Author: Fido Posted on: 9/11/2003 Sponsor: MPCParts Discuss: In the forums

Introduction Today we begin our second review in a series dedicated to bay-mounted fan controllers and system monitoring devices (See also: Thermaltake HardCano 10). This time around we're going to look at the Musketeer, made by the folks at CoolerMaster, and provided to us for review by our good friends over at MPCParts. Pricing averages around $45 USD, but we've seen it as low as $40 and as high as $50. It is available in two different color schemes, charcoal and silver. The Musketeer mounts in a traditional 5.25” bay, and provides monitoring and fan speed control from the front of your PC. The most noticeable characteristic of the Musketeer is it's appearance. Instead of using an LCD or segmented LED to display temperatures, voltages, etc., it uses analog meters. And instead of using dials or buttons to manipulate settings, they have opted to use vertically mounted sliders. The combination of sliders, and analog meters gives the Musketeer a very "old school" appearance. Appearance aside, the Musketeer offers functionality as well. Three independent inputs monitor fan voltage, sound levels, and temperature. Two sliders on the front allow control over the amount of voltage being fed to your fan(s), and to adjust the gain (sensitivity level) of the audio meter. Features and Specifications Voltage (Left) Dial Display: DC 0 to12V VU (middle) Dial Display: -20 to +3dB Temperature (right) Dial Display: 10-90 Celsius/ 50-180 Fahrenheit Voltage Adjustment: DC 6 to approx. 11V (IC controlled) Sound Pressure: -20 to +3dB (depends on input from sound card) "Musketeer is designed to display the fan voltage, audio sound pressure and the temperature of the positioned thermal sensor when connected to this device. Plus, the two sliders allow users to adjust the fan speed, and the dynamics of the sound pressure simply and with no hassles." Connects directly to your computer’s +12V DC power source. No software required. Reflective blue L.E.D. Display. Easy to install. Requires only one 5.25” drive bay. Sound pressure for audio device. Operator controlled fans allow for energy conservation and noise reduction. Suitable for PC equipped with audio device and high-speed fan. Do you really care what the box looks like? No? Well how about the back? The contents of the box. Fan, Temperature, and Audio cables. Card slot plate with connections for audio cables. Everything in cleanly wired and wrapped for protection. Audio jumper, fans cables, and temperature probe. Temperature probe. Be very careful if when applying pressure to the sensor. They damage very easily. Two fan cables are included, even though you can only use one of them at a time. Fan cable with Molex connector. Two fan cables are included, even though you can only use one of them at a time. Fan cable with 3-pin connector with RPM sensor intact. Front panel of the Musketeer. From left to right: Voltage Meter, Audio Meter, Temperature Meter. The connection points on the rear are all clearly labeled. Left side: Voltage meter, and fan speed controlling lever. Middle: Audio meter. Right: Temperature meter, and audio meter sensitivity lever. The guts. OH! The horror! Installation Installing the Musketeer is a piece of pie. I had read a few stories around the 'Net, where people stated they had problems getting it to fit into a standard bay. The Lian Li case we used in our last review did not have any problems accepting the Musketeer. Apparently, CoolerMaster realized their error in the very beginning of production, and have corrected the issue. Just for kicks, we also tried installing the Musketeer into the bay of an Enermax CSX-318, and we didn't have any problems at all. Routing the cables was simple, as there are only three wires that need to be connected (four if your count the required power source). The fan cable we used during our tests was the standard Molex style. There is also a 3-pin cable if you want to have control over that type of fan. But you can only use one cable, not both. The temperature sensor cable is long enough to reach just about anywhere you want to put it, just make sure if you're putting it someplace where a lot of pressure will be applied to it, you proceed with caution. Sensors like the one used here can be crushed very easily - rendering them useless. If we had to pick one cable that was the trickiest to install, it would be the audio sensor. They have included a card blanking plate that has a cable that hooks up to the back of the Musketeer. On the other side of the card plate are two audio ports, one is labeled In and the other is Out. From this point, you need to connect your speakers to the Out port, and using the cable provided, connect the In port to the output of your sound card. Fan Voltage Audio Level Temperature Conclusion If we had to pick one thing about the Musketeer that we liked the best, it would be its appearance. The meters look really sweet, and remind us of something you might see in the Smithsonian. It has clean lines, and isn't cluttered with extra buttons and dials whose only purpose is to make it look high-tech. In fact, the appearance is about as far from high-tech as you can get. Temperature: The temperature monitor, while accurate, can be difficult to interpret at times because the meter is so small and analog in nature. Trying to estimate what the exact temperature is when the needle is somewhere between the 86F and 122F marks can be tricky. Audio: The audio meter is cool, but it doesn't really do much other than look pretty. There is an adjustable gain control (audio sensitivity) that will allow you to use the meter at both high and low volumes. Fan Voltage: The voltage meter on the fan controller is a nice touch. You can tell at a glance how much you have throttled down your fans, and make adjustments accordingly using the sliding lever. If you want to control more than one fan, you'll have to use a splitter or chain the fans together. If you're going to split or chain fans together, keep a close eye on the voltage meter, as you could put things out of range. Functionally, the Musketeer does everything it claimed it would. If we could change one thing about the Musketeer we would remove the middle audio sensor, and replace it with another fan controller. The one thing we would NOT change is the appearance. The blue glow, the meters, the chrome, the sliders, it all comes together very nicely. In closing, we would like the thank our sponsors MPCParts.com for their generosity and continued support of LWD. The Good Appearance Easy installation Unique design / controls Available in charcoal and silver Clearly labeled connection points The Bad Only one fan controller Somewhat useless audio meter Interpreting temperature

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Published on: 2004-01-23 (18106 reads)