Aspire X-Cruiser - Fan Controller and VU Meter
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Fan Controller and Cooling
Next is the challege of moving all the components from my old case to this one. Since my old case was a Chieftec Dragon style full server tower, things will be a bit tight. Cramming a lot of components into a smaller space can sometime create heat problems.
To give you an idea of the size of this case, take a look at this comparison shot.
Though it's several inches shorter, the X-Cruiser is also about 2" longer. Everything worked out pretty well. Things were a bit cramped in the X-Cruiser, but fortunately temps stayed about the same thanks to those additional side panel and chimney fans. The temperature gauge on the front of the case is pretty accurate and also quite sensitive. Obviously it's still much easier to get an exact read out from an LCD.
I set the case fan controller up to handle the front two 80mm fans, and it does a fairly decent job of lowering the RPM's by varying the power supplied to them. There is very little noise escaping the case, with all the fans in the case set to low speed (both the ones controlled by my original fan controller and the ones controlled by the X-Cruiser's). Is it silent? Well, not really. Is it reasonably quiet considering there's half a dozen fans whirring away in there? Most definitely.
Changing all the fan speeds from low to high actually drops temps roughly 3°C, which is notably good. In my tower case, I was lucky if I saw temps drop half a degree, though it did help control heat when gaming. The fan speed gauge is very sensitive, and it looks cool. But of course, the appearance is pretty useless when looked at from a functionality perspective.
VU Meter and Front Audio Port
Lastly, the VU sensor requires you to connect the front audio ports directly to the motherboard's connectors. This means you'll have to remove the jumpers that are on these pins by default, and thereby disable the ports on the back of your computer. If all you'll be using is headphones or a set of 2.1 speakers, then you'll be alright using the front headphone jack. Using anything else, you're out of luck.
I tried using the VU with a nice set of Sennheiser headphones. Tweaking the adjuster knob on the side for sensitivity, I was able to get the needle to bounce with the beat as it should and to reflect a fairly accurate dB reading.
Unfortunately, there was a fairly audible electronic whine at all times while using this jack. This could be my motherboard's onboard sound quality showing its true colors, but it seemed more audible than when I used jack on the mobo's I/O panel. If you listen to your music or games loudly then you won't even notice this. However, I know plenty of people who are less than audiophiles and might not stand for it.
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