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Installation & Testing
Test System
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Pentium 4 3gig 800Mhz FSB w/Swiftech MX478-V cooler
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Abit IC7 MAX 3 Motherboard
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Corsair XMS4000Pro DDR RAM
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ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128M video card
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(2) Western Digital 7200rpm 120gig hard drives
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Audigy 2 Platinum sound card
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Plextor 708A DVD-RW
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Lite-on 52X CD-ROM
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Mitsumi 7-in-1 card reader
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Musketeer I System Dynamics Monitor
If you can’t tell by
the shopping list of parts I have here, I did run into problems getting
power to everything. I ended up having to use a 1-to-3 power splitter in
order to get everything functional. Once again, My Mitsumi card reader
required screws, as it did not play well with the tool free system. That
seems to be a problem with any tool free system, as I don’t think the
Mitsumi was built quite to standard and has not fit a tool free system yet.
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**click to enlarge** |
**click to enlarge** |
The front bay covers are
secured by two screws each…an interesting touch for a tool free case. There
are also a pair of ‘bumps’ on each side to help secure the plate in place,
but tend to get in the way of installing the front bezel over already
installed drives. So make sure you install the bezel first, and then slide
the drives in.
**click to enlarge**
The chassis connectors were
run out of a hole on the right side of the case next to the hard drive bays.
That meant that if you installed them as is, they’d end up strung all over
the middle of your rig. I pulled them out and ran them around the other side
of the case, and fed the lines through the little slot under the motherboard
and it worked great.
**click to enlarge**
When I fired up the
Centurion 5 the first time, I finally found out what color the front LEDs
were…Blue! It all matched the
Musketeer as well as the overall look of the case very nicely. Cooler
Master also informed me that the LEDs are always blue, regardless of what
color the body of the case is. Just for kicks, I set it up atop our
Xide-Base as well.
So,
here are our test numbers...
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Ambient |
Idle |
Load |
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26ºC |
26ºC |
27ºC |
Obviously, the vent
style front bezel combined with the 120mm exhaust fan can really move a lot
of air. My Swiftech MCX478-V also posted some very strong numbers due to the
lower temperature of the case air.
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