Review of mCubed T-Balancer in English

rperezlo · Post by **rperezlo** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 3:07 am

Good experiment! It's too bad that the pads aren't conductive but it's good to know that it can be solved with a thermally conductive adhesive.

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 3:58 am

Your experiment (good thinking btw) does show that the pads do not seem to be very thermally conductive or at least take some time to heat up to the temperature of the surface they are affixed to. So, have you tried some other method of affixing the sensors to e.g. your cpu heatsink to see whether the sensor becomes more responsive? Or perhaps tried to hold a free hanging sensor between your fingers? That definately works within seconds with my sensors.

I ask because I am worried about reports that sensors do not change their reading even when temps obviously go up a lot... that is something I do not see in my setup even while using the (flawed?) stickies so using other mounting methods this problem should be even less. The health of my components is in the hands of those little plastic-encased thingies...

jones_r · Post by **jones_r** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 6:13 am

teejay, the human body has a comulitive effect for pain, i.e the temp of the sticker does not change over time, it is constant, and less than the temp of the surface it is touching, much less.

Here is my last question to mCubed:

About what you said, I want to get several things straight:

1) About the digital sensor accuracy, you said it is +/- 1 degree accurate. Well, I agree that its ambient readings are very precise, meaning, when I let the sensor read the temp of the ambient air, it gives me 28 degrees, which is ~1 degree higher than what my external thermometer shows, BUT, for example, when I let it read the temp of my PSU's heatsink, which I ran without a fan for several mimutes, and was *too hot* for the touch (if you touch more than 0.5 secnods, you get a burn), it showed only 49.5 degrees, which can't be true. I even pushed the sensor against the PSU with my finger, to get a good thermal connection, but the temp never rose above 50 degrees. This can't be right!. Moreover, if I calibrate the sensor to the exact temp of the CPU's internal sensor, let's say the CPU is 55 degrees, then when things get warmer later, and the CPU's internal sensor reads 65 degrees, the T-balancer sensor only reads ~ 58 degrees. I've *waited* for 15 minutes, and the T-balancer's sensor *didn't* catch up.

2) Are you saying I should glue the T-Balancer's sensor with SUPERGLUE to the heatsink ?, is this a good practice ?, does this glue conduct heat well ?, we don't want to insulate the sensor from the heat, right ?. Moreover, what happens when I want to remove the sensor from where I glued it to, will I be able to do that without breaking the sensor's head ?.

And here is their reply:

Dear Jones,

it is all about getting close to the heatsource. Even if you have an thin analog sensor, which is sticked to the heatsink, you will get this effect. The more the processor gets hot, the better the heatsinks work and you will not have the same increase as the processer insight!

Please check in step 2 the temps of your sensors (without sticking them to any heatsource, simply in the air). They should habe the same temperature (+/1°). If one is completely wrong, please tell me the address of this one and I will send you a new one. If you need more stickers, the same, we send it simply to you with a letter!

One tipp: get the plactic away from the LM75A chip (that is the sensor), take heat-conductice paste and stick the sensor (lm75a) directly onto the heatsink on a place where no air is! But be carefull, that you get no shortcut! The pins of the sensor should not get in contact with the chassis: so only remove the plastic above the lm75a! Superglue is also fine! You will never get closer without superglue. If a sensor breaks we send you a new one.

But be carefull with shortcuts. One shortcut with the sensors and your whole TBAN fails!

Best regards, Maik!

Maik Berendt
Sales and Support

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 6:33 am

jones_r wrote:teejay, the human body has a comulitive effect for pain, i.e the temp of the sticker does not change over time, it is constant, and less than the temp of the surface it is touching, much less.

For the record & my peace of mind: I did by no means intend to doubt your conclusions! If I sounded overly critical I apologize, it's just that I would like to get to the bottom of this...

It seems that the supplied stickers are not well suited for their purpose (which was actually the first thing I thought after unpacking the kit, since they feel so... foamy for lack of a better word). I have some heat-conducting double sided stickers lying around & will also try using adhesive tape over the sensor to see if that makes any difference. No superglue for me (*shudders*). Are you going to try cutting up the sensor casing?

jones_r · Post by **jones_r** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 9:35 am

Are you going to try cutting up the sensor casing?

I already tried cutting one, but I cut everything. When I put it on the PSU, the T-Balancer went crazy and started to spin the fans in weird patterns.

I'll do some more tests.

Stajo · Post by **Stajo** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 10:00 am

I cut a hole around the black little chip on the sensor and fixed it tight with cable ties to one of the heatpipes which i felt was getting warm very quick under load. I changed the curve to:

48 49 50 51 52 55

0 20 40 60 80 100

Now MBM says 43 at idle and 53 under CPU Burn. T-Ban goes from 49 to 52,5 ( I calibrated it under load).

I cant say cutting a hole and fix it against a heatpipe made much of a difference. Temp delta is still 3,5 C, but it works fairly ok with the new curve.

I will go over the other sensors now. I bought some Chemical Metal to experiment with...

Btw, why does CPU Burn just load my multithreading Prescott CPU to 50%, anyone?

jones_r · Post by **jones_r** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 4:29 pm

I completely given up on the T-Balancer automatic feature, I see it as a premature feature, and I will only start using it once two things will happen:
1) Analog sensors will be available. The digitals are too big and not effective in their reads.

2) When I'll be able to set a certain temp, and let the T-balancer adjust in real time in order to keep it constant.

These two features are said to come sometime soon, and until then I simply going to set the T-balancer to constant 16% (380 rpm). It works good for me for both idle and load, and is very quiet.

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 5:53 pm

Stajo wrote:
Btw, why does CPU Burn just load my multithreading Prescott CPU to 50%, anyone?

I think it sees P4 with HT as 2 CPUs. I run 2 CPU Burn at the same time to get 100%.

Btw, I've been following this thread with high interest. Looks like I should wait for the next generation if I want to order one - as I probably will have to pay USD 100+ for the full set including postage - and that's a lot of money.

jones_r · Post by **jones_r** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 6:08 pm

Looks like I should wait for the next generation if I want to order one - as I probably will have to pay USD 100+ for the full set including postage - and that's a lot of money.

You won't have to pay much for the analog sensors, if ordered separately, since they practically weigh nothing (and cost almost nothing). Also, the new features will come as a software revision upgrade, so I see no reason why not order now if you really want one.

Becks · Post by **Becks** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 10:13 pm

Well I got my globe and evercool fans in.

Globe = 2 thumbs up
Evercool = 2 thumbs down

The globes are smooth all around, there no noise really other than the airflow.... pwm doesnt make much of a difference... no huge noise... assuming there is any at all.. I didn't hear any.. but its not totaly silent in here atm.

The evercools, considering how often i hear about them.. really are good at little. Maybe I was supposed to get the dual ball bearing, or sleeve, instead of my 1 ball.. but compared to my other 120mm fans, the evercool has alot of bearing noise to it... its a scrapping noise... not sure if you can oil the bearing somehow or what. Really I didn't play much with the evercools, they were already beat so bad by the globes. Turning down their speed with PWM they got some odd noise to them... using just voltage control they get less noisy but you can always hear bearing noise as well as air flowing noise. I'd stay away from them with or without pwm controllers.. unless you care that they look very nice

.

Oh yea do people just cut off the temp probe off the globe fan? I don't really have any use for it.

Stajo · Post by **Stajo** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 10:55 pm

Now another thing puzzels me, to the curve above I have set 49 C to 20% fan rev. However the fan goes by 50% when the probe says 49,0 C. I have pushed the "Assign to fan"-button and everything...

Becks · Post by **Becks** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 11:20 pm

"2) When I'll be able to set a certain temp, and let the T-balancer adjust in real time in order to keep it constant. "

I'm not sure exactly how that is going to happen. I'm sure they'll add it, since they said they would, but I doubt it'll be that great. I just don't think you can do it with the limited temp accuracy and how slow the probes react (even nicer probes are not instant).

I can't think of a way without using some processing power.. maybe you could write a function that compared trends in temps vs fan speed over a last few radings (you'd need faster temp reads)... but even then I'd think you'd just have to adjust it to a specific applicaton.

Maybe I'll be suprised but I'd like to see how they do it.

Jordan · Post by **Jordan** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 5:35 pm

Has anyone tried a different thermal probe with the unit other than the one supplied? Obviously becase of thier large size it's going to be impossible to get the standard probe under the HS.

EDIT: Just read they are digital sensors...

MagnusT · Post by **MagnusT** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:47 pm

Jordan wrote:Has anyone tried a different thermal probe with the unit other than the one supplied? Obviously becase of thier large size it's going to be impossible to get the standard probe under the HS.

EDIT: Just read they are digital sensors...

It now supports small analog sensors too. You can either buy a version with 4 digital or 4 analog. As a bonus the version with analog sensors also supports water cooling temp and flow meters + emergency shutdown using a cable to the PC power soft switch.

Anyone had fun with the new version 2.0 of the software?

MagnusT · Post by **MagnusT** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 8:01 pm

I had some fun and fooled around with jaLCD with my T-Balancer and since I don't have an LCD
yet I used an LCD emulator also found at www.jalcds.de

This is my actual pc which I'm writing this on

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 10:49 pm

Yes, I have been playing around with the 2.0 software a bit. Stability-wise, I liked the beta3 version better than the 2.1.0, but I just checked and saw they released a 2.1.1 2 days later... perhaps that version fixes some of the stability issues. For example, if I rename a fan channel in the current version I get an error message and the software quits. After restarting it, the channel is renamed though, so not a real big issue. Oh, and I had to load the default profile and reset all my options, because it kept raising alarms with no apparant reason.

Apart from these issues the new software is a big improvement... I will definitely start using the logging options to see what's going on with my machine when I'm not watching it. And I really like the LCD emulator, thanks for posting that!

I do hope the still disabled option of "target temperature" as shown in the screenshot posted before gets activated soon: I am still looking forward to that one. If that works I will definitely order a second unit for my other PC, even though I've considered using one T-Balancer for both machines... the only drawback would be the limited number of fan channels.

-EDIT: just received reply from mCubed: they plan to have a version with "target temperature" in January. Also, for a new system they recommend the analog sensors over the digital ones.

MagnusT · Post by **MagnusT** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 3:22 am

The "rename channel -> software quits" bug I only had on my box up until beta 3. From beta 4 and on I've never seen that again. Odd that you still see it!

If you want to experiment with LCD I've made a jaLCD setup file with a bunch of examples to get you started. It's intended as a template with examples. There's some basic how-to info too but that's in Swedish

It's all in the support forum at http://tystpc.nu
Here's a direct link to the topic: http://tystpc.nu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48 Good luck with the swedish

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 3:45 am

Thanks! I've spent a few holidays in Sweden so I'll manage... I've found that reading it out loud makes it somewhat understandable for a Dutch person... as long as the reading is done by a Dutch person

Funny thing is, I've never seen that quitting-bug until 2.1.0. Oh well, I'll upgrade to 2.1.1 and see if that helps.

Since you seem to distribute these things: do you have any experience with the semi-passive PSU kit? I am not sure if it adds anything to simply using an existing temperature sensor... here is what mCubed wrote about it after my inquiry to its advantages:

mCubed tech support wrote:It also switches off at 80°C without the T-Balancer (stand alone or cable lost), sensor board is different (it fits better to screw it onto the heatsink in the PSU), it includes needed cables. (...) Yes, you have to cut the actual fan cable and to solder it onto the
semipassiv board

So it involves soldering the original psu fan leads to the board, making it a somewhat involved mod... and it is still a slow digital sensor like the original ones included with the T-Balancer. I think I'd prefer glueing an analog sensor to a heatsink... but both would be safest I think (this is the most "dangerous" component in the computer after all). Do you have any thoughts on this product?

As a side note: mCubed continues to give excellent tech support!

MagnusT · Post by **MagnusT** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 5:37 am

teejay wrote:Thanks! I've spent a few holidays in Sweden so I'll manage... I've found that reading it out loud makes it somewhat understandable for a Dutch person... as long as the reading is done by a Dutch person Funny thing is, I've never seen that quitting-bug until 2.1.0. Oh well, I'll upgrade to 2.1.1 and see if that helps.

I suggest a clean uninstall and deletion of the TBAN20 directory before installing the latest version. If you've done special fan curves export and save these somewhere else first. I fiddled a lot trying to export import the whole setup between versions but in the end it seemed best to do a clean setup from scratch and just import my four special response curves only.

teejay wrote:Since you seem to distribute these things: do you have any experience with the semi-passive PSU kit? I am not sure if it adds anything to simply using an existing temperature sensor... here is what mCubed wrote about it after my inquiry to its advantages:

mCubed tech support wrote:It also switches off at 80°C without the T-Balancer (stand alone or cable lost), sensor board is different (it fits better to screw it onto the heatsink in the PSU), it includes needed cables. (...) Yes, you have to cut the actual fan cable and to solder it onto the
semipassiv board
So it involves soldering the original psu fan leads to the board, making it a somewhat involved mod... and it is still a slow digital sensor like the original ones included with the T-Balancer. I think I'd prefer glueing an analog sensor to a heatsink... but both would be safest I think (this is the most "dangerous" component in the computer after all). Do you have any thoughts on this product?

I ordered a few to test them out but I will not sell them in Sweden. Mainly because I absolutely do not want to incourage people of unknown skilllevels to take their PSU apart and start soldering and installing the small pcb so on. I can definitely apreciate the benefits of the differences to a normal digital sensor but I'd rather see people getting a good PSU to begin with instead. The sensor is absolutely not slow on reacting to temperture changes in the PSU as long as it's mounted in the right place.

So if you're an experienced technician with proper understanding of high voltages and have a good PSU from a stable-power point of view but it has a loud fan you have to swap out anyway and the PSU has a lousy built in fan speed control setup (or no fan control at all) it's defintely worth it. So conclusion from my end: good item but considering all the above, a very small market.

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:38 am

Did the clean uninstall/install when I installed the 2.1.0 software, will upgrade later tonight and do it again though. Definitely have some special curves to export first

The reason I'm considering the semi-passive PSU kit is because I basically want all fans under control of the T-Balancer. I have no problems with the soldering and installing bit - calling myself an experienced tech would be taking things too far but I've done my share of modding and soldering. I think your standpoint is a very healthy one from a vendor's perspective though!

Now I'll just go and start a new thread to get some advice on a psu... that reviewed Coolermaster is high on my list, esp. since fan and fan control circuit seem to be its main weaknesses.

Aleksi · Post by **Aleksi** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 7:48 am

Hi guys

Could you please my thread over at the PSU section

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... 5039db830b

To make it short, I have placed one digital sensor inside my PSU (not the semipassive kit). So far the readings have been very realistic (55-70C). IMO the described problem with digital sensors is happening, as Mcubed support stated, from lack of contact with the measured surface.

The motherboard given CPU temp has it's inaccuracies, but it should taken in to notice, that the BIOS given CPU temp is the core and T-Bal gives the heatsink's temperature. So it is quite logical there are differencies in the measurements. The heatsink gets warmer slower than the core and also dissipates the heat slower than the core after load.

But plese read my thread and give your thoughts on it.

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 3:46 am

Inspired by MagnusT's post on jaLCDs; here's what I did:

This is data from T-ban with analog hub (rpm number is not very reliable I think). Software is T-Ban 2.1.4 and lastest version of jaLCDs. The LCD screen is fixed in the middle of PSU air channel. Since the air channel uses 2 bays, adding LCD screen still give enough room for cool air to move in.

Cheers,

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:41 pm

Nice looking modding ultraboy.

Where did you get the "mesh" for your PSU air channel? From what I can tell, it doesn't look like moddersmesh. I'm working on a rad box, and for one area I'm actually looking for something a little less "holely" than mnpctech's moddersmesh.

Thanks,
DrCR

_________

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:38 pm

Practically it's a steel sheet to make car speaker cover. I got mine (approx 90x180 cm sheet) from a wholesaler of factory supplies. Took me a month to find. Pretty cheap though.

I think you can just buy the replacement for car speaker cover and flatten it with a rubber-head mallet. Doesn't cost much too, and if you're looking for black color - then it's perfect.

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 6:59 am

Cool deal, thanks. Who did you get it from?

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:58 am

DrCR wrote:Cool deal, thanks. Who did you get it from?

As said earlier, it's a wholesaler for factory supplies...I mean here in Bangkok, can't really remember the name. It's a small/traditional set up, basically to serve small/back yard type of factory.

That's probably why they sold me this 'small' piece, although they might think I was mad when I explained what i wanted it for.

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 3:55 pm

Ah, my bad. I assumed you were state-side, didn't notice you're Thai.

Aleksi · Post by **Aleksi** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 3:44 am

waking this thread...

has any one of you had problems with the sensors / sensor bus dropping out? I've had this happen a few times, all the sensors just simply disappear. The bus is working OK, atleast it is feeding voltage to all of the digital sensor and the analog hub / sensors. Rebooting and restarting the T-Balancer doesn't, both times they started working again pretty randomly. It is also not a cable issue. Both times have happened after software/firmware version 2.1.4., currently using 2.1.5. The other time was actually yesterday.

My friends also had a similar experience, he's using only digital sensors. His server had crashed and when he opened it up he noticed all of the fans had stopped. However the T-Balancer was flashing like everything was normal...

After this two of his four sensor stopped working totally.

Neither of us have not mailed mCubed about this, thought I'd ask around to see if they were others experiencing this problem?

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 7:03 am

Sorry to hear that you have problem. This is the first time I hear about this - what you said did sound scary.

You'd better write to Maik (mCubed tech support). His respond is normally very quick and helpful. Please let us know how thing goes - at least we can take pre-caution.

Good luck.

Btw, just to give comparative info. though I don't think it would be any help with your situation - I'm using software version 2.1.4 connected through external USB cable with 5 analog sensors (no digital sensor). 2 of these sensors expose to >50°C all the time i.e. one in PSU , another one with GPU. I always keep my eye on these 2 sensors as I think it has a high chance to fail before anything else. So far no problem *knock wood*.

Jordan · Post by **Jordan** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 4:24 pm

It's a long time on and I still havn't got one. So after all this time have any opions changed? Have the software updates up til now changed/added anything?

I'm porbabaly upgrading to a higher end system pretty soon for work and games while I use my Shuttle Zen as a media centre and for web browsing so I'm thinking about employing this in the work/gaming system once again.

Review of mCubed T-Balancer in English

The hole is cut!

Re: The hole is cut!