Hardware Installation

   Installation of the unit is the same with any 5.25" devices, although you'll lose two 5.25" drive bays with this unit. Simply align the bay insert and using the supplied screws, secure the LCD unit in place. As I've mentioned earlier, you have 16 possible bay insert+LCD Screen colour combinations to choose from and I chose the MX411 to match all my black optical drives in the Silverstone TJ03 Case. Don't forget to connect any fans you would like to monitor to the unit and also the Dallas 1 sensors as well. That's about it for the hardware part.

Drivers/Software Installation

   Once you've plugged the Power and USB cable in, Windows will automatically detects your unit and ask you for the drivers. Just point the installation wizard to the USB Drivers directory on the CD and sit back and wait till the driver installation is complete. Once done, you are now ready to send display screens to your LCD. You can choose to test the LCD first too with MO's own software, LCD Tester. Or is you're feeling confident, jump right into it with the supplied LCDC proggie.

LCDC

   The MX411 comes bundled with what many considers as the best LCD Program available, LCDC. The software requires activation via LCDC website with a keycode, provided on the CD itself. Once activated and registered, you can now make full use of the software to fully utilize the capabilities of the LCD. First time running the software, it will detect your LCD unit and then present you with the configuration page as shown below.

   Once you're done with the configuration, LCDC returns you to the main window. Here is where you can start or stop displaying on your LCD and also build the individual screens or set certain events for the LCD.

   Here's a shot of the "screen builder" page where you can start building the individual screens that you want to display. Make sure you have the appropriate plugins installed so that you can run the desired display like Motherboard Monitor, Winamp, etc. You can find the plugins on the provided CD as well just in case you need it.

   Another powerful feature is the "event window". Here, you can map any of the 15 keypad buttons to any desirable applications or set certain display screens to come up on the LCD when a certain program is active.

   Of course, this whole review would be 13,046 pages long if I were just to talk about all the functions of the program! You can always read the online manual and guide provided on the CD and also a lot of information at your disposal over at LCDC's website. Alternatively, if you need a quick guide, check out Stygian's Guide to using LCDC right here, where he outlined the main features of the software. And don't think you're the only one using it. Just drop by Matrix Orbital's Forums or LCDC Forums to get hints and tips on your LCD and the program from thousands of happy users out there.