6. Assembling The Cooling System

The CPU cooler is a proprietary device that came with the MEGA 180. It was designed to pull air in from the cooler side of the case and push it out the other side using an intake and exhaust fan. It was all copper with an aluminum housing, which acted like a tunnel for the airflow. It appeared to be well made, though it seemed strange that the exhaust fan (pictured below) was much smaller than the intake fan. Whether it was well made or not, I was stuck with it though. The power supply overlapped the CPU socket clip just enough to keep me from being able to install a different cooler onto it.

The MSI MEGA 180 bundled CPU cooler (on its side to show the copper plate).

Before the CPU cooler installation I test fitted the video card and became concerned about airflow since the video card completely blocked the air intake. (click image to enlarge)

The CPU cooler installed, while airflow is restricted by the video card.(click image to enlarge)