A long time ago, there wasn’t much you could do with an empty drive bay apart from maybe another disc drive. These days there are many different front panels that you can purchase for reasonable prices; Fan controllers, temperature readouts, VU meters, Card readers, the list is extensive.

Today I am reviewing the "Kama Meter". A Multi Function Controller from Scythe that has a 4 channel fan controller, 4 channel temperature readout, volume control and VU meter... a lot of "bang for your buck"! This product retails for around £30.00 Inc vat.

1x power converter cable (standard Molex to floppy)
4x Thermal Probes
4x 3 pin power cable extension leads
1x internal audio cable / I/O PCI bracket
1x 3.5mm jack Audio cable
4x Adhesive tape for thermal probes
4x mounting screws
3x Coloured Bezels

Before installing I needed to swap to the black bezel to match my case and although this came with no instructions, it is very easy to work out.

The thermal probes come with very long cables, ideal for tucking away to keep things tidy. I chose the following devices to monitor the following,

• Northbridge
• Southbridge
• RAM
• PSU

You might be thinking that there’s not much point in monitoring my PSU, but I replaced the standard fan with a quiet fan from Noctua that I reviewed a few months ago, and I was curious to see whether it’s running hot. It was a very simple procedure to install the thermal probe inside the PSU, using the same technique I used to install the fan. 

The provided adhesive tape was very useful for fixing the probes to the north and south bridges. I thought it would be a bit too fastidious to monitor each stick of RAM independently, so I placed the final probe in between the 2 of them. 

With a label on each end of the cabling, and labelled ports on the controller, it’s easy to connect them all up. (Although you might want to write down what probe is on what device, so you’re not looking at the wrong temperature!)

Next, connecting it up.