Installation and Operation (continued):
The next set of images were taken with the cooler on another motherboard (the
ECS GF9300T-A Black Series GeForce 9300). The below left image shows that you have to come in on an angle with your screwdriver to get to the mounting screws (regardless of motherboard). I switched to the long, thin handled screwdriver shown, simply because my more comfortable screwdriver was too wide to get any leverage... And I wound up pushing some cooling fins out of position anyway.
The above right image takes a look at the same motherboard, and here we see that while there wasn't a true interference issue, the black plastic bracket is touching a capacitor in the corner. All of the other coolers I have on hand have brackets that stay within the rectangular bounding box printed around each mounting hole on the motherboard. The CNPS9900 LED's bracket extends beyond this box and goes to the edge of the triangle printed outside of the bounding box. These two images of motherboard CPU sockets may better describe what I am talking about (
picture one /
picture two).
I also tried the CNPS9900 on an
ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution X48 motherboard, and while it fit without touching or interfering with anything, it was close. While I only tried the cooler on three motherboards, the CNPS9900 LED went 1 for 3 on having enough clearance around other components for an interference free installation.
The "LED" suffix on the cooler's name indicates that it is illuminated by LEDs. The hub of the fan is where the blue lighting comes from, and the images below attempt to capture it. I would say the exposure of these pictures make the lighting look brighter than it really is, and in reality it is rather subtle, if not dim. This is not a bad thing, as many times the LED lighting in fans is just too bright to me. The CNPS9900 LED casts a soft blue glow that defines the shape of the cooler in a dark case, but it will not light up a room.
