Matrix Orbital MX214 - The New & Improved MX2

Bundled Software

The mini CD includes a web-based interface that contains everything you need including the bundled software applications, help topics and guides.

LCDC

Our display came bundled with LCDC version 1.05 build 26.   This is said to be an improved version of LCDC that is more user-friendly.  We have had problems with previous versions so we hope there is an improvement.

Installation is simple and a window will popup finding all available displays and allowing you to optionally setup a default pattern of sample screens to use with the display.

Just like the previous versions, you have you small menu window where you can stop/start your display, configure and test your display and build your own custom screens.   From here, you will also be able to view available plug-ins and whether or not they are active or inactive. 

There is a nice Auto Detect feature in the configuration start screen that does a good job and detecting your display, simplifying setup.  Brightness and Contrast adjustments can be made from here as well.   You also have access to the program configuration settings from this section.

LCDC can be used as an email checker as well.  You can setup multiple accounts and check them at a specified interval.  Unfortunately, the lowest you can go is every 5 minutes.  I always prefer to have my mail checked every minute so we hope that a future build will allow you to do so.  We liked the option that is available to change the sys tray icon when new mail is available.  You have five icons to choose from.   The plugin section will display all available plugins and you can select or deselect any of the pre-installed ones.

Also new in LCDC is support for the advanced features of the new MX2 display.  These include fan control and temperature monitoring.  In order to use the fan headers to power your fans, you'll need to make sure you run the display in high power mode and connect a floppy power connector to the white power header on the back of your display.  The jumper to run on high power is right above the power header as shown above.  It will probably already be set this way so you will only need to connect the floppy power cable to the display.  We connected a 3 pin fan to one of the headers and played with the fan control settings to see if it would run the fan at lower speeds.  This new feature worked well and we were impressed both with the display and software.  The only thing I found is that sometimes it would momentarily stop the fan when the system was restarted.   Not sure if there are additional settings that need to be made to prevent this, but my recommendation is use this feature with your case fans only.  Do not plug your CPU fan to one of the headers.  It is always a good idea to maintain your CPU fan at its normal operating speed at all times.  Overall, we were very impressed with this new RPM control feature.

**click to enlarge**

The second window in the advanced features section will allow you to setup your optional temp sensors.  We loved how you can have LCDC scan the interface for any sensors you may have plugged in.   It quickly detected the two sensors we plugged in two of the four available headers.  From this menu, you also have the option of displaying the temps in Celsius or Fahrenheit.

Once you have them setup, you can then go and build a screen and grab the two sensors to display.  You can even add some cool custom characters to display graphics.  Above is one of the screens we created to display the temps from the two temperature probes we connected to the MX2. 

We were very impressed with the software support for these advanced features. 

Other Software

Below are a list of other software and utilities available on the CD:

Boot Screen Editor:  Allows you to change the default start screen that's programmed on your display.

Display Tuner:  Allows you to fine tune your display even further

Motherboard Monitor:  A great hardware monitoring utility.

Winamp:  The popular MP3 player we have all used at least once.

Next: LED Bus & Sample Screens