635 Q & A before I buy

[dsumanik]

hey all, i am at the point where i need to replace my fan controller as one of the channels burnt out and im looking at either a matrix orbital 233/630, or crystalfontz 635.


Pros & Cons i see so far:

Crystalfontz:

PROS:
-Much better screen!
-better fan control/temp monitoring capability with scab.
-sweet led indicators
-aluminum bezel will match my lian li perfectly

CONS:
-beta software support
-hand coding plugins, yick.
-overal less software functionality and plugin avaliablity
-no gui screen editor
-10,000 hour MTBF...only lasts a year and a half runtime? Thats not a very long time...

Matrix Orbital

PROS:

-tried and tested true product
-more color options availiable
-LCDC seems like very well developed and powerful software, in place now.
-canadian company, I am canadian and like to support canadian business

CONS:

-smaller screen
-indicator leds are ghetto and suck
-no button control with black aluminum bezel, buttons suck overall
-not as many fan/temp probe options


Software Questions

-does CC2 support dual core CPU's, i have athlon x2.
-compatible with ABIT uguru? (MBM does not work with uguru boards)
-support animations? hand drawn? from gif?
-how resource hungry? Bog down system?
-prone to crashes etc?
-stock ticker?
-weather info for canada?
-can fans be set up to run at various speeds realating to temps?
-compatible with mbm?
-gmail checker?
-firefox download progress, # of downloads & percentage?
-ebay plugin (watching items / selling items)
-runtime stats (sytem uptime, monthly/daily/total bandwidth usage so you dont go over your limit etc. )
-exe process monitor?
-edonkey stats?
-mirc plugin?
-cpu-z plugin?
-screensaver?

Hardware Questions:

-possible to get in a red and black display?
-backlight adjustment?
-negative display mode?

-fan control capabilities:

• is it rheobus or PWM control?
• how many watts per fan channel safe before damage/overheating?
• safe to power more than one fan using a y split off of one channel? 2 x 120 mm?

-temperature monitoring capabilities:

• Do all probes have to be linked together into one continuous chain, not individual wires?
• Can probes be submerged in water to monitor water temps?
• Do only these specific brand of probes work with the module?
• Can each probe have its own name, and display individual temps or does it cycle randomly?

Crystalfontz LCD Blog

Looking for additional LCD resources? Check out our LCD blog for the latest developments in LCD technology.

 

[CF Tech]

You are pretty much on track. A couple of clarifications, though.

Only the white LED backlights are rated at 10K hours. This is conservative, but is the best rating we can get from the LED manufacturer. The module is rated at 50,000 to 100,000 hours (as well as the yellow backlight). If you find another module that rates white LEDs for a longer life, I would be slightly suspicious, since this lifetime is an artifact of the way the white LEDs are made, and is pretty consistent across the LED manufacturers we have checked. The only way to get them to last longer is to run them dimmer (through lower current, or by turning the software brightness down). If the software automatically dims the backlight in periods of inactivity, then the usable lifetime will be greatly increased.

The "white on blue" is negative. The "dark on yellow" is positive. No red versions as of yet.

The backlight is adjustable.

The fan control is PWM.

Max current per fan is 1.5 amps. Total for all four fans must not exceed 4 amps. You can use a splitter as long as the current limitation is observed. Only one of the tachs can be connected.

The probes do link together in a daisy-chain. That way you can hook up as you want (up to 32) without making your own cable or using splitters, etc. You can keep things neat by running the wires behind the MB or using zip ties.

You can also make your own sensors (link and link, but it is a lot easier to use the cables.

The probes are not designed to be waterproof (but look here).

Only the DS18B20 or DS12822 work with the CFA-635 + SCAB.

I am the hardware guy, hopefully some of the software people will answer the software related questions.

 

[jc634]

Software Questions

-does CC2 support dual core CPU's, i have athlon x2.
-compatible with ABIT uguru? (MBM does not work with uguru boards)
-support animations? hand drawn? from gif?
-how resource hungry? Bog down system?
-prone to crashes etc?
-stock ticker?
-weather info for canada?
-can fans be set up to run at various speeds realating to temps?
-compatible with mbm?
-gmail checker?
-firefox download progress, # of downloads & percentage?
-ebay plugin (watching items / selling items)
-runtime stats (sytem uptime, monthly/daily/total bandwidth usage so you dont go over your limit etc. )
-exe process monitor?
-edonkey stats?
-mirc plugin?
-cpu-z plugin?
-screensaver?

[/list] [/B]

I will answer what I can...

- Not sure.
- Not sure.
- Yes, gifs.
- The cc2_service uses 0 to 1% of my P4, ~ 29 megs of mem. CC2 is controlling 5 displays, 2 SCABS.
- The current version of CC2 is VERY stable.
- If you know how to program regex variables.
- Yes
- Yes
- Yes
- There is a user written plug-in for gmail.
- I believe that this would require a plug-in (does not exist at this time).
- A plug-in does not exist at this time.
- sytem uptime, YES; monthly/daily/total bandwidth, user session only, there is no cumulative stats that I am aware of.
- not sure what you are asking for. CC2 can monitor just about any system process and executable that your system is running, if that is what you are asking.
- A plug-in does not exist at this time.
- I think a plug-in may exist (I do not use it, so I am not sure). Search the CC2 forum for mirc.
- A plug-in does not exist at this time.
- There are commands to turn the displays on/off. There in no plug-in for the windows screensaver.

Hope this helps. CCadmin would be better able to answer some of my "not sure" answers.

Jim

 

[CF Mark]

Ill answer what Jim hasn't...

-does CC2 support dual core CPU's, i have athlon x2.

It does... although not verified.
If it has problems it will be fixed.

-compatible with ABIT uguru? (MBM does not work with uguru boards)

No.
But if you use the SCAB for temp sensors and fan control, onboard motheboard fan control isnt needed.

-can fans be set up to run at various speeds realating to temps?

Yes, ite very configurable!
See the manual (below).

-compatible with mbm?

Yes, although quite limited since the MBM project has been abandoned.
Although, i may put more time into this plugin later.

-exe process monitor?

Yes, in a few different ways.
It can monitor CPU, mem usage, etc for processes via the windosw performance monitor.
There is also a plugin that can also "look into" applications memory and pick out values, etc.

[*]Do all probes have to be linked together into one continuous chain, not individual wires?

They come in chains, but you could easily reweire/solder them.

[*]Can each probe have its own name, and display individual temps or does it cycle randomly?

Yes they can, again see the CC2 manual Fan Control section for more info.

CC2 Manual can be found here:
http://www.crystalfontz.com/software/crystalcontrol2/manual/

 

[dsumanik]

Thanks guys, sounds like it can do all the things i want it to except monitor voltages and onboard temps via hardware, but this is a caveat with any solution i want cuz i have the abit board.

Well, i will be starting my new system build next month so it looks like this will be the lcd i go for, LCDC be damned!

 

[jc634]

Thanks guys, sounds like it can do all the things i want it to except monitor voltages and onboard temps via hardware, but this is a caveat with any solution i want cuz i have the abit board.

Well, i will be starting my new system build next month so it looks like this will be the lcd i go for, LCDC be damned!

I *think* Speedfan works with your MB. You might try it...

CC2 does support Speedfan, also.

Jim

 

[dsumanik]

Holy ****! your right!

Speedfan works with it!

Its monitoring my HDD temps as well, how does it do that?

Cool, well thats huge, the only thing that the bundled uguru panel doean now, that the crystalfonts cant, is reset the cmos via the front panel, and overclock on the fly.

big whoop.

 

[madmat]

Since this thread's already covering some of the same questions I have I'll ask my question here. Does CC2 support Everest Ultimate Edition 2006?

I was wondering if I can get my temps from it rather than Speedfan since Sf tends to screw up on my rig due to some kind of issue with my vid card.

 

[jc634]

Everest needs to have the required "hooks" added yet, I believe, for CC2 to read.

Refer to this thread.

I do know that ATITool support will be added very soon, tho, if that helps.

BTW, are you same madmat over at the [H]?

Jim

 

[madmat]

Yes, I am, I post at [H] under that name as well as a few other places. I'm also a staff member at Techgage.

Sadly the ATITool support won't do me any good since I run nVidia and plan to stick with them through my next upgrade.

I do hope that the Everest support gets dialed in soon, I really like it for it's simplicity.

 

[jc634]

Sorry, I should have said ATI Tray Tools. I understand that there is some nVidia support with that program, tho I'm not sure...

Jim

 

[madmat]

I noticed in another thread that you said CC2 works with Rivatuner, if that's the case I can use an older version of Speedfan and Rivatuner for my temp measurements.

Luckily I'm riding the i875P chipset so I've got the capability to use versions of Speedfan from before GPU monitoring was added.

 

[jc634]

I noticed in another thread that you said CC2 works with Rivatuner, if that's the case I can use an older version of Speedfan and Rivatuner for my temp measurements.

Luckily I'm riding the i875P chipset so I've got the capability to use versions of Speedfan from before GPU monitoring was added.

Yep, CC2 works with RivaTuner. I *just* switched to ATI Tray Tool, which will be in a VERY soon to be released update.

875 chip. hmm. Same as mine. Still works for me quite well. Will be interesting to see how Conroe settles out later this year.

Jim

Correction: it is released.

 

[madmat]

Yes, I am interested in Conroe even though the name is as lame as sin.

My next upgrade though will likely be socket 939 as I've got an ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe coming to me in trade and I've just upgraded to 2 gigs of 2-3-2-5 1T ram recently.

To go ahead and go Intel wouldn't make much sense. I am interested in seeing independent performance results though.

 

[jc634]

hmm. I'm not sure if Riva can monitor SLI/dual cards. I assume that is what you planning to do?

You might want to check the forums over at guru3d.

Of course, if you just use the CF SCAB module and some temp probes, you can monitor a whole lot of components.

I have 8 on my computer.

CPU
GPU
Hot Water side of radiator
Cold Water side of radiator
NB
Ambient air
HD 1
HD 2

Gives me a pretty fair temp picture of my components. The SCAB keeps my machine quiet as heck. My loudest component is now my very quiet Seasonic PSU, which now does seem as quiet anymore.

BTW, those are some very nice timing on your RAM chips. What are they?

And you and CF Tech would get along well. AMD all the way for him!

Jim

 

[madmat]

The ram is Patriot PDC2G3200LLK .

I run it on a divider since I'm running my FSB at 265 and even so I'm still getting 5700MB/s through it.

I'm happy with it.

 

[gillou]

I am just bying a CF635 and I prefer Matrix orbital !

With CF635 you have a boot screen with cristalfontz publicite !
all cristalfontz softwares not support CF635 !
very expensive !
no support
no remote firmware change !
no open for OEM

that so...

 

[madmat]

I am just bying a CF635 and I prefer Matrix orbital !

With CF635 you have a boot screen with cristalfontz publicite !
all cristalfontz softwares not support CF635 !
very expensive !
no support
no remote firmware change !
no open for OEM

that so...

If you don't like it and it sucks so bad don't buy it and don't come here and troll...we won't miss you.

 

[gillou]

I sorry if you only want goods comments; here a futher customer ask him questions and if I can help him for his decision I do it !

pehaps cristalfontz work better to have more customer !

It to late I bought a CF 635 ! I post a questions to drive CF635 in RS232 TTL and they send me a usb model with a bad firmware (I can't use RS232 TTL) IS THAT A GOOD SUPPORT FOR YOU ?

use SEARCH with ' RIVATUNER ' and look at how many post without any answer !

if shipping charges was lower I send them back there produt but 35 $ from US to europe it to much !


Idea 1 : a simple swith on only one board to use 232TTL or usb
idea 2 : every manufacuer use remote firmware flashing !

https://forum.crystalfontz.com/showthread.php?t=5106

did you return your motheboard or your graphic card, modem and so one for an update !!!(I do speak about bug or new feature update !)

 

[madmat]

I don't work for CF, I'm an end user just like you. I've used my 635 with Rivatuner with no issue so I have no idea what your problem is.

Why not try typing out the issue you're having in your native tongue then doing a translation with babelfish and posting it. I'm not trying to be mean but your English is hard to follow.