Installation
Installation of the SM436 is pretty easy, but there are definitely some things that Lamptron needs to make clear on their website as well actually listing installation instructions on their website as the piece of paper that is supposed to be the directions is pretty vague. First we are going to install the display, which we’ve decided to install on our last three PCI-Express slots on our case. One problem you might run into this that your PCI slot covers might fall off and it is quite hard to hold (all three) in place while you are trying to mount to unit. I found that using some tape of the back of the slots allows them to stay in place so you can mount the display.
With the display mounted I noticed a big problem. It was sitting flush against my graphics card, which happened to be the MSI Radeon RX 5600 XT Gaming X. This is a 2.7 slot card, so I would say anything 2.5 slots or larger will not work with the SM436, at least in a mid tower with 7 expansion slots. I actually didn’t notice this at first, but when I went to turn my system on the fan started grinding, which is never a good thing! So I went ahead and swapped my graphics card out with one that was 2 slots only.
Now on to the controller itself. It actually does not include any mounting hardware, not even double-sided tape, so you’ll have to either provide your own or get creative to where you put the controller. Be sure to connect the two cables coming from the display to the controller (they are labelled), then go ahead and connect your fans, RGB elements, and included thermal probes. Another weird thing about this controller is that it uses two different power connectors. You have both SATA and Molex. For one if you are releasing a product in 2020 it should not have a molex connection, two if you already have 1 SATA connection on the controller itself why not include a second one? I know Molex isn’t exactly dead, but I couldn’t tell you where my modular molex power cables for any of the power supplies we have here in the office are.
Since this is the SYNC edition we also need to connect the “PC RGB” header to the RGB header on our motherboard so we can control those elements with our motherboard’s RGB software. With everything connected you are pretty much good to go. You are more than likely going to want to attach the thermal probes to different pieces of hardware or areas of your case as well.
