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 CoolerGuys Windtunnel II Case Review
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Date Posted: Mar 10 2001
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Author: Joe
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Posting Type: Review
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Category: Case Reviews
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Page: 4 of 5
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Article Rank:No Rank Yet
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Note: This is a legacy article, imported from old code. Due to this some items on the page may not function as expected. Links, Colors, and some images may not be set correctly.
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CoolerGuys Windtunnel II Case Review By: Joe
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Coolerguys.com - WindTunnel II LAN Gamer Case
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Impressions of Running it-
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Well in all honesty this machine is incredibly freak'n loud for a quiet atmosphere
I mean I have this in my "living room", and it was so loud it really hindered my ability to watch TV or movies. This was not acceptable so I unplugged most of the fans until I could create a Fanbus for it.
With the Fans all running it kept a case that was getting into the 110DegF temp range (when ambient was 75 DegF) down to within 2 deg of ambient. The Dual
CPU's throw off a load of heat and this case dealt with it just awesome, the air that was coming out of the case felt cooler then the air going in.
I was very impressed. I was so used to having a case that the air coming out was warm enough you could shrink wrap with it. So there was a price to pay for all this cooling power and that was noise. Albeit it wasn't a fan noise or a whine like the Delta Black Labels cause, it was just a lot of air moving. But damn was it loud.
In contrast, At the MidWestFrag I ran all the fans running at full bore and you could barely notice it, in fact it was one of the quietest machines there I
think. Its all about your atmosphere.
Besides for the noise my other annoyance was, the front internal speakers didn't do jack. ( pretty ironic, I am bitching about noise, yet when a noise making
device doesn't work I get upset :)
I thought that that was one of the biggest issues. I mean at 200$ this isn't a cheap case. You should at least get some speakers that work in the box. So instead of just curling up and crying, I fixed it:
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First off I took the front off. To see what makes all this stuff work. I found a nicely laid out PCB and wire header. the speaker
leads for the internal speakers were on a separate header and not in the big black one, this made it a dream to work on, as you could unplug the speakers and work on it without needing to pull the entire works out.
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The way the system works is,
when a headphone or speakers are plugged into the jack it cuts off the internal speakers. But when you pull the plug out of the jack the internal speakers then get all the sound from your sound card. And it is still throttled by the volume wheel. This is exactly how the system SHOULD work to begin with, but they didn't have an amp in the mix which meant you couldn't hear anything out of the speakers.
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Out of a set of El'cheapo speakers I got with one of my BookPC's, I ripped em open and stole the ultra powerful like 1 watt amp :).
Look at that sucka, doesn't it just reak of power?! ok.. well doesn't it just reak period?....
With some trimming it fit perfectly in a Rad Shack project box.
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I had to cut some of the PCB away to make it fit perfectly, so I had to reconstruct some traces with some wire :) I pulled off the knobs and turned
it on and all the way up.
Now the tricky part.. powering it. It took a 9v AC power supply!!! :( that threw a curve ball, but nothing I couldn't handle.
Guess its time to bust open the PSU...
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I cut an old extension cord I had and soldered it to the power OUT leads for the loop through 120VAC plug on the back of the PC, So its switched power, where I
can cut it with the switch on the PSU. This gives me a nice standard 2 plug outlet in the case, perfect for plugging in a power brick :)
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Remember that we couldn't use the bottom 2 5.25" bays? Well I got a use for the bottom one now :)
I just zip tied the power brick there and plugged it in.
works perfectly and was simple to do. I did all this on the night after I had a water line break in my apt, I wasn't really in the mood to experiment with anything. Thinking back on it I could have done a FAR more elegant solution, but at the point in time it just didn't happen.
So before any EE or know it all emails me telling me I am a slacker, just want to get the record straight... this was NOT my finest work, but as a
concept to build on and refine its good. and fairly funny :)
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I tested it out of the case first and it works great, its not too loud but works.
The lil speakers in the case are not meant to replace yer DD 5.1 speakers and subs... they are mearly there to give you some sound without speakers plugged in, its a pretty cool feature if you ask me.
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All finished and in the case it looks like that. just sits powered on and ready to go 24/7 and when I pull the speakers out it works great,
and when I use my real speakers it just sits quietly waiting :)
Best of all it took 3.90$ in stuff to do :) ( just the project box)
I was originally going to run the LED to the "turbo" led on the case.. but then I thought.. I still wont be running in turbo mode so there's no
reason to fool people like that... since I don't have a turbo button or anything..
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| Random Forum Pic |
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| From Thread: can we agree on the basis of "C" in C/W ? |
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| So why the hell not? |
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I agree!
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 67%
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What?
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 17%
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Hell NO!
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 0%
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Worst Poll Ever.
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 17%
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Total Votes:18Please Login to Vote!
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