before going on to the case itself. The accessories are packaged in a small brown box, which is securely tied into the chassis itself. The list is quite long and impressive for a cabinet of this price.

Starting from the left, we have a small metal bracket, which can be used to securely lock your chassis. Then we have a speaker and something that I have seen for the first time, a set of plastic fan holders, which by the way are extremely easy to use. There are also a small packet of zip ties for wire management, the 3.5″ bay adapter, various screws and stand offs and a 5.25″ to 3.5″ converter. They have also provided an extra fan filter, which can be used for the PSU if required. The cabinet also comes with an SSD holder, which we will look at later in the review. The motherboard screws are also black to go with the theme and this is a good touch.

The cabinet also comes with a manual, which will help first time builders to get going.

External Impressions

Lets start with the front panel. As you can see below, the front panel remains almost the same as the older 690, but the bottom has a more rounded look. Now, if we really look at it, I will not call this a negative, as the original 690 looks good even today.

Moving along to the left side, the panel looks exactly the same as the older 690, with only a small change in the fan placements. The rest of the panel is pretty bland, and I wish CM had done something here to spice it up. Even a logo like what they have on the HAF series would have helped, or a set of air ducts.

The right side of the case is pretty plain and there’s not much to see here. There is a small fan holder to take away heat from the cpu area and this is something which does help.

Moving along to the rear of the case, there are a few changes to note. Firstly, we have a set of water cooling holes, near the top of the chassis, instead of the right bottom. This will help those who do want to get into water cooling as its placed very conveniently as compared to the original 690. Secondly, the top again is a bit more rounded, to keep with the overall theme of the new case. Thirdly, we have an additional expansion slot on the side, which is very helpful for those who want to use a fan or led controller. And finally, CM seems to have done away with the plastic PCI-E slot holders. But lets leave that for when we look at the interiors.

This is also the first look at the paint job on this chassis and its extremely durable and has a wonderful matte finish, without looking dull.

Moving along to the top of the chassis, we have place here for up to 2 x 140 mm fans. Now what I realized is that the fans can be fit inside the cabinet, OR between the cabinet and the top panel. Now this will be very helpful for anyone looking to get some more space around the CPU socket area, or for a person looking to install a 240 mm rad up top.

The top also holds the I/O panel and we have the regular set of controls, plus a switch for the lights on the front fan. All the buttons have a solid feel to them and work with a nice click. The silver accents continue from the front and its a nice touch.

Lets not take a closer look at the interiors.

Interiors
The side panels are held in place with a pair of thumb screws. Once we take those of, we are greeted by the lovely black interior. I am sure that most of you will love and I am happy that CM decided to paint even the basic model with a black interior. I for one would have saved a couple of days if they had offered the same interior on my CM Sniper.

The manual and accessories box is kept inside the chassis and the box is secured well enough to make sure it does not move while shipping. Once we remove these, we can admire the full beauty of this cabinet.

So lets start with some basic observations about the interiors. The paint work is extremely durable and unless you try real hard, its a bit difficult to scratch. This is a well done machine finish with not a single blemish or bubble on it and CM have done a very good job of it.

Next, we have six HDD caddies, each with its own plastic retention bracket. I wish they had put in some more effort to dampen the HDD sound though. On the plus side, its a very easy to use and straight forward mechanism and much better than the ones on the previous 690.

The 5.25″ bays have a new locking mechanism, which also works quite well. But if you do plan to move your system around, make sure to use the included screws to secure the other side as well.

Moving on, we see six cable management holes in the motherboard tray, as well as a large hole behind the CPU area. This is very well thought out and gives any person the chance to get the most wire free finish with minimal work. there are also a couple of areas where you can use zip ties to hold down those massive cables behind the motherboard tray. The bottom has three ventilation points, one of which will be sued by the PSU. The second one can hold a 120 mm fan and the second and third together can be used for a 240 mm radiator if required. This should work extremely well with the new Swiftech MCR 220, since both the radiator and the pump can be fitted down here and then you only need tubes going to your CPU block. However this version does not have the removable HDD brackets, and so you would have to do a bit off work to get that done.

Looking at the top, this is where the 2 X 140 mm fans can be installed.

The chassis comes with one 120mm fan as part of the package.

Continuing with the fans, we see the rear fan, which again is a plain jane 120 mm with no LED’s and the front blue LED 120 mm fan. In the second picture, we can also see the cable management holes, and I wish CM had left a little more space between the motherboard tray and the rear panel to make it easier to hide the thicker cables.

Finally we take a closer look at the HDD caddy’s.

The one on the left will accommodate a normal 3.5″ HDD and the one on the right would be helpful to those who have invested in an SSD. The positive of this system is how easy it is to work with, but I wish there was a little more rubber to keep HDD vibrations down.

Lets move on to the last part of this review and the conclusion.

Final Installation and Conclusion

I sat down to install a couple of components in this case and was presently surprised. Cable management is a breeze and I probably finished installing the below components in around 25 minutes, with minimal fuss.

Well the surprise here is the motherboard, but leaving that aside for another day and another review, you can probably make out how much those holes help in keeping things tidy. A nice sleeved PSU would probably enhance the overall looks a lot more. Everything went in without a fuss and as you can see we can easily install a 5870 or any of the new GTX series from Nvidia.

The reason for no CPU and ram is that, thats a secret we are keeping for sometime later.

To end this review, lets take a short look at the main pros and cons:

Pros:

• Great price – Should be around 5k for this version and 5.5k for the Advanced version
• Great build and finish
• Well thought out cable management features
• Sufficient filters all around
• Radiator compatible
• LED switch
• You can install a total of 10 fans

Cons:

• Very similar to the 690 Pure
• Rear side panel should have had a bulge to help easier wire management

All in all, a great chassis but I would rather spend the extra Rs. 500 and get the advanced version. I expect the street price to be a bit lower than Rs. 5,000 once the initial hype ends.

The chassis will be available online as well as in shops around the 15th of this month.

This chassis has earned the TechReaction Gold Silicon Award

Also be sure to check out TestFreaks for more reviews on the Cooler Master 690 II.

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/04/14/review-cooler-master-690-ii-plus/feed/ 5 http://www.techreaction.net/2010/03/27/tech-station-a-story-of-a-wooden-beast/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tech-station-a-story-of-a-wooden-beast http://www.techreaction.net/2010/03/27/tech-station-a-story-of-a-wooden-beast/#comments Sat, 27 Mar 2010 06:44:07 +0000 The Duke http://www.techreaction.net/?p=5185 Awhile back, I was doing a review and I had to keep taking my main computer off my desk and setting up a make-shift tech station. Although this worked fine, and I had no problems with it, it was very annoying. After the review was done, I started coming up with ideas of a tech station wonderland. Something that would and could do anything and everything I wanted it to do. I wanted it to be able to handle anything I threw at it, water or air. With all that in mind, I thought about it for a few days. Finally, I wandered out to the garage to see what tools I had and made sure I had most everything I needed. Much to my surprise, I did! A quick side narrative about my garage is that it is known to eat things, only to reappear after you go out and buy a new item to replace the one you lost. Haunted? I don’t think so, but it does have a sense of humor I must say.

Moving on from the garage with a sense of humor… Once I noticed I had everything I needed, for the most part, I sat down with some note cards. If you have followed any of my work, you will know I love my note cards! If you have not followed any of my work, you should be ashamed of yourself. Yep, I said it, ashamed! Anyway, as I was saying, I sat down with some note cards. After about 5-10 setup sketches, I was finally piecing everything together that I liked and wanted for my tech station. Once that was done, I finally came to the sketched conclusion of how I imagined the tech station in my head.

Above is the notorious sketch that started it all. Please control yourself! I know I am an amazing artist, Picasso Jr. some say.  With the sketch done, all I could think about was when would I be able to go to Lowe’s and buy my supplies. I lost a little sleep over thinking about how I wanted it to look and the little details of the case. Yes, I lost sleep, I was pretty excited about this project so leave me alone.

I finally got time a few days later to head to Lowe’s and pick up all my wood and supplies. A monumental occasion? I like to think so. Well, 3 hours later I came stumbling out of Lowe’s with everything I needed. After speeding home, I got to work drawing up some of my first cut-outs for the following day.

The above was the first of many sketches I finished waiting to be cut. However, this was one of two main pieces and was going to be noticeable since it was going on top. The other piece will be revealed later on.

With a lot of the main cutouts finished, I like to think my tech station was happy with the progress.

After a lot of thought, I came up with this type of font for it. It took a lot of talking  and thinking about before finally settling on this, which is the second main piece of the case. It actually turned out better than I was expecting, imagine that.

Once everything was finally cut out, about a week later. Everything needed to be painted, and paint I did. The wood consumed about six cans of red, seven cans of white, and about ten or eleven cans of primer. It was a hungry wooden beast indeed.

The picture above is only one of the first attacks with paint after the primer was finished. There were oh so many more to come. I did not imagine this wood could take so much paint and keep on laughing at me…well, it did and it sure was annoying. Finally, after about 6-7 coats of read and white, the wood surrendered and I could finally move on!

Here is the first installation of wood. It was a great day when everything was ready to start being pieced together! It was also exciting seeing the colors I picked work so well with each other. If they had looked atrocious, I would of been S.O.L. at this point. Then I would have had an ugly tech station, and who wants that? Not me!

After installing the white boards on the first level, I just had to put the second level red piece on to see how it would look. I was really impressed with it, and seeing it shine like that in the sun was even greater. So back to work I went to get it even closer to being finished!

With one of the two main pieces finally installed, this tech station is taking some shape. I was extremely pleased with how well it looked once it was installed.

Now take a gander at the rolls of tape. Here are sixty yards worth of tape. The beast ate my painters tape like it ate my paint. It took about an hour straight to tape up all the white so I could begin the touch-ups with the red.

The touch-ups are done and this is what the back looks like. I cannot wait to finally use the 4×120 radiator rack that I put in. That will be another great day!

Now that everything is done. The real brilliance of the tech station shines through when I assemble a mock setup to see how it will look when I finally test my first piece of hardware.

Final resting place:

Final Thoughts:

Need I say more?

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/03/27/tech-station-a-story-of-a-wooden-beast/feed/ 3 http://www.techreaction.net/2010/03/14/230%c2%b0-celsius-for-a-8800gtx/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=230%25c2%25b0-celsius-for-a-8800gtx http://www.techreaction.net/2010/03/14/230%c2%b0-celsius-for-a-8800gtx/#comments Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:47:56 +0000 carpo93 http://www.techreaction.net/?p=5207 Done by the user Liquid Cooling

LiquidCooling had a broken 8800 gtx that shows artifact and he read that if you bake an 8800 gtx, you can remove this problem.

So he tried:

Unfortunately the card did only one boot after the bake session and could pass a 3dmark 06 before dieing again.

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/03/14/230%c2%b0-celsius-for-a-8800gtx/feed/ 1 http://www.techreaction.net/2010/01/31/review-lamptron-fc3-limited-edition/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=review-lamptron-fc3-limited-edition http://www.techreaction.net/2010/01/31/review-lamptron-fc3-limited-edition/#comments Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:22:09 +0000 The Duke http://www.techreaction.net/?p=3551 Over the weekend we had Lamptron deliver their Limited Edition FC3 fan controller to us. The limited edition FC-3 designed by Ian Helmar, otherwise known as “SNiiPE_DoGG”, comes in two different versions. There is a Model A and a Model B, each with some distinct aesthetic differences. Today we are going to be reviewing the model A. Below are some shots of the two versions that we found on Lamptron’s website that should help illustrate the differences:

*These are not to be mistaken for the standard Lamptron -FC3- version below:*

Like we said before, we have the Model A version here today to review, so let’s get to it!

*UPDATE January 31st*

We just received new pictures from Lamptron showing off their new FC3 Limited Edition box design. As I said below they were still in the process of finalizing it and now it is complete. Here are the new pictures:

As you can see there is a noticeable difference in the designs. It will have the picture of the model A or B design, depending on which version you buy. It has ‘Limited Edition’ printed in the top right to help make it stand out from the normal FC3 unit. They also took the background out from behind the fan controller so that nothing will take your eyes away from the amazingly designed limited edition fan controller.

*Below are pictures of the regular FC3  from Lamptron. Now you can see for yourself the difference in box designs.*

*January 31st update complete*

Specifications:

• Dimensions: 5.25″ Bay / 150mm*43mm*80mm
  Max Power: Up to 30W per Channel
• Control Channel: 4 Channels
• DC Input: +12v (Standard 4- Pin Connector
• DC Output: 0v-12v DC
• LED Indicator: 4*Blue LED
• Fan Connectors: 4 Pieces
  Colors Available: Black Anodized Aluminum

Features:

• CNC milled from blocks of 3/4″ Thick Solid Aluminum
• Normal Output 30W Each Channel
• Four 3-pin Fan Connections on Backside
• LED Brightness is Controlled by RPM Knob

Colors Available: Black Anodized Aluminum

You may have noticed the same thing we did once we got the package for the limited edition FC3. It is the normal box for the non-limited edition FC3. Maybe they are still working on a sweet limited edition box for it? Either way, it’s just a box, am I right? And it’s all about what’s on the inside, and what is on the inside of this box is something magnificent in fan controller standards!

When we opened the box and we finally got to see this beauty. We also took everything out for a quick picture to show everything inside that you would get when you purchase this fan controller. Here are a few quick notes on the wires. The power connection extender is just under 10 inches. The fan connection extenders are about 20.5 inches long. Both should give you ample length in connecting most everything you want in your case.

Most skeptics out there have an idea that most fan controllers are wimpy, with cheap aluminum and/or plastic. For this guy, this could not be further from the truth. You will find this out once you pick up this unit. It feels heavier than the other average fan controllers on the market and there is a very good reason why. This fan controller is CNC milled from blocks of 3/4″ thick solid aluminum. Now, for the ‘naysayers’ out there, we bet you are saying, “OK, but I bet that mesh grill behind the design is just thrown in there and will rattle around and make all sorts of noise.” Hey guess what? Wrong again! The mesh grill behind the design is bolted down to the frame. We even tried to move it with a flat head screwdriver just to test it out and it did not budge! Now that you are 0-2 in your false claims about this product, you start to act out in frustration. “I bet they spent all their money on fabrication and design and just threw on cheap .05 cent knobs to make up for it.” And once again you would be wrong, bringing the count to 0-3! We tested the knobs on this device thoroughly. We tried turning them too hard and pulling on them to see if the knob would pop off. We pushed them from side to side. We were defeated by the FC3 once again. The knobs are rock solid and they did not budge at all!

When we take a look at the back end of the Lamptron -FC3- Limited Edition, we can see a very simplistic design. It is everything you need with nothing you don’t. With this effective layout, there is a lot less chance that something could get broken off while installing your connections to it. You can see they perched all 4 fan connections and the power connection along the back for extremely easy access! With the 4-pin power connection sitting off the end of the device, it makes it easier to connect multiple components above and below it.  Especially if you have more than one 4-pin connection you need to plug in.

Let’s move on to the installation of the FC3 into our test case to see how it looks. It was a very simple to install using the 4 screws that came with it.

Once we installed it, the beauty of this product started shining through. In the pictures above, you can see how nicely it fits into the bay drive. Also, in the bottom picture we turned out the lights and you can see the back lit LED’s shining through. A very cool thing about those LED’s are that they get brighter when you apply more volts to your fans. As you can see, knob 1 is extremely bright (12v) and knob 4 is off (0v). We adjusted each knob to a different voltage to show off the range of brightness on the LED lights. This is another welcomed addition put into the fan controller from Lamptron, but we would expect nothing less from this very solid product.

Final Thoughts:

With Lamptron’s promise of 30 watt channels, we went digging for a formula to help us out. We found this: “To get the watts, multiply the amps times the volts. IE: 10 amps at 120 volts is 1200 watts.” Using our example formula, in theory, we could hook up 8.3 of our .3 amp fans (.3amps x 12volts = 3.6watts). With each fan pushing 3.6w, guess what? We hooked eight .3amp fans up (28.8watts) and, not surprisingly, this fan controller held up to the test. Even though we did not reach 30watts, it was still impressive to have 8 fans controlled by one turn of a knob.  The fabrication of this fan controller is top notch! Everything on the face plate was extremely solid and well put together. With all 5 connections installed straight out of the back of the fan controller it allowed for easy installation and removal of the wires. This comes in very handy when you are working in small spaces. This product was built to last, and last it shall, with the great craftsmanship that went into building these units.

You can purchase the Lamptron FC3 here at Performance-PCs (non-LE).

The Lamptron FC3 LE has earned the TechREACTION Gold Silicon Award!

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/01/31/review-lamptron-fc3-limited-edition/feed/ 2 http://www.techreaction.net/2010/01/12/review-lamptron-fc5-fan-controller/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=review-lamptron-fc5-fan-controller http://www.techreaction.net/2010/01/12/review-lamptron-fc5-fan-controller/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:55:35 +0000 The Duke http://www.techreaction.net/?p=3119 Today we will be taking a look at the new Lamptron [FC5] Fan Controller.

Specifications:

• Dimension: 148.5mm * 42.5mm * 77mm (5 1/4 Bay)
• Power Output: Up to 30W per channel
• DC Input: + 12V (standard 4 – Pin Connector)
• DC Output: 0V – 12VDC
• Control Channels: 4 pcs
• Changeable Display Colors: Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Purple, White
• Temperature Sensors x4
• Fan Connectors: 4 (3 pin) connections
• Manual x1
• Power Connectiong (4pin) x1
• Colors Available:  Black Anodized / Silver (must choose color when purchasing, does not come with interchangeable displays)
• Alarm Setup Function
• RPM Display: RPMs are displayed in units of 10 for each channel
• Celsius and Fahrenheit modes

Overview

From the pictures above, you can see exactly what you get from ordering the Lamptron. It comes in a nice compact box with a window cut out of the top to give it the ’stylish’ factor which is a nice touch if the product is on store shelves as it is very eye catching. With the outside appearance of the box, they also have labeled the specifications and some important features. With this information printed on the box, it takes a lot of the guessing game out of buying it and you have a really good idea of what you are going to get.

Once you dive into the Lamptron package, you can see just how well it is packed. It is very nice and secure with nothing moving or bouncing around. This attention to detail decreases the chances of anything being broken upon arrival. I would even go so far as to say the packaging could withstand a couple of the infamous soccer matches at the UPS facilities. Once you take everything out of the box, you can see the level of quality you will receive when you pick up the Lamptron.

The construction of the fan controller is solid aluminum, which will give it higher durability. The Lamptron will be able to take the normal bumps and bruises that it will undergo throughout its life. You can see all the connectors that come with the Lamptron. The 4 temperature sensors are 32 inches from end to end. This should provide enough length to place the sensors anywhere you would like in a mid-size case, and you should have a good chance with fans in the monstrous full tower cases that are available today. The 3 pin fan connectors are 20.5 inches from end to end. Adding the 20.5 extra inches to the fan connectors which are already present will give you enough length to connect to most fans in your case.

Setup and Installation:

I installed one power connection, temperature monitor, and fan control wire just so you can see how nice and neat it looks. Each different item has its own section on the back to help eliminate the clutter of wires. The temperature monitor wires are tucked into the middle side section with the power connection just under them. The fan control wires are spread out across the bottom, which is also nice since this keeps them from creating more of a mess. With the way they are installed, it should reduce most of the congestion of wires. Everything snaps into place as you would expect and it is extremely easy and quick to install the connections you want.

Here is a look at one of the wires installed on a hard drive. A quick side note: the Lamptron FC5 does not come with tape so you will need to use your own. The temperature probe installs just as easily as any other probe you will use and takes very little time. Temperature probes are always nice to have around your system, especially if you are overclocking. You can install them on your RAM, North Bridge, CPU, inside your water cooling setup to know how hot your water is, and outside the case to gauge ambient temperatures. There are a lot of uses that can be very helpful to the average computer user or the most extreme overclocker.

Front Panel Display:

You can choose from a couple different readouts on the front panel display. It all depends on what you really want to look at.

• Alarm Status Display: The alarm is indicated in the upper top left section of the display. When the alarm jumper is activated in temperature mode, if the temperature gets up to 70 Celsius, it will start buzzing. In voltage mode, if the fans are not running when the voltage is over 6.5v, it will begin buzzing.
• Bottom Line Readout Mode Displays: Temperature Mode (Celsius and Fahrenheit) or Voltage Mode (indicated in units of 0.1)
• Fan Channels: Adjust the fan RPMs with the corresponding switch (knob)
• RPM Display: RPM is displayed in units of 10 RPM for each channel, fans need sensor wires for this function to operate

The 7 color displays and 3 optional bottom row settings:

The colors, for the most part, are nice, clean and crisp. The purple color seemed blurry to look at, which was interesting, to say the least, because in the picture, it came out very clear. I thought I was going cross-eyed for a minute. A few of the colors, for example white, seem to be a little too bright and ended up illuminating the back panel which causes you to see the backdrop of ‘8’s’ like in the picture. The yellow seems to be more of a greenish yellow than anything, but the other colors more than make up for it with their quality.

If you look at the red picture, you can see that the Celsius option is set ‘on’ under fans 3 and 4. Fan 3 was placed on the CPU and fan 4 was placed outside the case for ambient temperature readings. The temperature probes do a very nice job reading temperatures and the update interval is extremely fast. You will know instantly if something is overheating, which is always good for overclockers. The green picture shows off the Fahrenheit option under fans 3 and 4. They have the same setup as the red picture with fan 3 on the CPU and fan 4 outside the case for ambient temperatures. The voltage readings seem to be on target with the manufacturer’s fan specs when working at 100%. As you can see, there are 3 fans plugged in and running at 3 different speeds and volts. From the RPM readings, fan 1 was maxed out at 100% and with 5200rpms, and WOW that thing screams! It was also popping up over 12v every now and then to about 12.3v. Fan 2 and 3 were set at mixed settings to show the variations of readings that the Lamptron can dish out.

Conclusion:

The Lamptron FC5 was very impressive. With all of the options and features you can choose from this did not come as a surprise. The 7 colors is a nice touch giving everyone a color they can like or could use to match the scheme of their case. The sleek looking black aluminum version that got reviewed here would be a great visual addition to anyone’s case whether it is modded or not.

The fan controller is an invaluable addition to any system nowadays.  The Lamptron allowed me to run my fans at maximum speed when I needed the cooling, for example, when trying to reach a particular overclock.  After the fun is over, I have the ability to turn down the fans for quiet operation and power savings. This fan controller gives you a great deal of customization in finding the right balance of fan speeds, in regards to noise and cooling, that makes your system work for you.

On a side note, my 4th 3 pin fan connector came without a 3 pin connection and just bare wires on one end, so i did not get to test the 4th spot. Another thing, not a big deal at all, but it did not come with tape for the temperature probes. I was expecting some tape to make the install go faster, but I just had to dig around to find my own tape. Either way, the tape was not a big deal as it was an easy fix so I can not hold that against them. The one feature that I think needs more attention on the Lamptron FC5 is that all the customization options and jumpers are located on the back. You know what that means! Every time you want to change the color or change between Celsius and Fahrenheit you have to pull the side panels off and unscrew it from the bay to be able to pull it out and fix the jumpers to the settings you would like. However, on a positive swing, it does keep the front fascia very sleek and clean looking without distracting from the sheer beauty of the Lamptron FC5.

Overall, this is a very, very solid product. It fulfills its claims and sometimes more. It was nice to see all the extra goodies that were added to this edition of a fan controller and the colors were crisp and clean. One thing I did notice was that the installation manual could use a revision, because I found several errors in spelling and grammar. For a product that will be used around the  world, more attention needs to be given to the details like that so it does not reflect negatively upon the company. But, that is just me nitpicking, because it was very hard to find anything wrong with this extremely, well assembled and well thought-out product.

Performance-PCs has the Lamptron FC5 for $54.95 which makes it competitive with other high-end fan controllers while truly trouncing most other drive-bay LCD displays.

The Lamptron FC5 has earned the TechREACTION Gold Silicon Award!

Thanks to Lamptron for the review sample.

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/01/12/review-lamptron-fc5-fan-controller/feed/ 2 http://www.techreaction.net/2009/12/26/apevia-x-qpack-gigabyte-p55m-ud4-uatx-build/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=apevia-x-qpack-gigabyte-p55m-ud4-uatx-build http://www.techreaction.net/2009/12/26/apevia-x-qpack-gigabyte-p55m-ud4-uatx-build/#comments Sun, 27 Dec 2009 03:52:08 +0000 Buckeye http://www.techreaction.net/?p=2955 Allways in the upgrade cycle it seems.

A popular case that my friends like to use is the Apevia X-QPack uATX line and we have built many of these. So I will be working with this case and upgrading a prebuilt system that was completed months ago.

Apevia makes three lines of the uATX series, the X-Qpack, X-Qpack2 and X-Qboii which is a uATX tower.
You can see that they come in a wide range of colors too pick from.

www.apevia.com/Products_Level3.asp?CID=1&CID2=2&CID3=0
www.apevia.com/Products_Level3.asp?CID=1&CID2=2&CID3=1
www.apevia.com/Products_Level3.asp?CID=1&CID2=2&CID3=2

The unit I will be rebuilding is based on the X-Qpack, but I also have a new X-Qpack2 here that I will show later on.

You can see that they come with a slide out motherboard tray and come with a Power Supply installed which is generally powerful enough to handle most builds that would go in one of these cases. Packaging and quality of the case construction is pretty high, all though the sheet metal used is a little soft and can be bent rather easy.

Here are a few pictures of the new X-Qpack2 I have here.

Parts list for this build will be:
Gigabyte P55M-UD4 uATX mother board
Intel Core I7 860
Corsair XMS3 4gig 1600 9-9-9-24
EVGA 9600 GSO 512 graphics card
Thermaltake Silent 1156 CPU cooler
Parts to be reused are
2x 1TB WD Green series HD’s
1 Sony DRU-820A DVD drive
The old power supply was a Antec 350watt

Requirements for this build is it will be used as a work computer so no high end graphics cards used, it must make as little noise as possible, and be able to play HD movies from time to time. This will be your general purpose web surfing, and office application build.

So starting off with the rebuild I took out the old motherboard which was a cheap Intel MB and we used an older QX6700 CPU that I had laying around. The CPU was pretty much a waste for this build but it was what I had on hand at the time when I built this months ago.

So I begin by take taking out the old mother board

And now installing the Gigabyte P55M-UD4, RAM and Graphics Card

It’s a pretty tight fit but it all goes in. I had to remove the top plate on the GPU to provide enough clearance for everything to slide in.

Now time to install the heat sink. This was to be a real challenge to get this to fit in the case as it is rather tall for a build in this case, so let’s see how everything came together.

Compared to a large Mega Shadow

Down inside you can see there is not much room.

But now I had another problem, the fan housing on the heat sink was too high and interfered with the power supply placement.

The heat sink could not be rotated 180 degrees as then the heat pipes on the heat sink would interfere again with the power supply. So what I ended up doing was to take of the fan housing which was a simple bracket, lower the fan and use a good old zip tie to hold the fan in place. It did not have to be lowered a whole lot and should still provide enough air flow into the heat sink to keep things cool as this build was not going to have a high over clock on it so all should be good.

Another problem came up again, this time with the old power supply. At first I was unsure what the problem was, I would fire up the computer and it would start and even get a ways into the boot up then shut off. At first I thought that I had not seated the heat sink on correctly and the CPU was over heating forcing a shut down. So with great pain I removed the heat sink and reseated the CPU, then the heat sink and tried again, believe me that taking off the heat sink was no easy task as there is very little room to reach in and turn the hold down screws. But the same problem happened again and again.

So now thinking that the power supply was the problem I removed the old Antec unit and plugged in my benching PSU and everything worked fine. As luck would have it we had a bran new Corsair 450watt unit that was a perfect fit, in fact it fit better as it was not so long. Now the machine was up and running fine.

The OS to be installed was a OEM Win 7 32bit and as usual that went very fast and no need for driver install as Win 7 takes care of that just fine. I really do like Win 7 for its fast install and no need for driver disks anymore. The only driver needed was for the EVGA 9600 GSO which I downloaded from Nvidia’s website and install, no reboot needed and bingo a full system up and running in about 15 minutes.

Another gadget that I show here is our ZombieTek LCD display. You can check out the blog I did on this over at http://www.techreaction.net/2009/12/26/zombietek-lcd-display/

Now I began tuning the over clock and making sure that everything would work fine with no issues. One of the possible problems with builds like this and cramming so much inside the small case is heat issues. What I do is decided on a moderate over clock and see how the unit performs running Prime95. These cases do tend to run a little warmer than big tower cases so care must be taken that a good solid running system is setup so I don’t get a call later on… Hey Bill this units keeps shutting down, what’s up ??

I ended up with a 3.0ghz OC which was not much more than a stock setup but temps became an issue if went to 3.2ghz. Normal use the 3.2ghz OC would have been fine as Prime95 stresses the machine far more than what I would expect this user to ever do, but I prefer to keep some safety margins in my builds so I backed down the over clock to a safer level. One of the things I really like about the Gigabyte P55M-UD4 and I7 860 is that you can under volt the CPU and still be very stable, stock setting was 1.256 vcore and I was able to drop that to 1.150vcore and give it a slight over clock and still be very stable and lower power usage.

So at 3.0ghz and 1.150vcore I ran Prime95 for over a day and everything was fine, temps were a bit warmer than I would like but ended up at about 60c with it being stress with Prime, normal temps were high 30’s to 40 which is not bad considering all the stuff crammed inside this small case.

Full well knowing that this was not a benching rig I ran a few benches just for grins.

And the final over clock

So doing a uATX build in a small case can be a real challenge when deciding on hardware to install. The X-Qpack is a great case to build on as it has small size, takes up little desk space and makes for a great work station. Using the new I7 line of CPUs can be a problem though with 4 cores and 8 threads all firing away they tend to get pretty warm. When I ran this CPU at a 3.4ghz OC and Prime temps would get to the 80’s which is rather warm, even at this temp range it Primed for over 4 hours nice and stable, but this is clearly to warm. Backing down the OC for a work station that will not be doing any gaming or demanding applications is a wise thing to do so no problems pop up later on, even in the 60’s range I feel it’s a bit to warm but knowing that this machine will never be stressed like this I feel its ok. Maybe a better heat sink might be used and if so we can mod that in later on, but for now I think this one will work fine.

Gigabyte mother boards come with great power saving features which is one of the main reasons I like these mother boards, and they have high quality construction, run very stable, and the ones I have tested and used just simply do not have any problems. They come loaded with features which make them a great value for a mother board.

I have also built many of the X-Qpack case builds and really enjoy building a computer based on these cases. They look really nice and provide a nice small package that works well with many builds.

Here is a WHS I built on one of these cases, packed with an old AMD 4200+ CPU and 4x WD 750gb hard disks. This unit can be shoved out of the way and it just keeps on ticking.

Hope you enjoy reading about this build

After seeing these units at Reachtech.com who manufactures these units in all different sizes and specifications I thought to myself that one of these units would be a great MOD to show computer data on the front of my TJ07 that I had just built. With the help from my friend Jeff I managed to get a unit from Steve over at Reachtech, both of whom are great guys and friends that I have known for some time.

The 4” LCD Display has a fully programmable SLCD6 controller with touch screen and the ability to upload programs and graphics, and talk to the computer through a USB port.

This is the unit I started out with to give you an idea of what these look like.

Starting with this I began to mock up what I thought the screens should look like. As I was extremely busy at that time I happened to come across a really good graphic artist Ross Fairbanks of GUIMagic who has done a large amount of work with Windowblinds. We exchanged ideas and came up with the very first set of screens that would show CPU usage, CPU temps, Fan Speeds and a Clock. These were the basic building blocks of the project and later changed to better fit programing problems and new ideas.

The project was begging to take shape now, this is the first screen.

Uploading this image to the LCD to seeing what this would actually look like. It looked very, very good so we dove into this and began to add more features.

Mocking this up in a bezzel and fitting it to the front of the TJ07

everything is great so far and looking good. Jeff ran into a programer by the name of  Craig Williamson who worked his magic and helpped get this unit up and running so it would animate the images and talk to a computer through a USB port and get all the vital data needed to display on the LCD.

As a test I installed the unit on my benching setup and it worked great.

Now with a working unit we began to look at cases or bezzels to mount the LCD into. Jeff managed to pick up a Garman GPS unit and we took out the display from that and installed ours into it. This looked really good and was just what we had been looking for. However having a injection mold setup made so we could make our own cases was rather costly and way out of our price range for this project.

Later Jeff had a simple plastic stand made up that worked well and easy for us to have made.

We still have lots of  loose endso complete this project but it stands right now it is  fully functional unit that can display CPU Usage, CPU Temps, Fan Speeds, RS Feeds and a Clock. Some of the data that is used to display on this comes from Everest and we can configure our own app to show a few different things like GPU temps or a mix of GPU and CPU temps and different fan speeds from what ever is installed in the computer. Different screens can be shown by pressing the buttons at the bottom of the screen to show what ever you want to display.

Around this time ZombieTek was born.

This unit works really well and would be great for a modding project, custom built computer case or other projects. Some features that we still need to work on is displaying more than 4 CPU cores and the number of Cores has grown a great deal from when we started this project. Other features that we had in mind were to include a skinnable graphics library so a user could upload different back grounds. Much of this would take a fair amount of time to do so that has been pretty much put on hold for now.

Here is a few examples of splash screens that could be used, really what ever you wish could be uploaded here. These are a few branded screens.

Now I am starting to wonder if I even have anything worth tinkering with. It is looking very doubtful at this moment in time! So I wonder out into the garage to watch the massive Texas snow storm. Yes, it snows in Texas maybe once a year and our state will completely shut down.


Anyways, I am sitting there and remember when we last moved I had some old stuff I had no room for and put it all in the attic. What stuff you ask? Well I had no idea it has been years and I put it up there and have not given it a second thought. Now that I remember that I turned into a kid in a candy shop. What could possibly be up there? I have no idea maybe a power supply I could use on a test rack. Could there possibly be another motherboard or 2 just tossed aside like a child’s doll collection when they grow older. Maybe there are sticks of RAM, heck, maybe there are enough components to build another computer. Oh the joy of thinking of all this was almost too much to handle. I bundled up like I was going to climb Mount Everest. As you may have figured out, since it maybe snows once a year in Texas we are not cold weather people! I look ready to take on temperature of -50 degrees. So I start the climb into the attic. The ladder creaking as if it was going to snap at anytime. I don’t think the ladder was a fan of the cold either. I finally get to the top and start tossing stuff around not really knowing what I am looking for. I spend about 20 minutes going through a lot of boxes to find all my goodies when I see in that back (of course it is always in the back, just like all the movies you see) there was something wrapped in a blanket. My heart sank because I was pretty sure I just found what I thought I had lost long ago. It was like finding the lost city of Atlantis. I unwrapped the blanket and since it had been there for so long I got attacked by years worth of dust and dirt. Not too thrilling hacking up a lung in blizzard conditions, but what can ya do? So I finally get this puppy unwrapped and low and behold it was the first major modded case I had ever done!

I took this case ….

and turned it into ….

It took about 3 months or so from start to finish on this case. It was the first major overhaul of a case I had ever done, like i said before. Back when I got my inspiration for the case I was in the rodeo scene. On a full ride to college for Saddle Bronc and wanted something to mark the occasion. Now that I have found it I feel I can no longer abandon it and it needs something to do. I feel compelled to let it live out its days as a proud champion of all cases in this house. It can hold its head up high, thats easy because it stands almost 3 1/2 feet tall, and know it once was and now still is the champion in this house. So today I go onwards in finding a nice system I can toss into this case and let it do what it does best, amaze my friends and family. When they see it they know exactly what it means to me and are amazed that it was my first case to ever be done like that.