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 Crystalfontz CFA-635 LCD Review
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Date Posted: Dec 17 2005
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Author: Joe
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Index:
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Posting Type: Review
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Category: Thermal Management Reviews
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Page: 4 of 4
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Article Rank: from 2 Readers
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Forum Discussion Link
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Crystalfontz CFA-635 LCD Review By: Joe
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Tweaks:
One of the main things I noticed that wasn’t in the CC2 config was the ability to setup the failsafe / boot config on the CFA-635:
Changing the Boot Screen and settings:
This will let you set the failsafe and boot settings for the device. This was something that before you could do with the 633 service, but now is done via the 635 Wintest software.
What you do is much more simple than I expected. What you do is fire up the Wintest software, set all the settings to how you want, then in the packet debugger issue command 4. Here’s a pic of the settings I did and their effects. (in addition to the settings below I set the 4 LED colors also)
 
This is an important feature because if you don’t set the fan levels you want there’s a chance that they could be set to be at 0% by default. Which is an issue if you have this controlling the CPU fan.
The Crystalfontz Forum:
Now I could copy data from the CF forum all day into this article but in the end the people on their forum know far more about these devices than I do. I went hunting and found a listing of threads with info that I know the ProCooling readers would appreciate.
Notable threads:
This is a thread with all the info a user would need to make custom screens in CC2
This is a thread that breaks down using and setting up the GPIO connectors to control the power state of your PC
Discussion about using a CFA-635 to do water flow monitoring in a water-cooled system and integrating that into changing the LED colors
Putting the thermal probes in a water cooling system (waterproofing the probes)
Getting the LED's on the CFA-635 to react to different system events, or CPU/Network use)
Using the keyboard to change fan speeds on the fly
Conclusions and Final thoughts:
Well as I said in the beginning, this isn't our first Crystalfontz review on the site. Previous reviews exposed how much of a hobbyist device it is more than a mass market easy to use device. But now the CFA-635 comes around and really improves the usability for the critical features while still having a number of features on the fringes of what a normal geek would tackle.
The power, and the capacity of the CFA-635 to be a total system control panel is there, it all is just waiting for you to learn perl and code the scripts for it  But without being a perl coder you can still do all the high end thermal management features that most are looking forward to. If you have a pump that pulls under 1.5Amp on the 12v you could also use the CF to do PWM throttling on that based on CPU temps, etc...
Calibration of the thermal probes are something that is recommended if you are going to use them for any kind of detailed measurements. The sensors are independent thermometer systems per probe so there is always an area of question on how they relate to each other. A calibration like pH did for his On-die CPU diode could be good if you are going to use these for any type of scientific measurements.
I did do some "ear" testing to see if on a few different fans that I know PWM makes some noise on (Vantec Stealth’s seem to nicely) and there is really no difference between the CFA-633 and the CFA-635 as far as I can tell. Overall the sound level is quite minimal once you start throttling the fans.
Overall opinion:
Overall I think its a killer device for those who are looking to go to the next level of thermal management, and those who like to tinker with stuff. Those looking for the prettiest, sexiest graphical LCD for their PC should look elsewhere. This is a pretty basic 4 line character LCD, that can do bar graphs, and big numbers, but nothing like a high end graphical LCD can. But then again, I don’t know many if any graphical LCD's that do all the thermal and fan management that this device does.
If I had to pick between a lower end more fancy LCD fan controller thingy... or the CFA-635, I would buy this, its just so much more dynamic in what you can do!
Pros:
- Powerful controls, and scripting abilities.
- The Crystal Control 2 Software has come a long way and is nice to use.
- High quality LCD - better than the LCD on the CFA-633.
- Flexible mounting for the SCAB board.
- Competitively priced at levels at or below competing LCD products with less features.
Cons:
- Continued issues trying to find out how to effectively use all the features (Possibly resulting in complex fixes).
- No user manual showing limitations or specs for the Fan headers. (Note: this is in the SCAB data sheet, but the Con still stands as overall I think finding basic info on the device is not that intuitive.)
- Only 4 fan headers - There are not many devices that handle more, but by now with a device this powerful and with 32 temp sensors, I would think we could get a few more headers.
- Possible issues if you lose the screws since they arent a standard PC threading.
For those looking for a total technical breakdown on the CFA-635 please check this data sheet
The SCAB data sheet can be found Here.
You may notice that we don’t use "EDITORS CHOICE" or 9/10 type things that liberally. Reason is, the fact every review seems to get those now on the web makes them pretty baseless. At some point if we do give something an award of some sorts you know its freaking amazing stuff like that shouldn't be just thrown around like everyone does. I don’t think I have seen or used more than 1 or 2 devices in the last year I would give an award like that to yet.
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