Thermaltake CoolMod / Volcano 9 Heatsink

PART II  (update)

Manufacturer: Thermaltake Technology
Supplied by: Thermaltake Technology
Price: TBA

By Dean Barker (10/4/2002)

 

A bit over a month ago we had the opportunity to play with Thermaltake's "CoolMod."  Here is the link to the original review.  To (very) quickly recap to avoid doing a review twice: The Tt CoolMod is a clear plexi fan cover that has neon lamps at four points.  Two are blue (opposite one another) and the other two are red.  The blue lamps connect to your mainboard's Power LED connection while the red lamps connect to your HDD LED on your mobo.  When your machine is powered up the blue lamps are lit.  And when you access your hard drive the blue AND the red lamps are lit.  The idea really is pretty hip.

The downside was that in our original review we got this.

  

As you can imagine we were not too impressed with the "CoolMod."  The pic above with the red lamps lit shows best how dim the blues were.  Our thoughts were that we got a hold of a bad unit.  Bad unit or no we post our impressions up around here.  If it's a bad unit then we will add an update when we get another sample we believe as random.  That is exactly what we are doing here.  The Thermaltake folks sent over a LED grill, a retail packaged Smart Fan II with LED Lights (CoolMod), as well as a retail packaged Volcano 9 CoolMod.  Temper your opinion in that EVERY manufacturer has a certain percentage of products that don't function properly.  The trick is to keep that percentage low.

The retail packaging is pretty sharp and yes, the Tt Boy is on the box dressed in football (American rules football) gear.

What else is there to say?  Let's strap these three on, one at a time and see if they look like the ones on Tt's site.  Our test bed is identical except for the case.

Test Bed

• AMD TBird 1.0GHz @ 1.4 / 1.85 volts

• EPoX 8K3A Mainboard

• Corsair XMS3200 512mb stick of PC3200 DDR

• Maxtor D740X-6L 40gb ATA-133 7200RPM HDD

• ASUS 52 CD-ROM

• ASUS V8200 GeForce 3

• Antec SX1040 Midtower Case

• Enermax 431 watt PSU

• Windows XP Professional

On the right is the CoolMod with the system powered up.  Next to that is the HDD being accessed.  The flashing and flickering of the red going with hard drive access was somewhat hypnotizing to watch.  I must have defragged my drive four times.

  

Conclusion

Much better!  Not only were the lamps lit they really did put off some light.  With so many companies putting out Clear case fans with combinations of LEDs attached its nice to see something different.  This is a must for any case modder in my book.  The only down side is the wiring.  Each LED has a separate wire.  These four wires bind into two for connection to the mainboard.  If you slap this in "willy nilly", your case will look like a pasta strainer full of spaghetti with all the lines.  But most case modders aren't "willy nilly" folks.  With three small zip ties and some clear Scotch tape I was able to bind and conceal the LED power lines so that you could only see them if you knew what you were looking for.

The Tt CoolMod pulled it out.  Dismal to outstanding.  So if you are looking for something a little different to set your box apart from the other guys, this is it.

 

 

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