My thanks go to Lawrence and Mike for reviewing this product, even though Mike had already said that is was just not good enough to use without a number of "if's and but's" to make it a good product.

I can only assume that the particular case that was sent to SPCR to review was not the quality we have come to expect from Antec, and other reviews of this product did not have the same problems with the HDD screws and pannels and the I/O shield not alligning - at least I hope that SPCR got a dodgy one, and not the standard of those that are shipping.

However, that fan is not good, and as Mike told me, is not easy to replace - there is essentially only one option that is the 1,000 rpm "Scythe Kaze Jyu Slim" SY1012SL12L. Even then, will it rattle, resonate and vibrate because it is attached to a flimzy bit of perforated bit of aluminium.

Lastly the HDD temperatures are simply too high for me to consider this case.

I was really interested in getting one of these, but now I am not, the ISK300 still looks like a good product, and there is no issue with replacing the crappy fan that comes with the case with either 1 or 2 80mm fans with dozens to choose from, additionally it does not "cook" HDD's.

The "if's and buts".

It looks to be a decent case "if" the fan is replaced with the one mentioned above, "but" so long as the side panel does not cause noise itself. "If" you use an SSD you dont need to worry about the temperature due to a lack of cooling, "but" they cost a lot more for large amounts of storage, especially as I envisaged this case for use as a media centre PC.

Antec, you simply need to do better when you replace this case. Replace the fan with a 120mm model, and dont mount it to the side panel - find another way. Sort out the HDD cooling it it very poor. Once you have done this, give the buyer the option of buying the case on its own, with no fan, no DC/DC adaptor, and no power brick as well as a model with all of that as well.


Andy

Thanks for another excellent case review, pity Antec are falling a bit short with one :/

If you used an ssd drive, hdd heat would not be a problem. As I would envisage pairing the local ssd with a gigabit wired network for large data storage.

I wanted to point out that when I see the reviews for small mini-ITX cases it always surprises me that they try to squeeze in a standard dc-dc board into the case design. Do none of them know about the space saving PicoPSU? I just saw the latest version is now 160W/200W peak. Using this would give designers to potential to reduce the case's footprint along with reducing the cable clutter created by the ATX PSU cable.

Where do you find such a case? I went looking for it. I can't seem to find it. If you bought it where would you buy it?

glad i didnt jump on the mini itx bandwagon when i saw this case come out a few months ago.

Sorry letter confusion, I meant ISK not NSK

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Antec_ISK300-65


Andy

About your "HARD DRIVE MOUNTING & ISSUES". Is it safe to mount 2.5" drives flat against a metal surface without any standoffs? Isn't there a chance of shorting the HD electronics?

Its not ideal, but circuit boards are laquered and slightly recessed from the HDD frame for this very purpose. In any case the ISK100 should have come with some strips to seperate the HDD(s) and case as per other reviews, again I suspect that the particular case that SPCR got was not 100%.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3751/a ... ndex6.html

although judging by this picture from the TweakTown review, their I/O shield didnt line up either - that is a manufacturing fault, but although their review gave a nice guided tour, they never actually gave any temperature results, and never mentioned the I/O shield issue (unless I missed it when I read it some months ago), hence the reason why I was so eager to see the SPCR review.

http://www.tweaktown.com/popImg.php?typ ... 7_full.jpg


Andy

Hi,

Nice review. I bought this case two weeks ago, I can confirm that I was a bit disappointed with the IO shield (even though all ports are useable).
The mobo side is quite loaded, but still every thing fits.
The HDD part is much better. I have two HM641JI in it.
I made a little video while mounting the case :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTFYAUEk_xA

Hey, this looks like the mod I did on my old Chenbro case. I have one of those 4 bay NAS mini-itx cases, and an atom 330 board with a whiny 50mm fan on the cpu heatsink, so I cut a hole in the panel above the cpu and stuck a 120mm fan on the outside of the panel pointing down at the cpu. It looked a lot like that, but with the 4 drive bays under the motherboard. Never a wildly quiet system, but it did stay cool.

I too have a problem with the power supply included, it is just unnecessarily big. The cables are also ridiculous. This is a problem I have with cables in general, sometimes it feels like they really should be better implemented and thinner/easier to manage. You would think that as you went with smaller and smaller cases, there would be appropriately smaller and better designed cables. I demand better integration! This is one thing the slimmer offerings from oems do well.

Strange air flow in this design -- in the side, and then back out through the fan on the same side? Sorta' short circuits the cross flow that would seem to be more efficient.

Typo patrol -- page 4: "The [coveer] panels were a little 'off'..."

Doh!

Would it make any difference to hard drive temps if it were an Atom or Fusion system, with lower heat-generation vs. the SPCR test?

The fan I could potentially just remove from the system, and just rely on the Atom or Fusion fan for cooling.

Would have considered this case for a light-use server, where Atom or Fusion would be enough CPU, and something like a 320GB 2.5" disk is enough storage. I have something similar in an ISK300-65, and would have liked to go to the smaller ISK 100 for a similar system I am considering.

Probably, but as that was not tested, and no other reviews even mention it we simply dont know by how much, 1C.? 10C.?



Yes, that would work, but as we know largers fan that spin slowly cool as well as or better than a small fan that spins quickly and makes lots of noise.



Exactly, mini-server, backup server, HTPC or a surveillance video recorder hidden somewhere using a Fusion APU would be ideal, but compared to the ISK-300 with 1/2 slow-running 80mm fans, and the better quality, the better HDD cooling and slightly cheaper price plus the ability to use a DVD drive makes the ISK-100 a poor contender. The only exceptions are for anyone where the physical size is the highest priority.

BTW, I has a look at the ISK-310 earlier - DO NOT TOUCH - it has an integrated fan cooled 150w PSU.


Andy

I have a question.

Page 3, you say that the fan would not be aligned with the CPU had you been using a LGA 1156 motherboard.
Isn't it possible to rotate by 180° the top cover so that the fan would be aligned with a LGA 1156 CPU ?
In some cases, you can screw the top both ways.

Thank you for reviewing this case. Even though I read the review and how bad this case was, I went out and bought one anyway and I have to agree, this is one lousy first edition.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but if there was ever a hardware equivalent of Windows 1.0, I think this would be it. There's this old Microsoft one-liner that I'm sure started with Windows 1.0 that went something like: "It compiled? The first screen came up? Ship it!" -Bill Gates

It's obvious that the hardware design lab only used paper cutouts of motherboards to test for internal dimensions, and only the most elastic string was used when it came time to make sure the alignment of the back panel was 'centimeter perfect'. Once these tasks were completed, the power supply team took over and found the thickest most inflexible cables they had an excess supply of from a 2000W PSU design that never made it to market, then had the brilliant idea to cut the length down enough to still be usable in a case this size, but left the molex connector in place for 'future expansion'. Then all was left was the front panel adapters that some guy had to complete on his day off, which explains the half-assed solution with the long and thick cables that were found from another design he walked past on the way to the lab.

I can live with the misaligned back panel as I can fashion something myself or go without, but those power cables are way too thick and inflexible for such a tiny case. I gave up on the USB/audio front panel and took it out. I haven't even got to the stage of closing the case yet as I'm currently using the stock i5 650 cooler for testing on my Gigabyte H55N-USB3. I'll be giving a Thermaltake (yikes!) SlimX3 a try soon as it's a very low profile cooler, and it was the only thing I could find locally that would fit.

So, here is what I'd like to see in the Antec ISK 100 rev2:

1. Aligned back panel. I mean, seriously?
2. Thinner more flexible power cables suitable for 90W design.
3. Delete the Molex connector. Only possible use could be a large and slim side panel fan.
4. USB3 front panel with shorter cables.
5. Maybe include short and flexible SATA data cables?
6. Cable management?

I'm sure I'll add to this once it's all closed up and starting to overheat. Which reminds me, those load power figures in the review didn't seem to be correct for a E3300, they look more like my i5 650. Just looks wrong for such a low power CPU to be needing 76-80W when in a previous review with the same board and a E7200 it consumed 65W.

The fan is held in place in a plastic assembly which is, in turn, screwed to the side panel. The mounting holes for this assembly are nearly, but just not quite, a match for the spacing of mounting holes to fix a 120mm fan.

I had a similar thought and tried this myself, but in reality the holes are tiny and it's just not close enough. I ended up using some bag ties through the ventilation holes to secure a Noctua 120mm fan I had sitting unused, and it's not too bad with my setup. I'm running a i5-650 at 2GHz (down from 3.2) which seems faster than I expected and is consuming under 60W AC and hovers around 50C while converting stuff in Handbrake. It was going over 65C at 3.2GHz which I wasn't too happy about, so I'm still trying to find a good compromise between speed and heat. I might try and find a 140mm fan next and see how that goes as it looks like a 160mm fan would also work if one existed.

Hmm, I wonder how a Prolimatech Samuel 17 would go with a fan mounted on the side of the case?

Any chanse to fit a Scythe Big Shuriken in this case??

If you only use the Case fan and no fan on the heatshink??

Update for anyone interested:

- bought a second ISK100 recently, and the fit-and-finish hasn't improved. The misalignment issues aren't first-batch-we'll-fix-it-later issues, they're we-don't-give-a-crap issues. Antec, what happened?

- tried an Arctic Cooling F9 92mm (25mm width) fan on my previous build, which can fit with some Dremelling can replace the stock case fan. Works OK with an i3 with stock Intel cooler with the fan removed. This does rely on the motherboard not having other heatsinks in the wrong place.

- with some judicious snipping and gluing the metal mesh insert in the top lid can be rotated by 180 degrees which moves the fan wrt the motherboard. This can put it in a more advantageous location for mobos with the CPU socket "on the right" rather than "on the left" (of which there aren't many in H61/H67 land). Could also help avoid problems with other structures on the mobo if fitting a 25mm thick fan.

I find this case intriguing and frustrating. It's appealing because it's one of the smallest out there, and it's cheap enough (inc PSU) that I don't get palpitations Dremelling it. My HTPC build using it has an i3-530 and chugs along quite happily, with mods as described above (fanless stock Intel heatsink). I just wish I could get the bloomin' motherboard to fit without a fight, cables to fit without a fight, and so on.