I moved my HW out from a much loved Antec P180 because i don’t think I’ll ever need ATX size motherboards anymore so then I could have a smaller case. I saw this new m-ATX case and fell in love - flipped MB – 180mm fan !! I bought it as soon as could get my hands on it (not much love for the fan though, but more on that later). But the gods are good, it’s a lot easier to rest my feet on top of the case now .

At the time of purchase (october 2011) I had running a Seasonic X-650, Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD4 (+USB3 card), i7 860 w/Noctua NH-U12P (no fan but exhaust), 2x 4GB Kingston lowprofile value Ram, Sapphire Radeon 5850 w/AC Accelero S1 r2 fanless, Intel G2 80GB SSD + 3-4 3,5” HDDs. I mounted the PSU fan down and intend to keep it that way unless something proves otherwise. I had a 120mm exhaust fan that’s not in the picture, think it was Schythe Slipstream. *Forgot to mention; the darn thing was cooking when gaming...


The other side, good room for cables – I don’t like to tie things down too much, for easier service and later reworkings.
I tried to put the VLN/ULN adapters from Noctua on the main 180mm fan to take some noise away but I didn’t start or was still noisy. After that we were never friends anymore and it just made more noise now, on low stteing without adapters, than it had when we started. So after a while I took it out – still waiting for the aftermarket for 180mm fans to pick up…

In the meantime I took the HD cage out and vandalized it a little bit (knocked out the frame in the one end, cage got a bit 'softer') to be able to turn the drives around with the cabling towards the front panel – lots more room there now with the big fan gone. I wish the case had allowed for HD cage with cables toward the side panel, only missing a few mm’s.. I did have some drastic ideas, but gave up since it was too cramped.

..and so came the time to buy some new huffy puffy silicone for this black beauty (july 2012).

Enter Z77 motherboard, i7 3770K CPU, 8GB 1600Mhz RAM, 670GTX graphics card, 120GB SSD.

I also got hold of a longtime wet dream, the Macho heatsink from Thermalright (not the original though) – I’m running it without a fan on since the exhaust fan is very close and I don’t regularly put excessive loads on the CPU. As you can see I also made some cardboard ducting, held up by the CPU support that’s built into the case. I named my PC Tandoori chicken after the first cardboard piece I made. Later I made a better one and rechristened the box to Chicken Vindaloo which is proper considering the >hot< hardware. I probably will do a little more ducting later, I also put gaffertape over some ventilation holes in the back, as I don’t have positive air pressure in the case (yet.. (?) ).

Notice here I've swapped the rubber feet for a stack of two felt pads used for furniture - makes the computer slide superbly when I want to move it around under my desk, did the same with the sub from my 2.1 speakers Also bunched up all external cables neatly, and fitted the power strip and excess cables underneath my desk (sleek & now much easier to vacuum the floor).

*Exhaust fan is Noiseblocker PWM on CPU header.
I got the stock design GFX card as I intended to put on a third party cooler anyway. AC’s accelero twin turbo II seemed perfect as the fins on the cooler runs along the length of the card, same as the airflow in the case. I might just take the the plastic shroud with the dual fans off if I get around to mount a 120mm fan blowing air from the front of the case over and along the GFX card. I moved the DVD burner up to the top position to get more room between it and the HD cage, I just need to find some way to mount one of the many fans I have around.
If I get to that, I am also thinking of taking away the exhaust fan and rather have a nice fan mounted on the CPU tower in push position. That way I may achieve positive air pressure in the box, probably even involving ducting from the filtered front to a juryrigged 120mm intake/gfx fan. Given the PSU doesn’t crank its fan (on full ) and reduce air pressure in the box - well then I can turn the PSU upside down (or w-e) so it takes in air from outside the case.

I was not too happy to discover that I couldn’t mount the RAM heatsinks that came with the AC TT II on the MSI card (standard layout, I think). I found that out just after I glued them on and left the whole thing overnight to cure. Neither was there room for heatsinks on the back of the card (RAM there also), so I just have to hope the RAM survives w/o heatsinks. Worst fared are maybe the ones at the back of the card since they are directly exposed to heat from the CPU tower. There’s only one thermal reading off this MSI card, and it’s not the RAM of course so i cannot monitor that temp.

Not much room for RAM heatsinks


PCI-E Wlan card there, + I made a extra hole for the cable for front panel audio


Just had to sneak in a pic of my mask collection from a new angle

Added a few more pictures to detail the cardboard - it kills a whole lot of dead space (air), and I think it's a big part of the good results I think I get with just one exhaust fan - well, under load the PSU probably exhausts some hot air too (but fighting with the gfx card for the same air as things are now). Pretty silent and not too warm, hope to elaborate later w/temps under gaming or handbrake. But I might try to finish the build first.

Sorry for all the little edits - a bit obsessive, me. Main content is the same, any comments verry welcome

I'm curious; why this choice of PSU orientation?

Primarily to keep the top closed actually. Just to keep My precious Seasonic X-650 clean (dusty nerdcave) and safe. To prevent build up of dust, ashes (I smoke), breadcrumbs (I eat at the desk too) , to prevent any accidents with water or drinks (even though then I would have to throw water in under my desk). I was also thinking that the GFX card might benefit from getting hot air pulled away and exhausted, but i'm aware that this might cause adverse side effects from the PSU/-fan. I haven't really ever looked into when the PSU fan is running or not. I understand that if the PSU's fan (X-series hybrid mode) is running or not will have some impact on airflow in the case. I dunno the true answer to whether this is really a bad way to use this PSU in this particular setup.

But with my aim for positive pressured case, I'm partial to try it with the fan up.

Interesting that you found the 180mm air penetrator noisy. I was considering hacking up my cheap case to fit one in the front but since you say it's noisy... I wonder if it's sample variance as the SPCR review indicated it was 'acceptable' at low speed and with 9-10v.

If I may make a critical observation, you have 3 (or 4) hard drives sitting right in the air path of the Air Pen. I wonder if some of the noise was buffetting caused by this obstruction. If I was choosing to build a PC with 3-4 HDDs I personally wouldn't choose the TJ08-E due to this blockage.

I think a positive pressure setup is ideal for the TJ08-E, it seems to have been designed with positive pressure in mind (perhaps an obvious thing to say given they fit a 180mm intake fan!)

Do the 3.5 inch hard drives block any of the RAM slots? Judging from the photos it looks possible, but not entirely clear. I'm wondering if it is possible to fill all four DIMM slots as long as there are no heatsinks on them.

Yes it is possible to use all ram slots, the hard drives limit ram height to approx 45mm IIRC. Certainly normal ram and even ram with short heatsinks -- corsair vengeance at most -- (27-42mm high) will have no problem.