Coolermaster HAF 932 Review

There comes a time when a mid tower gets too cramp and crowded for your needs. This is what exactly happened to me. With a long GPU and a tall CPU cooler, a full tower casing will be more fitting. I researched quite a bit, and I did not want to spend too much on a full tower. Soon, I narrowed down to just one model - the coolermaster HAF 932.

I believe that first impression counts. It just says a lot about what the company which makes the products believe in, and the extra mile they go into. From the very first sight of the box, it looks fine. It has cut in handles for you to lug the box around. Upon opening up the box, I noticed that styrofoam packaging is of the cheap and breakable sort, and not much else - a notch below Thermaltake for instance.

Taking the case out out the box is without dramas. Examining the case closer, I noticed the build quality is moderate, and disappointed to see that there were some minor scratches inside the side panels. No big deal, but not impressed. Fitting of the side panels is again alright, but not great. Perhaps my expectations were too high. Again, Thermaltake beats it it this department.

Let's talk about the instruction manual. It is complete with some diagrams but little words to explain the process of installation. It includes a handy overlay sheet for you to mount the standoffs for your motherboard. i thought it was a neat idea. Accessories included like the screws, cable ties and 3.5" device front cover are all pretty standard stuff.

Let's take a look at the specs:

Available Color	Black
Dimension (W / H / D)	(W)230 x (H)545 x (D)575 mm (W)9.0 x (H)21.5 x (D)22.7 inch
Weight	13.2 kg 29.1 lbs
Material	SECC, Plastic
Motherboards	Micro-ATX / ATX / E-ATX
5.25" Drive Bay	6 (without the use of exposed 3.5 inch drive bay)
3.5" Drive Bay	5 Hidden 1 Exposed (converted from one 5.25 inch drive bay)
I/O Panel	USB 2.0 x 4, IEEE1394a x1, eSATA x 1, Mic x 1, Audio x 1
Cooling System	Front : 230x30mm red LED fan x 1 / 700 rpm / 19 dBA Side: 230x200x30mm standard fan x 1 / 700 rpm / 19dBA (support 120mm fan x 4) Top: 230x200x30mm standard fan x 1 / 700 rpm / 19dBA (support 120mm fan x 3 or 120mm x 1 + 230x30mm x 1) Rear: 140x25mm standard fan x 1, 1200 R.P.M, 17dBA (support 140mm fan)
Expansion Slots	7
Power Supply	Standard ATX PS2 / EPS 12V (optional)

Okay, installation of the PC components is easy enough. However, the 3.5" adapter is not user friendly enough. It requires you to adjust and fit so that it flushes with the front panel, which is a pain to do. Hard drive cage mechanism needs some work. You should be able to just slot the hard drive in. Hiding behind the removable front bezel for the 5.25" device bays is a breakaway vented metal piece. You got to be careful which bays you really want to use, or you may end up leaving a gap without the vented metal piece.

Despite the hiccups this case brings, I liked the case a lot. What I liked about this casing is that, it has a rugged industrial look with vented design, much in trend with what AC Ryan is offering with their MeshX Panels. It is a huge full tower with lots of room to work with. Tall CPU coolers, long PSUs, extended motherboards, long GPU cards, you will have no problem with space with this case.

I also like the fact that you can mount the PSU on the bottom or top if you choose to. If you mount it at the bottom, it rests on a vented base. Pretty neat. The cable management system is worth mentioning as well, with lots of useful cutouts for you to route and hide your wires and cables. You will have a very neat looking setup when you are done. I know, it does not have a removable motherboard tray, but it has a cutout behind the tray for you to access your CPU cooler mounts. Very useful. The fans are effective and quiet, which I like as well.

In conclusion, for the price, I would say this case offers good value for money. Yes, it is made in China and not Taiwan, but a similar alu-casing will cost considerably more. It offers good looks, good features and works well. I think that is all that matters.

Take a look at some pics below:

My Rig - Meshed Up

After installing a large 250mm LED side fan, the mountings on the acrylic panel just does not fit well. Time for a new look.

I went with the mesh design. I ultimately wanted some modder's mesh, perhaps the hex design from AC Ryan. But I did not want to shell out the money at the moment, in case I did not like it. So I went to the local hardware store and bought some small diameter mesh for a test run.

After cutting to size using a wire cutter, i attached the mesh to the side panel and held it down with 1/4 inch screws. It creates plenty of ventilation, and came out pretty well.

Warhammer Online - 1st Impression

Being a seasoned player of many online games spanning from Final Fantasy to COH/COV, Lord of the Rings Online, and of course World of Warcraft, I have great expectations of Warhammer online, which was launched yesterday.

First off, the intro cinematics was pretty well done. It is really an eye candy, with the opposing forces fighting, and one scene led to another very fluidly. It creates an excitement of what to expect in the game. So, the cinematics end, and you are led to the character creation screen. I would say customization is not at all innovative or class leading. You have a choice of gender, some choices of hair, face, beard, and not much else. I was hoping for more here.

When the game starts, you start off in a town. I will not go into the specifics, you can read a review if that is what you want. I will tell you more of my personal impression. The graphics are okay, but not great. It is not that realistic looking like you get in Lord of the Rings online. The character don't seem to have any expressions on their faces. All dead looking, and they do not blink. As far as presentation and graphics are concerned, this is a minus one for me.

Server load times and queue times are terrible as well. I might try it for one month and see whether I'll stay for this MMORPG or not. There is always World of Warcraft to go back to.

For the initial gameplay so far, Ihave only got to level 6 on my character, and it is rather slow grinding at the moment, and quests are not that all interesting. I will update when I get more in depth in the game later.

My Thermaltake PC Setup

• Thermaltake Armor+ MX Mid Tower Casing
• Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo @ 3.00 Ghz (Overclocked to 3.2 Ghz)
• Gigabyte EP35-DS3 Motherboard
• OCZ 4GB DDR2 Ram
• CoolerMaster 520W PSU
• OCZ Vendetta CPU Cooler
• Powercolor ATI 4870 GPU
• WD 640GB HDD
• WD 500GB HDD
• LG DVD Combo drive
• Sony Card Reader
• Blue LEDs
  

I am in the midst of doing some cable management in the casing. Being a mid-tower, it gets pretty tight in there, and it helps if all the cables are neatly organized. I will also be replacing a new side fan, which is more powerful and yet much quieter.

Some pics:

Thermaltake Armor+ MX Fan Woes

If you own a Thermaltake Armor+ Mx PC case, you will probably notice that the 230mm blue LED side fan looks great, effective, but also very loud. In case, you are wondering. okay, I will just get a fan controller to fix the speed. Hang on a minute, none of them will work.

The side fan is wired not to the traditional 3 pin fan connector, but a strange looking connector to molex configuration. Take a look below:



























No PC hardware stores that I know of sells anything like this, and if you need a replacement cable of this sort, not even Thermaltake can help you. They just don't sell this part. So what then can you do? There are only 3 options. One is to cut the wires up, and replace the connector with a 3 pin version. Two is to replace the entire fan. Three is to do the 7V fan mod to reduce the fan speed. I suggest doing the 7v fan mod, as it is the easiest solution available. A guide can be seen here.