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Stories and comments across the archive that link to coolermaster.com.

Comments · 69

  1. Coolermaster by asv108 · · Score: 2 · on Choosing a Good Case

    One brand that is a little on the expensive side, but makes great cases is Coolermaster. I purchased an ATC 101 about a year ago and have been really satisfied. If you not willing to fork down that much money for a case, Lain LI makes some great alluminum cases that are relativly inexpensive.

  2. Desktop cases by Ouroboro · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Black Is The New Beige

    What I want to know is... What the hell happened all of the desktop cases? It's getting hard to find a good looking case that is made to sit on it's side. I would like to include a pc as part of my home audio equipment, but I don't want to shell out a metric shitload of money for a decent case. This is probably the best looking one I have found so far, but the cheapest I can find it for is $225. I know I could just use a standard rack mounted case, but I wan't something that will match my other components.

  3. Aluminium by Toraz+Chryx · · Score: 2 · on Black Is The New Beige

    It's not black, and it's not beige, but it's damn sexy

  4. Re:Cases by amix · · Score: 1 · on PVR For Linux

    From Coolermaster there is a brushed ALU case, MicroATX format, 42cm wide (HiFi components are 43cm wide), has hidden drive bays (two external 5 1/4) and 2 internal 3 1/2 (no need for floppy anyway, try split&join with a 2GB movie. lol)

    It is here
  5. fun case mod: Cooler Master ATC 210 by charstar · · Score: 2, Informative · on Making Computer Cases out of Plexiglass?

    I recently aquired a Cooler Master ATC 210 aluminum case. it has various bits of acrilic bit all over it that look really cool, except I wanted it all in a different color. Thus began MY first plastics project.

    The goal was to be able to reproduce the various bits of plastic on the case. This included 2 side "rails", and a front door. A quick trip to Tap Plastics pretty much got me started with everything I needed in terms of the plastic itself. I left the store with 18"x18" of colored 1/8" sheet of acrylic,, 18"x18"x1/16" sheet of clear acrylic, and acrylic cement as well as a little advice from one of the folks who work there about certain tools NOT to use.

    I found the acrylic machines VERY easily, even with non-plastics tools. the bits were cut to size on an old radial-arm saw (didn't have access to a table saw) with an 80 tooth carbide tipped blade. This worked well enough to get a decent finish on the edges, as long as I was carefull with how the acrylic was pushed through the blade.

    the only part of the project that I had my doubts about was the arc at the bottom part of the door which gives access to the USB ports of the front of the case. This actually turned out to be pretty easy with a cardboard template, the dremmel with a cutting bit and the router adaptor. the acrylic took well to the bit and didn't really chip at all.

    After the bits were cut to size came the filing... lots of it. I aquired a plasics file and went to work smoothing out the edges. Once the saw marks were worked out, hit it with 320 grit sandpaper to smooth the edge out. The last trick was jewellers rouge and a dremmel too with a pollishing (not buffing!) wheel at low speed.

    Once all the pieces were polished to a nice shine on the edges came the assembly. This was pretty easy with the help of a little celophane packing tape to hold the pieces together as the cement was applied.

    finally, the little aluminum pieces which hold the hinges and magnets for the door were installed with the help of a 3/16" drill bit and the dremmel cutting tool.

    the project was a great success and a great learning experience as well. I think the best advice I can give is to just go down to your local plastics shop, pick up some acrylic sheets and play with the machining and assambly. I found the stuff really easy to work with. I now have a one-of-a-kind flourecent-red ATC-210 and my friend has a clear-amber ATC-210.

  6. Patch panels... by Howie · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Any Cases With Front-Facing Expansion Slots?

    Depending on how many free drive bays you have, there are certainly drive bay mounting panels to present most of the common things you'd want to plug and unplug regularly - audio, USB, 1394 and serial.

    An external one (intended for laptops, but what the heck) is made by Mobility Electronics. There was an internal one featured on Scan's Today Only page the other day, with temperature monitoring and all sorts - I'm pretty sure it was made by ASUS, although I can't find it on their site.

    I've seen several cases with front panels like this, too. Even my gf's cruddy e-machines PC does that. Coolmaster case with front USB (and optional 1394 IIRC).

  7. CoolerMaster case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on CrossOver Plugin 1.0 Demo Version
    Yeah, I do know that.

    On the other hand I'm sick of ugly, low quality plastic/cheap metal cases. CoolerMaster cases are... well, cool.

  8. Check these links out by DABANSHEE · · Score: 3, Informative · on Aluminum Server Case Review

    Lian Li Website

    Lian Li PC-70 aluminium full tower computer case

    Lian Li PC-76 server case

    Lian Li PC-60 computer case

    Coolermaster ATC-201SX alloy case

    Lian Li HDD Caddie Page

    RH-620 Alloy HDD Caddie

    RH-600 Alloy HDD Caddie

    RH-29 Alloy HDD Caddie

  9. Plus Raymund doesnt even know what hes talkn about by DABANSHEE · · Score: 5, Informative · on The Ultimate Linux Box 2001

    It amazes me the amount of 'software' guys who think they're experts but have no idea when it comes to hardware.

    Check these examples out:-

    - "Do get a pure PCI-bus machine (not a hybrid PCI/ISA design, you sacrifice about 10% of peak performance with those)."

    This is pure humbug - you do not get 10% greater performance by buying a motherboard that has ni ISA slots (like those Asus KT boards). Because the fact is that even if they have no ISA slots, they still have a ISA bus built in the southbridge to support legacy stuff like the printer/parrallel port, the serial port/s & the PS2 mouse & keyboard ports. Now as far as the USB ports are concerned, I'm not sure whether they use the ISA bus or the PCI bus.

    - "For the power supply, the three of us easily agreed on a vendor: PC Power & Cooling"

    Bloody typical. Yet the reality is that the PC Power & Cooling mob are just 'badge engineers' - they re-sell other manufacturers products with their own own brand markings & inflated prices.

    For example their full tower case is just a California PC full tower case with a custom bezel on the front.

    Now as far as their power supplies are concerned. I remember when they used to sell a 'Silencer' model 275 watt power supply. In fact all it was was a generic 300 watt power supply, de-rated down to 275 watts so it was understressed, so it would cope with retro-actively fitted low speed 'silencer' fan.

    As far as powersupplies are concerned I recommend the Enermax 350 watt EG365P-VE(FC) or 450 watt EG465P-VE(FC) power supplies. They have a push/pull dual fan design (a 80mm exhaust fan at the back & a 92mm intake fan at the bottom), which means the fans can run at a much slower (therefore quieter) speed, without losing any cooling performance. The Powersupply comes with a standard motherboard 3 pin senser connector cable, so you can blug it into a spare motherboard fan header, which means ifyou can see what revs one of the power supply fans are running at in you PC monitor applet in you system tray (& it can warn you with an alarm if it fails). Also the powersupply comes with a thermastat on a connector which can be somehow attached to the heatsink or against the CPU core if its a exposed flip-chip type core (as long as it has no heatspreader like the AMD K6 series has), this controls the fan underneath the powersupply & it only runs when necessary. Consequently these power supplies are so bloody quiet you sometimes think its not running.

    - They also recommend the Thunder K7 (S2462) Motherboard, which is a huge waste of money as you can buy a very similar motherboard made by the same manufaturer at a much cheaper price (the Tiger MP (S2460) Motherboard). Also the 'Tiger' has a standard ATX connector, rather than the propietry connector that the 'Thunder' has. Which means you can use normal ATX powersupplies, rather than the inflated priced propietry powersupply that the 'Thunder' uses.

    - Also, even though this is s'pose to be a 'Ultimate Linux Box', they fail to mention that both IDE floppy drives(if you are using the IDE bus) & SCSI floppy drives (if you are using a SCSI BUS) are avaliable. Even better one can get the LS120 variety which are compatible with both 120MB 'SupperFloppies' & standard 1.4MB standard floppies.

    - They spend 4 paragraphs talking about 'Noise Control and Heat Dissipation' without really saying anything. When all they really needed to say that it's best using bigger fans at slower speeds - such as 12 volt 120mm fans running at 7 volts (positive hooked up to the 12 volt line while the negative is hooked up to the 5 volt line). The quietist fans (all other things being equal) by brand are the Papst Simtec bearing fans, the Sanyo Denki fans & the L1A1 versions of the Panaflo fans.

    - They recommend a pretty well generic (though above average) Antec case, but this is s'pose to be a ultimate Linux box.

    Therfore I recommend the Addtronics 'Server Cases' (their full tower cases) - the 7890 & the 7896. They are great cases with their great cooling options, filtered intakes, butterfly doors & slide out 'mainboard & I/O backplane tray'. Supermicro sell their own badge engineered version of this full tower case.

    Other good full tower cases are the all alloy ones made by Lian Li. Such as the Lian Li PC-70 aluminium full tower computer case & the Lian Li PC-76 server case

    If a mid tower case is more your style, both Lian Li & Coolermaster maker great alloy ones. They are great for LAN parties. In this regard I recommend the Lian Li PC-60 computer case & the Coolermaster ATC-201SX. Both cases are unbeatable as mid-tower cases - they have everything. I Personally thing a midtower case must have 4 5.25inch drive bays; so you can have both a CD burner & DVD drive, plus 2 HDDs in removable HDD pullout caddies.

    For a ultimate box it should have the all alloy (better heat dissapation) twin fan caddies that agains are made by Lian Li. The 3 best models appear to be the RH-620 , the RH-600 , & the RH-29

    For the motherboard, I'd recommend one with the SIS 735 'chipset'. Preferably it would have a AGP Pro slot, 6 PCI slots, one shared with a ISA slot at the bottom. It would have BOTH 2 DDR slots & 2 normal SDRAM slots. It would have a integrated RJ45 network connector above the 2 rear USB ports, plus integrated 'hardware' 5.1 sound (IWill have brought out a couple of boards of late with integrated 'hardware' 5.1 sound, they have the 3 standard female jack ports under the midi 'D' plug at the back, plus the extra connects hook up via a ribbon cable & a slot backplane cover). The board would also have integrated SCSI & Firewire like some of the MSI Pro or Turbo or whatever boards have. Plus an extra IDE controller (Promise, Highpoint, etc) so there's the potential for 8 drives (HDD, CD, DVD, LS120, ORB, etc) rather than the standard 4. The extra IDE controller will also have RAID 0,1 & 1+0 options (most have this built in, though its sometimes disabled). All the integrated stuff must have the capability to be disabled, either via jumpers or in the BIOS.

    Twin AthonXP/MP CPUs would be the go (the XPs work fine in SMP setups, they just are not certified/supported for such configurations - that's the main difference between the XP & MP, the MPs are certified/supported for SMP use.

    That's enough raving for now.

  10. Re:Heat by humanasset · · Score: 2, Informative · on IBM DeskStar 75GXP Hard Drive Failures?

    That's an excellent point. Those drives kick out a lot of heat. That along with an Athlon processor can make your chassis very warm.

    Something like this:

    WIN-7509 hard drive cooler

    or this:

    DCD 4002 Cool Drive

    may help.

  11. Re:Cooling by linzeal · · Score: 1 · on Terrasoft Selling Non-Apple PPC GNU/Linux Systems
    I have a duron 600 oced to 800 with this fan and no A/C running at 38 db according to my 70 dollar decibel meter....

    I bought the decibel meter to position some new speakers but it works pretty well for the computer as well. I used to run 2 out of my 3 computers in the closet with this usb switch but it was getting too hot in there so I had to take them all out for the summer or keep the door off the hinges (gf said no). To make a long story short someone recommended that fan after hearing the one that I originally bought going at 60db+ and it has been going ever since....

  12. My quiet case project : it's an answer ... sort of by Prozzaks · · Score: 1 · on Building Quieter Computers

    Well, it seem these days, most of the power user just care to get something like 200fps in Quake III. Why ? Beat's me ! I'm not on a quest to get the ultimate frame rate, I just want my box to be quiet as possibly can be.

    To help you understand my take on the subject, here is the background :
    My PC has the following components :

    • A OEM case
    • A 235W OEM power supply
    • ASUS P3B-F
    • Intel Pentium II rated 400Mhz @ 400Mhz
    • A cheap OEM SECC2 Heat-Sink made of aluminum
    • A 128MB CAS2 no-name DIMM
    • Two 32MB CAS3 Samsung DIMM slowing down my memory timing, but preventing the appearance of the all mighty evil SwaP
    • A ATI All-In-Wonder Rage128 16MB
    • A Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value
    • A Realtek 8139 Ethernet NIC
    • My beloved USR 56Kbps ISA Real Modem. Sorry but to me a component that uses CPU power to do it's processing instead of taking the load off is not worthy of being in my computer. Not to mention the M$ Win part...
    • A Creative 48x CD-ROM drive. It's the loudest damned thing in my computer when it's spinning
    • A Quantum Fireball AS PLUS 40GB (7200RPM) in a removable tray
    • A Quantum Fireball CX1 10GB (5400RPM) mounted inside the case
    • Of course the stupid old 1.44 MB floppy drive only used for booting Tomsbrt in case of emergency

    Soon to be :

    • A Adaptec 2940UW
    • A Diamond Monster 3D II for Glide games

    It turn out that the Quantum Fireball AS makes less noise than the Quantum Fireball CX1. I still have to figure it out ...

    I use my PC for :

    • Running Linux and learning as much as time allows me (Jez I had so much time when I was a student... Think of all the time I wasted in High-School running the evil W monster)
    • Doing some gaming i.e. : Diablo II, Unreal, UT, Undying (Although that thing is going to cost me a new box)
    • Spending numerous nights filling my brain @ Slashdot, Tomshardware, Anandtech, Arstechnica, StorageReview, Developper.Intel.com, and most importantly, hounding the web for all the case manufacturers and their take at a quiet box.

    As I'm writing this post, that is probably going to be the base documentation for my Silent Case Project, you're guessing that my sleepless night of browsing have not yielded the desired result.

    I've check out many options such as water cooling, moving the PC to the closet, returning to the forest where a PC is pretty far from your everyday quest for survival. None of them suits me.

    The objective of my project is to build a case that meets the following criteria :

    • A silent as possible
    • Accessible
    • Provides sufficient ventilation to maintain all the components running within thermal specs
    • Be light enough to be easily transportable (Let's not forget the Lan parties ;-)

    To attain those goals I have to :

    • Read all I can about noise, sound, aerodynamics, PC specs
    • Find suitable materials : A case is not just a protection against unwanted fingers and dust ; it must provide EMI shielding, proper grounding, resist to impacts, and fit into my conception of the king of object you want in your bedroom (If you were thinking about plywood and a box of rusted leftover nails, forget it)
    • Find the tools or the companies or individuals with the means to work the materials I choose to build the casing

    For the sound isolation I was thinking about some kind of foam. Mineral lint would be affective but that takes too much space and it's not the kind of thing I want beside my bed. Form the casing itself, metal is almost inevitable if you want EMI shielding and grounding. And as for you who wonder why I have not mentioned water cooling yet, the greatest source of noise is not my CPU cooler and your just moving the problem out of the case (Nice ; you have water heating up but unless your reservoir is like a bathtub or something you will have to transfer the heat for the water to the air).

    That about as far as I am. If you have any idea that might help me, please fell free to send me some bits forming ASCII characters at Prozzaks@operamail.com

    To finish up, here is a list of thing that might help people wanting to achieve similar goals :

  13. Good places for quiet stuff by eschasi · · Score: 1 · on Building Quieter Computers
    I made this same search a few months back; wound up buying some Panasonic `Panaflo' 80mm fans, model L1A. They're at least an order of magnitude quieter than the ones that came with my case but move about 1/3 less air. I fixed that by removing two and installing three. :-)

    There's a lot of interesting stuff out there that people have done or things you can buy; here's a set of bookmarks I assembled a few months back:


    http://blacktree.homepage.com/basement/pstweak.htm l
    http://blacktree.homepage.com/basement/blackbox.ht ml
    http://www.3dfxcool.com/
    http://www.coolermaster.com/products/systemcase.ht ml
    http://www.coolerguys.com/
    http://www.coolerxtreme.com/

    Just recently I stumbled across this one, which has real numbers on cooling but only subjective on noise: http://www.tweakmax.com/html/fs020_2/fs020_2-1.cfm

  14. Re:Why? by frozenray · · Score: 1 · on Clear Computer Cases
    >>Hydraulics for my PC!

    >>And a winamp plugin, so it bounces to my beats.

    Been there, done that. Better have a good sized supply of spare harddisks ready, though :(

    On a more serious note:

    I would definitely worry about RF emissions from plexiglass cases. According to german computer magazine c't, even most of the conventional ATX cases (with metal shielding and finger-stock seals) exceed the CE regulation RF limits and thus are - at least in theory - not to be sold within the European Union. RF pollution is not really a problem if it's only your CB hobbyist neighbor complaining (well, as long as he's not the violent sociopath type), but if you take down some piece of critical equipment with your kewl transparent-case 1.4 GHz box - maybe in the doctor's office one floor up - you're in trouble.

    Now, if only Coolermaster delivered those cool aluminum cases to Switzerland...

    Raymond

  15. Recommendations and Design Limitations by rjsjr · · Score: 1 · on What Cases Work Well For Building Set-Top Boxes?
    I'm working on similar hacks (living room audio/video/gaming [mostly mame/emus] PC), here's a few bits from my experience so far. You are going to have a serious problem reconciling two of your design limitations: the ability to use standard video cards/motherboards and a "slim-line" style case. Assuming you want to be able to use an ATX board and AGP graphics card, you are have a minimum box size of approximately 12x9x5 inches.

    It would be very hard to stay with those dimensions since you'd also have to fit at least a power supply, hard drive, dvd drive, and a couple PCI cards in there as well (audio, network). For a reasonably fast processor (such as would be requisite for good DivX/MP4 encoding/decoding) and the AIW card, a 300W power supply will be necessary. Again, ATX format PS is the most flexible so you've got another big chunk (roughly 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 x 6 inches - see ATX Specs). Also realize that you'll need a good heatsink for your CPU (I'd recommend a Duron or Thunderbird whose included heatsinks are 2 inches high). Using an NLX/Micro-ATX/FlexATX form factor (specs) buys some size, but limits peripheral/mobo choices. Also check out this quick form factor guide and comparison chart.

    I haven't settled on a choice yet, but you might look at the following (these cases are typically about 17 x 17 x 6 inches, which is smaller than the Qbex you mention above). Key components are Abit KT7A, Athlon ~1GHz, ATI Radeon AIW, Pioneer DV-105S, IBM 75GXP HD, NetGear FA312, and Soundblaster Platinum.

    Personally, I think the thing to concentrate on is the loudness of the unit, rather than its physical size (and, to a lesser extent its stylishness). I have a Tivo (Phillips HDR312 with 1 30G Quantum) and find it unacceptably loud when watching movies unless placed in an enclosed cabinet (its considerably more quiet than a PC). My focus on cases is just for something that can fit inside my audio cabinet and which can flow enough air (preferably out the back) to keep the system reasonably cool. If I get something really good together, I'll probably just build myself a custom case once its all settled out (but there is lots more important things to do for integration software, remote contol, DivX support, mp3 management, etc. first IMO). Remember you are also going to have a tangle of cables to deal with if you want good integration to an A/V receiver or multiple components.

    Some other options to think about:

    • Mac Cube, which is already compact, stylish, and quiet. Unfortunately, it lacks S-Video, tuner, and S/PDIF (digital audio) connections, costs quite a bit of money, and has limited software choices
    • Laptop PC - compact and sometimes stylish, but may not have the horsepower for DivX and would probably require a lot more software to integrate functions, pricey (maybe buy used with dead LCD).
    • Sony VAIO Slimtop or similar - small with many multimedia features, but you have to pay for LCD and don't have component flexibility.

    Good luck, and please email me if you find anything else good or build software around the AIW and/or remote controls.

    Regards, RJS

  16. Re:Are they riding coattails or have I misread thi by Sloppy · · Score: 1 · on Explaining The Symbiosis Between QNX RtP & Linux

    Yes, that's what they're saying. The paper claims to explain the symbiosis between QNX RTP and Linux, and that's exactly what it does: it explains that there isn't one. Or rather, that the "symbiosis" only goes one way, making RTP more of a very clever parasite than a symbiote.

    Not that this is a bad thing, from the RTP point of view... Being able to run Linux code (which is practically mainstream these days) on it will make it more practical. I can't wait until my IDE CD-ROM drive arrives in the mail so I can play with it. (I wasn't able to install RTP from my SCSI DVD-ROM drive...)

    (I had to order the CD-ROM drive through mailorder because the local stores don't sell black peripherals, I ain't gonna put a white or beige periph in my ATC-200-MX. After all, I'm not a barbarian!)


    ---
  17. I am hopeless by Sloppy · · Score: 1 · on Totally 31337 Quickies

    Here's a directory with 30+ photos of that nutty Stevie Case babe that we have come to know and love.

    http://www.cesspool.net/kc/

    Dammit. I went there, brought up the first picture, and did my eyes linger on the partially exposed chick? Nope. All I could think was, "Damn, that's a pretty Mac she's got. Custom paint job?" I mean, the case really is gorgeous. Rivals my ATC-200-MX.


    ---
  18. Attractive-looking embedded PCs by Sloppy · · Score: 5 · on 50-Dollar Hackable "WebSurfer"

    Beyond the obvious "it's cheap because it's intended to be bundled with a service" similarity, there's another thing that this machine and the I-Opener have in common: they are physically small (they don't take up a lot of space) and a bit underpowered compared to today's mainstream PC, which is one of the reasons that they _can_ be so cheap.

    People want these cheezy/cheap PCs. This WebSurfer machine, especially with its TV-out, reminds me of Commodore's ahead-of-it's-time CDTV. CDTV was really an Amiga 500 packaged in what looked like a regular audio CD player -- something that would look at home on your stereo rack. But it was really a general-purpose computer in disguise, and you could do just about anything you could imagine with it.

    There's demand for this stuff, but it seems like the manufacturers are missing something. They seem to think that if a device is targeted as having a specific embedded purpose, then it doesn't need to be programmable. (Do any of these guys remember the personal computer market of the early 80s?!?) That's one of the reasons people are trying to rip out the embedded QNX (or whatever) and stick Linux on them. Some users want to really customize these machines to do whatever THEY want.

    And that gives me an idea. When I was picking out components for my firewall/music box, I didn't really _want_ a conventional PeeCee case. I wanted something that would fade into the background and look inconspicuous, like a stereo component. I checked out a few Micro-ATX cases, but for various reasons, nothing was quite right for me. So I gave up on the idea and got a minitower (but at least it was a cool one ;-).

    I think the world wants more variety in computer cases. And no, I don't mean another iMac clone. Start with the old pizza box or generic audio component size, make sure it has room on the front for

    make it BLACK, then somehow figure out a way to put a regular-sized ATX motherboard in it, while also figuring out a way to cool it sufficiently. This would totally kick ass, and I think it would sell well to amateur hobbyists that want to build their _own_ appliances.

    Alas, I think the computer industry doesn't recognize the existence of hobbyists anymore.


    ---
  19. Quiet Fans and Power Supplies by Jahf · · Score: 5 · on Quieting those Fans
    I went looking for the same thing a while back and found the following: I found these with AltaVista and Google ... if you need more just go do a few searches and you should come up with something good.