Review: Thermaltake Sonic Tower - 56k warning
Hi all,
I'm waiting for another "tower" hsf cooler but saw this today and as my stock Intel hsf is broken I thought I'd give it a go.
Unfortunately I only had two 15CFM 1000RPM 120cm Glacialtech Silent Blade fans but I'll update later when I get some real CFM power :D (Glacialtech Silent Blade stats - PDF)
On the plus side it did mean dead silent operation, the 40mm NB fan was louder than the two 120mm fans combined.
Here's the package.
http://slidog.bigblog.com.au/data/2/...1108215945.jpg
And the contents, the black box contains mounting kits for socket 478, 775 and AMD K7, K8.
http://slidog.bigblog.com.au/data/2/...1108215945.jpg
The base - I'm definately going to have to lapp this one as it's shocking.
http://slidog.bigblog.com.au/data/2/...1108222811.jpg
Here are the components for mounting on a 775 socket.
http://slidog.bigblog.com.au/data/2/...1108222811.jpg
Though the instructions were reasonably straight forward, mounting the HSF was rather difficult and took around 15 minutes compared to the 5 second "click, click, click, click" of the stock Intel HSF I was used to. I had to re-arrange the NB fan but I kind of expected that. I did run into some issues, the last two may only be specific to the AW9D-MAX that I'm using however other boards may experience similar problems.
Mounting issue 1 - the crossbar that is used to clamp the heatsink to the motherboard mounts is quite hard to install. It's required to be bent back on it's self quite considerably which means I had to use a lot more force than I'm comfortable with when pointing a sharp metal object at an expensive motherboard. The screws were also almost too small for the mounting hole and at one stage during the installation, the screw slipped through. Also, the metal that the screws are made from is rather soft and I think I've already shaved the screw x point out a little making tightening and un-tightening difficult.
http://slidog.bigblog.com.au/data/2/...1108222811.jpg
Mounting issue 2 - not really a problem but the mounting bracket on one side only just cleared this capacitor and actually rested on top of it. I'm not sure if it actually compressed it a little when the mounting bracket to the motherboard.
http://slidog.bigblog.com.au/data/2/...1108222811.jpg
Mounting issue 3 - again not really a problem but the lowest side of the heat sink actually rests on top of the AW9D-MAX's mosfet heatsink. I was still able to screw the heat sink tightly to the motherboard without any problem so I think there was room, but only just.
http://slidog.bigblog.com.au/data/2/...1108222811.jpg
Here's what it looks like set up on the desk. It actually goes really well with the blue LEDs.
http://slidog.bigblog.com.au/data/2/...1108222811.jpg
I am slightly cheating here because I'm using a lapped CPU.
http://slidog.bigblog.com.au/data/2/...1108222811.jpg
