Thursday, January 04, 2007

Psyclone Wii Chill Station








- $20 at Circuit City (thanks Ed for the info)
- The wings are optional (yeah!). I hate those worthless wings so I leave them off. The base is still very stable (as stable as the original stand) without the wings attached.
- Lots of rubber feet on the bottom
- Single fan (pretty quiet, you have to get pretty close to hear it) that is usb powered. It hooks right into the back of the Wii which has two usb ports. There is also a pass through on the back of the connector so you don't lose the use of that port. Kind of odd that the wire comes off the the connector from the top instead of from the bottom but no big deal. The cable is just about the right length.
- The stand is still angled like the original stand. If you look at the bottom of the wii you'll see where the air intake vents are located near the rear of the Wii. The fan doesn't quite line up with that air intake but the grill is very long and it doesn't block the air intake either. In the end it's not any worse than the original stand and the fan can only help (just not sure how much. The fan blows up toward the Wii which I'm guessing is trying to force more are into the Wii air intake). I left it in stand by all night and the Wii still felt a bit warm in the morning (still warmer than when it's on and you are actually playing a game).
- Maybe the alignment is done on purpose so you don't end up filling the Wii up with a lot of dust if you plan to leave the fan on 24/7 like I do.
- With the Wii in stand by the fan stays on. If you turn off wiiconnect24 standby mode, then the fan completely shuts down along with the wii. Hopefully this keeps the Wii cooler while in stand by mode since that is when the Wii is the hottest since it's own internal fan is off.
- There is a blue glowing wire that wraps completely around the rim of the stand. It's really noticeable in the dark. It's pretty subdued in the light. There is a manual switch on the back to turn the light off if you don't like it. No manual switch for the fan though.

This stand would be about perfect if the fan aligned with the air intake better. I'm kind of on the fence with this one. Not sure if I should keep it or return it. Maybe a better cooler will be on the market soon but I do like the light.

UPDATE 01/04/07:


Thermaltake Jog USB Fan With Light
- $11 at compusa
- snake usb led light (white) and fan. There is a switch to turn on/off the light.
- Kind of ghetto looking
- Does a pretty good job keeping the left side (under side) of the Wii cool under stand by. Seems to work better than the Chill Station using the highly accurate hand test method.

UPDATE: 01/07/07
- returning the thermaltake. Found an HP usb fan for $10 at frys and it's more quiet.

No comments: