Nzxt Cryo LX with my gateway 6860fx

I received my Cryo cooler a few weeks ago and have been using it as until last night. It helped with the temps a little, however not as much as I would of liked. This cooler stock uses two of your usb ports, but adds 4 ports giving you a total of 5 usb ports. The two ports (one usb to usb, one usb to dc), are used to power the on board hub and the fans, therefore the fans are only getting 5volts. I tried removing the rubber padding from the fans to find out what voltage they are ratted at, but I couldn't get the sticker to stay. So I can not recommend doing what I have done to anyone, as I cant guarantee how long the fans will last like this.

Now for what I have done/am doing. What my plan is to modify my Cryo LX with the ability to go back to the stock settings easily if needed, with the addition of a fan under the small folding front ledge. Yesterday at the end of work, I dismantled my cryo lx cooler, the first thing I noticed, the wires going from the fan to the plug near the usb hub are backwards from what I was expecting. Which wasn't a big deal, I just had to reverse the wires on the male plug I had. I did some testing with the 3 fans hooked up to a 12volt 1200ma power supply. The fans was noticeably louder and of course faster. The next thing on my list was to add a small fan under the front so that air could be pulled from the hard drive area. The fan I am using is a old Thermaltake heat sink and fan that was made for an old geforce video card, I choose it because it has two sides and is made to blow air threw the other two sides and out the top. It isnt blowing in the direction I want, but it does get its incoming air from the sides, which is a plus because a standard fan I was afraid would be sitting to close to the surface, but I might try that out latter anyway. I traced the pattern of the fan, and headed for my drill press, however I only got the mounting holes drilled and only a hand full of of vent holes before a storm came in last night. Hopefully I will see better results once more vent holes are added.

Now here are my results, first here is the results from the Cryo LX with it in its stock form, this is after an hour and a half of playing left 4 dead with max settings (I was getting around 20 fps), temps was recorded with hwmonitor.
tzs0 51*c (141*f)
tzs1 64*c (147*f)

Core#1 57*c (134*f)
core#2 58*c (136*f)

GPU 66*c (150*f)

hard drive 44*c (111*f)

Now here are the results after testing with the 12 volt mod and the unfinished front fan, after another hour and a half test in left 4 dead with the same settings. Hey its hard work, but someone has to do it.
tzs0 57*c (134*f)
tzs1 61*c (141*f)

Core#1 55*c (130*f)
core#2 55*c (130*f)

GPU 59*c (138*f)

hard drive 43*c (109*f)

Latter today when things slow down, I will run a test with the Cryo off to see how that compares.

I should also note, my 6860fx is completely stock, I haven't upgraded anything on it, no under clocking or over clocking.

 

Nice results

Just make sure the fans are made to handle 12v, which I'm guessing they are, but hey who knows.

 

pix of your work? I would like 2 see the moded cryo

 

I will get some pics up as soon as I finish everything. Right now I have the power supply cord soldered to the plug, I would like to get an actual plug so that I dont have to carry around the plug all the time. I am also going to install a switch so I can easily go from 12volt to the stock 5 volt with the flick of a switch. But most importantly, I need to finish the vents for the front fan. I am hoping to get that done today, so maybe I can get some pics this weekend.

 

that would be sweet.

 

Yea definitely...

 

Does the DC port on the Cryo LX circuit card power the USB ports. If so, could 12 volts possibly zap the four USB ports on the card? Or are you connecting directly to the fans and bypassing the circuit card? The rubber on top of each fan is a vibration damper.

 

The manual/box for the cooler should mention whether or not the hub is passive or active. Passive means it's four ports which sip off the host connector cable, and active obviously means they're powered via the AC adapter. Given that the cooler is meant to be powered out of the box via the USB cable, I would venture a guess that the hub is passive.

That being said, I wouldn't chance it since obviously the hub *is* connected or the hub would be worthless. It's not like a four-port powered USB 2.0 hub is expensive, and given that NZXT assumes you're going to use 5v 500ma, I doubt they put a filter or any sort of relay to protect people from overvoltage.

Long story short, if you're feeding 12v into your cooler, don't hook up devices *or* your computer to it.

 

Good advice!!!

 

I have the 12volt hooked directly to the fans, there is a board where the usb and dc jacks hook up. The dc jack is tied with the usb ports, the simple reasoning is that only plugging in the usb to usb cord powers the fans.

Sorry no new update yet, I havnt had any time at my shop to do any work on it.