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.......MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

                                

Thermaltake HARDCANO 2

This review was kindly made possible by : Thermaltake 

Monday April 29 2002

SPONSORS

Ok check out those pictures :

Hardcano 2 specs:

Fan Dimension = 40x40x20mm

Max air flow = 5.1cfm

Fan speed = 5000+-10% RPM

Noise : 23dBA

Sleevve bearing / life time = 30,000hours

Well those are the fan specs , basically hardcano 2 is a 5.25" bay mount for HDD's with active cooling and 2 LCD temp monitors . The two LCD temp monitors were what interested me the most , the probes are nice and slender , yet reasonably sturdy so that they wont break . I attached one probe to my spare Quantum HDD and the other to the back of my graphics card just behind the GPU .

Testing :

To test the Hardcano 2 , I installed RTCW  on the Quantum Drive and played Wolfenstein for 30 min with the cooling fan on and off just to see if there was a temp difference . And was there ever , 24.6 Deg Celsius with the fan running  and 31 deg C with the fan turned off and the hole taped up . Now thats 6.4deg C with a lowly ATA33 Quantum fireball from the 200MMX ages , ouch! The question begs , is your hard drive cooking in its own juices . 

QUANTUM FIREBALL TEMP PLAYING WOLFENSTEIN

Hardcano 2 Enabled = 24.6deg Celsius

Hardcano 2 Disabled = 31deg Celsius 

Conclusion:

The Quantum was being pushed hard , real hard , it could barely keep up whilst playing the game , and things got a little jerky and weird when it failed to keep up . Modern ATA100/133 7200rpm HDD's will most likely reach much higher temperatures than my lowly Quantum  , and not be pushed nearly as hard . So is your hard drive nearing melt down . The Hardcano 2 is not loud , its stealth cooling , for the quiet achiever in your system , your HDD . This would seem to be the one component in many a system spared from extra cooling by many a user , quietly whirring away until heat exhaustion kills it . Here is another trick cooler from Thermaltake , The Hardcano 2 , it works , its here now , and with two LCD thermal sensors , I like it . The thermal sensors worked well , you can see in the pictures where I attached the sensor to on my HDD , the aluminum chassis of the HDD rather than the metal cover . The thermal sensor attached to my graphics card worked equally as well , with my graphics card doing around 48deg C to 51deg C , gaming or not , hmmm a little warmer than I imagined , but good to know . The temp on the Quantum has dropped to 21.5deg C  now that its not in use , a lot better than the 31deg C , with the disabled  hardcano 2 whilst playing RTCW .

For a wish , I wish that for folks with good cooling already , Thermaltake  would make a front panel with 3 LCD temp monitors , thats right , a triple LCD temp monitoring front panel . Well thats what I would like to see from Thermaltake . As for the Hardcano 2 , it rocks , another great product from Thermaltake for those without active HDD cooling .

I would like to thank THERMALTAKE for making this review possible .

Matt Korhonen