| Thermaltake Rhythm HTPC Liquid Cooling System
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Installation:
The installation of the Thermaltake Rhythm HTPC Liquid Cooling System will be completed on a system consisting of the following components:
» Foxconn 865M01-G-6LS mATX motherboard
» 2.66 GHz Intel Celeron D processor
» Thermaltake Mozart HTPC case
» 1024MB Crucial Ballistix PC3200 dual channel DDR memory
» 80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA hard drive (for OS and applications)
» 300GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 SATA hard drive (for media files)
» Lite-On DVD/CDRW combo drive
» 128MB ATI Radeon 9600 AGP graphics card
» ATI HDTV Wonder tuner / capture card
» Microsoft 802.11g wireless card
» Kingwin Alpha Power 350W power supply
» Windows XP Professional, SP2
The Thermaltake Mozart case was recently reviewed using an air cooled CPU solution, and that alone showed significant improvements in thermal performance over the system's previous chassis. Having the Rhythm extract all of the CPU's heat from the computer case will hopefully make the thermal situation even better.
The manual provided with the Rhythm is very detailed, and provides images to go along with all the text instructions it offers. Following the steps outlined should lead even a fairly novice PC user with decent mechanical skills through the process.
The first step of the installation was to prepare the motherboard to accept the custom CPU mounting bracket. I am not a huge fan of having to remove a motherboard to install a CPU cooler, but it is becoming more common these days. With LAN party systems that may get bumped and thumped on the way to parties I can understand the extra security, but on a HTPC that probably never moves, it seems less necessary.
Anyway, the below left image shows the 'before' settings, where the stock plastic frame surrounds the Socket 478 Celeron D 2.66GHz processor. Once the black plastic frame is removed, we move on to the below right image which shows the backside of the motherboard with Thermaltake's custom bracket. The steel bracket is insulated from the motherboard by two layers of padding which is affixed to the board with adhesive (that smelled quite awful, really). Four bolts pass through holes that line up between the bracket and the motherboard, and are used on the top side to hold everything in place.
 
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