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Matrix Orbital MX212 Vs Crystal Fonts 633 Shootout
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Date Posted: Oct 3 2003
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Author: pHaestus
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Posting Type: Review
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Category: Thermal Management Reviews
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Page: 2 of 3
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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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Matrix Orbital MX212 Vs Crystal Fonts 633 Shootout By: pHaestus
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Matrix Orbital - Continued:
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To remove a screen from the cycle just uncheck it and then save the screen builder. You can add as many new screens as you like as well.
For example, here is a screen I made that simply shows the temperatures from the 3 DOW sensors:
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There are a ton of additional screens for LCDC available at http://www.lcdforums.com/gallery/ as well. You can also find a large number of plug ins for lcdc at that site and at http://www.lcdc.cc/downloads.htm. The only special configuration that I had to do was to make the winamp vu meter work properly.
This required me to copy a .dll from the lcdc folder to the winamp/plugins folder and then start that plugin in winamp. This was simple enough, and documented in the help file. When I was finished I was pretty pleased with the result:
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This is all eye candy though. I was still interested in how well the MX 212 functions as a temperature-based PWM fan controller.
To find that out, we have to dig into the configuration menu. This menu has all the settings for configuring the unit so that the brightness and contrast are correct, the DOW temp probes are detected and named, and the digital baybus features are working. That is done in the Configuration screen:
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Looking at the left side of this screen, you can see where you would go to add and set up plugins, add e-mail accounts for automatic checking, configure the
GPOs, and deal with advanced features such as the DOW sensors and the fan PWM settings. That brings us to the most interesting section of this review for most procoolers: the digital baybus features.
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To use the MX 212 as a digital baybus, you have to install some DOW temperature probes, configure the unit to recognize them, link them to a fan
header for PWM in the software, and play around with the settings until the unit is working as desired. The DOW detection is reasonably simple: press a button to scan the interface and then name the
sensors when they are detected. As a nice touch, the LCDC software has a wiring diagram for the DS18S20s in this screen once those probes have been detected.
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Once the DOW temperature probes have been properly detected, the next step is to set up the automatic fan control based upon the DOW temperature. This is
done in the CPO PWM/RPM Control tab.
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As mentioned before, there are three headers (GPO 1-3) that can either be manually set to any PWM%, run at full speed, or associated with any of the
DOW probes for temperature-based fan control. I of course went with the latter. In the screenshot you can see that the fan control is set to "auto, temperature based" and the Variable tab below that
references one of the DOW temperature sensors. It is also possible to name the sensors to make the setup a bit easier to go through. You simply set a target temperature and a minimum acceptable speed and
the MX 212 adjusts the fan with PWM accordingly. Add the digital baybus screens to the screen builder menu and you
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are set.
One thing that is different about the MO PWM implementation was that it can still read the fan RPM while it is being controlled by PWM. I am not certain exactly how this was done, but the RPMs scaled nicely and as expected with PWM% from 0 (0%) to 5750rprm (100%) for a Vantec Tornado (5700rpm) I connected to the unit with the MO 4 to 3pin molex.
The setup part of this was all extremely simple and easy. In use, though, I found a couple of issues with fan control on the MX 212. The first one
is the most important. I noticed that when I rebooted the PC after configuring the digital baybus that none of the fans spun up until after the LCDC software loaded in Windows.
This to me was unacceptable. It isn't a big deal with case fans, but I really would prefer to have my CPU fan spinning when the system is running. I eventually found the solution to this problem in a thread at lcdforums. It turns out that this is caused by two separate issues: (1) The LCD is powered by USB voltage by default and (2) the default fan setting saved in the LCD is "off"
until LCDC takes over in windows.
The power issue can be solved by modifying the MX212 so that it gets power from the 3.5" floppy power cable rather than from USB. This will allow the unit to power up at system boot rather than waiting for Windows to load its USB driver. You do this by closing a solder pad that is right next to the power connector.
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You can break out the soldering iron if you like, but I used a rear window defogger repair kit I still had lying around from unlocking AMD CPUs. Once I
joined those solder pads, the LCD powered up as soon as the PC booted.
Unfortunately, the fans were still at 0%. To get them to run at full speed at boot, you have to send the LCD a bit of code to program it. To do this, you open the Configuration tab, hit the "test display" button on the top right, and enter the following in the text box:
[254][195][Fan #][PWM 0-255] or for fan header 1: [##254,195,1,255]
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Repeat for all three fan headers. This will run the fans at 100% from boot until the LCDC software is started. At that point the LCDC
fan control will kick in. The suggested fix worked perfectly for me and took around five minutes.
I hope that MO will change these settings to be the default in future revisions of the MX2 series. I can easily imagine fried AMD chips out of their unit otherwise.
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It took me a bit of fiddling to get the digital baybus configured correctly in software once it was all modified. I eventually figured it all out, but I
still found the temperature-based PWM to be inferior to my CF 633 for a few reasons.
First of all, I found that fans that responded nicely to PWM on the CF would tend to make a pulsing noise on the MX 212. The fans tested were 2 variable speed Enermax 120mm fans that I have in my gaming box right now and an 80mm Vantec Tornado. All of them pulsed noticeably (either much louder or quieter) every 4 or 5 seconds as the PWM ramped up or down. This was in contrast to the CF633, which ramps fans up fairly smoothly.
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The other issue with PWM on the MX 212 was that it seemed to respond fairly slowly to temperature changes.
The adjustments for PWM speed on the CF633 are much tighter and sensitive. This is probably a bigger deal for the CPU fan than case fans; case temperatures don't usually undergo rapid swings. CF's service sets a low temp with PWM value X, a high temp with PWM value Y, and lets the unit linearly adjust between the two. This is more intuitive to set up and it also seems to work better.
The final thing that I played around with was the GPO led indicator.
To make this unit work, I had to plug it in and then go into the Events menu (the button is on the screenbuilder menu) and set up events to drive the LEDs. This was pretty simple given MO's directions online. The events menu is also where you can set up things like "what the buttons do".
After playing with the MX 212 and LCDC for a week, I remain impressed with its ease of use and how polished the software is in terms of plugins and
screens. It is extremely user friendly.
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CF 633-USB Since I have already reviewed the original CF 633 and the NT Service released for it, I am not going to go into a huge amount of detail on this LCD's features and
specifications. I suggest that you just read the previous reviews since fundamentally the devices are the same.
If you'll recall, some of the inconveniences of the original review were that one had to solder together their own DOW temperature sensors and that there was poor software support. One of these issues has been fully addressed, and the other one has mostly been dealt with as well. So let's focus on what Crystalfontz changed in the new CF633-USB.
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One of the most obvious new changes is the addition of new colors for the bracket and the lcd.
CF shipped me a black bracket with a blue LCD, and it is a much nicer looking unit than the one I originally reviewed. The other differences become apparent when you look at the PCB of the CF-633USB.
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The first thing that sticks out is the switch from a serial to USB interface.
This is a good idea because some newer motherboards lack serial ports and serial cables are often a pain to route through the back of the case. All modern motherboards have USB and usually even onboard headers to plug into rather than using a passthrough cable. The result is a much neater setup.
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The next big difference is the addition of a black header on the CF633 for DOW temperature probes. When I received the original CF 633 I had to solder
onto the PCB myself and add a header. Since soldering voids the warranty, I thought this was a pretty big drawback for the unit. With the newer revision this is a thing of the past. Crystalfontz also had no
DOW sensors for sale when I reviewed the first version; now they have some really clever cables that have a plug and a header that allow you to daisy chain up to 32 temperature probes without any soldering or extra
modification.
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Just plug the male end of one sensor into the female end of the other and you're in business. If you add them one at a time you can easily identify the
probes. This is useful if you are trying to fix probes in remote locations (inside PSUs, in your water cooling loop, under the CPU, etc) and want to make sure you get the label right without any fuss.
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It's still more effort to do it this way than with 4 separate probe channels like the MX 212.
Daisy chaining the probes can lead to a mess of wiring, and properly naming the probes in software is more effort. I think that a hybrid setup where you make a central bus with maybe 8 headers on it and then plug individual sensors into it would still be the easiest and most efficient way to deal with these DOW sensors. A project for another day I suppose.
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Random Forum Pic |
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From Thread: N00b to watercooling makes a big jump |
| ProCooling Poll: |
So why the hell not? |
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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