I have seen a lot of reviews on this device so I am sure I don't have to explain to most people what it is. Basically this is a drive bay that will allow you to see the temperature of three different components in your system and be able to adjust the RPM on one fan. By default the Nexus Multi-Function Panel displays the temperature of your CPU, hard drive, and case ambient. However, you can use the three temperature sensors on whatever devices you wish.

• Three stylish interchangeable faceplates
• Adjustable CPU fan speed controller
• System temperature monitoring switch and LCD display
• Audio alarm warning
• Two USB ports and one IEEE1394 (Firewire) port

The packaging is quite flashy and will catch your eye if you see it at your local computer store.  After opening up the box you can see that Vantec did a great job of making this box shippable with a rugged formed plastic package.

The product comes with everything you need to install this device. Using the upper right picture, I will go over what they included.

• Two cables for bypassing the CPU fan and motherboard fan connecter
• 1394 Firewire cable
• USB cable
• Nexus Multi-Function Panel
• Screws and hardware
• Two extra face plates (3 total)
• Three temperature sensors
• Instruction booklet

The installation of the drive bay was easy. Just attach all the cables and screw it in.  Make sure you tie cables up really well if there near any moving parts like a hard drive cooler in my case.

The temperature sensors are a little harder to install.  To install a sensor all you have to do is tape it to the device you want to measure heat from. In my case, I used all three sensors on the above devices. CPU, Hard drive, Video card. For the CPU sensor I attached it to the CPU itself even though the directions say to install it to the heat sink. Since I will be doing reviews with this system I didn't want to remove the sensor every time I did a heat sink review.  For the hard drive I placed the sensor right over the center of the platters and instead of using the third sensor on the case like it was supposed to be, I attached it to the rear of the core on my Geforce 4 TI4200. On a side note I had no idea a Geforce 4 GPU ran so hot. In Battle Field 1942 it maxes out at about 60c when its overclocked to 290/555 and at about 52c when its running stock

Since I have installed this product I have found myself turning my LAN box on just to kick back and watch the Geforce 4 TI GPU heat up from 27c to 50c. I recommend this product to everyone that likes to tweak there computer out. I noticed on Vantec's site they are advertising an accessory kit that comes with more color faceplates and one of them is clear, I think that would look great with my aluminum case. The last thing I wanted to touch on was accuracy.  I noticed that the CPU temperature was always about 10c cooler then the BIOS was reporting. I believe this is because the A7N8X is reading the temperature sensor in side of the die and the Nexus sensor was stuck to the outside of the chip.  I also noticed that the CPU temperature was about 3c higher then what ASUS Probe was reporting.  I cannot explain this at all other then the fact that maybe ASUS Probe is wrong because it should be reading the same 10c difference that the BIOS is reporting if anyone has any information on this let me know.

The last major problem I had with this product was the audio alarm. First off its way to loud and it seams like the panel looses temperature readings every once in awhile, and the alarm goes off for no reason. This can get annoying in game play, and this irritates my wife.  I have seen people put super glue in side the speaker to stop this. I think I will be doing the same.

• Nice looking accessory
• USB / 1394 ports
• Fan controller
• See your temp without exiting your game.
• Not very expensive at 38 bucks

• May not be exactly accurate
• Green LCD backlight looks out of place
• Audio alarm is LOUD and goes off for no reason