|
Thermaltake Hardcano 2
Date Reviewed: April 30, 2002
Reviewed By: Jason
Cost: $29.99
Companies: Thermaltake
Installation:
Installation was very basic and easy. place the hard drive in the unit and
screw in the sides. As seen before, the 3pin-to-4pin power connector fits very tightly into the drive and
takes some careful handling
to remove. To avoid possible damage to your hard drive or other component you
might plug it inline with, I would suggest to play it safe and plug
it into an extra power connector if you have one in your system.
The unit only takes up a single 5 1/4 bay, there is no excess above or below
the unit (unlike some of the larger hard drive coolers that mount under the hard
drive). Having the 3 1/2 hard drive in a 5 1/4 bay gives it plenty of free space
for air to flow around the drive.
With one probe on the hard drive, I mounted the other probe on
the bottom of the CPU. Please note this isn't the tape that is included. I had
some other tape laying around that I prefer to use. The Hardcano probe is
pictured on the left under the CPU. Note how it can't be mounted directly in the
middle because the heatshrink tubing needs to clear the CPU pins. The other spot
on the bottom of the CPU is where the motherboard thermal probe touches, also
off center. The picture on the right is another thermal probe (CompuNurse) I have been using
for a while now, I had to take a sharp knife to clear away some excess
heatshrink tubing until it cleared the ceramic base of the CPU. I also used a
dab of super glue to hold it down, and also tape for good measure.
After mounting the drive in my computer you can see that it
doesn't exactly match the color scheme. Even though the front of the unit is
supposed to be aluminum, I'm not exactly sure how well it would match up with an
aluminum case. People with black or a custom painted case would also need to
take some serious consideration before buying one of these.
Testing:
I ran two separate tests to try out the different features of the HardCano 2.
The first test was to see how the thermal probe on the CPU did, and the second
was to test how well the fan cooled the hard drive.
To test the CPU differences, I recorded the motherboard's temperature probe
reading (which I use MBM5), the HardCano 2 temp probe reading, and the
additional temp probe that is on the top side of the CPU. Recordings were taken
for idle and load situations.
Idle - Windows Booted & Sitting Idle for 15 minutes
Load - Running Prime95 for 15 minutes
The CPU used was a 1.4GHz T-Bird @ 1.89v running on a KT7A-RAID motherboard
with a Thermaltake Volcano 7+ to cool CPU.
To test the Hard drive cooling I taped one of the HardCano's probe to the
bottom of the hard drive near the motor (which should be the hottest place).
Recordings were taken for idle and load situations.
Idle - Windows Booted & Sitting Idle for 15 minutes
Load - Running SiSoft Sandra HDD Benchmark for 15
minutes
The hottest place on the drive is obviously the drive motor, so that is where
I decided to mount the probe for these tests. I ran through each test twice,
with and without the cooler.
On To Page 3 For Temperatures
& Conclusion -->
|
eWeek is the essential technology information source for builders of e-business. Focuses on e-commerce, communications and Internet-based architecture.
Oracle Magazine contains technology-strategy articles, sample code, tips, Oracle and partner news, how-to articles for developers and DBAs, and more.
Dr. Dobb's Journal enables programmers to write the most efficient and sophisticated programs and help in daily programming quandaries.
InformationWeek is the only newsweekly you'll need to stay on top of the latest developments in information technology.
