sgmihai,

I am assuming you have removed the plastic bezel but if not press two bottom tabs and pull the bezel gently straight towards you. The rails attach to the drives flush to the bottom in such a way that the little springy things on the rail end face the front of the drive. The rear of the drive should slide right in and the little springy things latch the drive in place. Before the bezel is replaced you will see about one inch of the drives and the little springy things protruding from the front metal.

The power LED requires the correct polarity. You should shut down the computer before you try switching poles of the connection.

I hope this helps.

yep, i fixed everything thanks for reply
i didn't know bezel=front panel, lol
why didn't anybody say that i have to remove it ?!!!

The manual is available online in PDF.

LEDs are sensitive to the polarity. Try the connectors the other way around.

S,

Others have had the same problem and there is another post that should be able to help you. I don't have enough time at the moment to write it all down again. There was a picture too. You can search for my user name and 3000b or bracket , optical drive , install. I will make a couple of quick searches now. - FG

After a little investigation at a local electroncs store, I found the thread is a metric 3.0mm by 0.5mm (fine).

I repaired the hole by attaching a 3mm nut to the case with a screw and putting epoxy around the nut (after putting some light oil on the screw in case I got some glue on it) to keep it in place. To hold the PCI card, you probably will need to use a standard fine-threaded computer M3-0.5x6L hex (CD/DVD) headed screw and not the M3-0.5x5L round head (floppy/CD) screw as the hex screw is 1 mm longer. I found that Gyberguys sells the nuts and screws.

I've found that resting the hard drives on pieces of foam on the floor of the computer case eliminates the case vibration/ humming front plastic panel. The stock hard drive mounting system that comes with the case is not going to be adequate for most of the people reading this forum, I'd guess.

I'm in the process of building a new system with "silent" cooling in mind. Basically has come down to the Sonata until I read the 3000B review.

How is your experience with the 3000B so far? And, compared to the sonata?

Also, what did you do with the CPU duct? I am thinking to get the xp120 and hope to vent the heat out via it. Not sure if its possible....[/quote]

I just set up a 3000B yesterday and discovered (perhaps others have already, but searching on this turns up too much) what turned out for me to be a very simple way to suspend a notebook HDD in this case. I had an old, unused HDD (my first 1GB drive--boy did that seem spacious), and I mounted it in the 2nd slot from the bottom. I put two strips of 1/2 inch sorbothane on top of it, and placed the notebook drive on that. It's fast, stable and works very well!

Like teknerd, I recently migrated my system from the Sonata to the 3000B and I'm only sorry I didn't get the 3000B first. I'm using the duct and my temps CPU are lower by 3 to 4 degrees C, so I run the Zalman 7000 AlCu, and at appx 1600RPMs and it's not noisey.

I've got the Acoustipak pre-cut for the 3700BQE, which fits the 3000B exactly (some cutting required for the duct), and it made a huge impact. I never did the Acoustipak treatment with the Sonata, so this is a bit apples-to-oranges, but with the 3000B I've got an additional fan (Nexus 120mm on the intake), and the side duct, and it's far, far quieter than the Sonata system. My drives are much happier now. 5 degrees happier.

Also, the right-side panel is removable allowing for a fair amount of behind-the-scenes cable routing.

If you decide you don't like the duct, a 3700BQE door will swap right in. Antec doesn't charge much for extra doors (I got a spare Sonata door for $15 directly from them).

I say: Go for it. It's a solid platform to work with, inexpensive, and flexible.

--Steve

I was wondering how well the duct actually lines up with standard NF4/KT890 motherboards, like the Abit AX8 and Epox EP-9NPA+ fitted with the XP90/XP120. I saw that someone posted that it didn't line up very well with a DFI-board, but they have their sockets/dimms in a different configuration.

A very valid point.

For my Asus board it's not dead-center, but I get around 85% coverage, which still makes a difference.

--Steve

Thanks for the feedback Steve.
I guess with Acoustic pak, the overall noise will be reduced.
I also like the fact that the 3000b allows a PSU with your own selection. Not that you can't replace the sonata's, its just you wouldn't feel like money wasted.

As for the duct position, I guess I can always replace it with a flexible foil duct from home depot.

That being said, I just saw a preview of the Sonata II. very exciting case with the back vented duct.

Here for Sonata II

I hope SPCR will have it reviewed as soon as its available. My guess with the duct size and its angle, it would produce some resonance noise. Plus, if the duct is meant to intake fresh air from behind, the lack of filter will generate more dust. (atleast in the pre production pictures)

You're welcome.

Re: PSU selection... Totally agree. I got the 3000B from Amazon for, like, $45 bucks without PSU. I went for the Seasonic S12-380W. What a great PSU! So quiet.

Re: filtering... I got a package of cheap home vent filters from the local hardware store and cut a square the size of the duct base. It's sandwiched, gasket-like, between the duct base and door. The stuff is very breathable but does a good job of trapping dust.

Re: Sonata II... There's still the issue of the drive orientation. There seems to be a consensus here that perpendicular to the airflow path is less optimal than in-line. Makes sense to me: a perpendicular cage puts more metal in the airflow path.

--Steve

Don't know if this has been posted, but it could warrant an update of the review. I just got my 3000b yesterday, and on it Antec has updated the front fan mount and added standard holes where the plastic fan mount is mounted. So now you can acctually mount any standard 120mm fan without having to drill you own holes or resorting to things like cable ties etc. Even though I used cable ties

I've been hearing about this for a while now. It seems to show that Antec really does listen to customer feedback, not something you see too much of.

I have my SLK300b for a month now and it has the holes for mounting 120mm fan in front.
I'm not sure if this has been said before, but my SLK300b has "tattooed" on the back of the front door, near the place of the sticker REV, year, month and day of the production.
I have rev 1, year 2004. month 10, day 8.
What negative impact on the case would have removing the bar under the power suply ? I need some extra space there for moding the PSU with one 120mm fan under it.
Also, because of the bar, it is imposible to remove the PSU without first removing the SI97.

I've had by 3000-B for 2 weeks now and I love it!

I had a 3700BQE for my old rig (Newcastle 3200+ S754) but I just bought a venice 3200+ (S939). I love the hard drive mounting so much more because it's removable. I have the HD mounted in one of the 5.25" bays via those compusa (nexus) 5.25" converters, so I don't need the rack anyways.

I have the Seasonic S12 430w which is also amazingly silent.

Mine had the 120mm holes up front, so I was happy.
Great Case!

That's just the day that the door was molded, it has nothing to do with the metal case itself.




I wouldn't remove it. I'd bet that it ads a lot of strength (also read: "vibration dampening") to the case. You can grind a notch in the underside of the bracket to clear the fan.

I just plopped my system into one of these about a week ago....unfortunately I do not have the middle set of holes for a normal 120-mm fan mount I purchased this two weeks ago from NewEgg...I wonder if they're getting old stock back in? At any rate, I absolutely love it, regardless of the front mount.

Has anyone thought about ducting their VGA card to the bottom duct? I know it's supposed to bring fresh air in, but I wonder if you could exhaust it....but the PCI slots would probably be better (I'm putting a Zalman 700 on my extremely loud X800XL, would like to duct that 70C air out somewhere).

I got this case a few weeks ago (beginning of May 05) and the front fan now comes with a purple plastic assembly that you can snap the fan into. I just got a cooler master 120 (w/blue LEDs) and I had it snapped in and plugged in very quickly (< 10 secs)

As for the duct, it doesn't line up too well with the EPOX EP-9NPA+Ultra. I'm using an XP-90 with 92mm Panaflo. I can look through the vent and see about the top 1/4 of it. Also, the clearance between these 2 is razor thin. I'm wondering if removing the whole assembly would help temps any...

The review of the SLK3000B and the associatted thread (this one) are what brought me to SPCR. As an owner of a Lian-Li PC-65B the SLK3000B is the best bang per $ out there. I ordered it for $46 with shipping from Amazon and wasn't disappointed. This forum with experienced silence freaks is the icing on the cake. Silence is a new priority for me with the PC. I hope to learn a great deal while here. Thanks for all the info and ideas.

Unfortunately that's nothing new. The entire SLK series has always suffered from the inclusion of that crappy purple plastic bracket since the first SLK3700AMB first came ashore about 3 years ago.

The SLK3800B is just a SLK3000B with a 400W SmartPower2.0 ?

Yes.

Its a pity SLK3000B doesn't come with fan grommets.

Hi, I'm gonna buy this case (for 48€ in store), it seems great and it's even one of the cheapest PSU-less case I can find

a few negative comments :

I hope that CPU duct will line up well with the CPU, not that I really need it but if it doesn't, then it's a stupid useless piece of plastic with a stupid hole in the left door.
The duct would have been great if it brought air to the video card instead (I would have take off the whiny fan on my thermaltake G4-VGA, I'll try to suspend or attach a 80mm fan instead)

the stupid 3 pin LED connector annoys me (on my current case I can't plug in the power LED because of that),why add a useless empty after 15 years of 2 pin connector for the power LED
Nice thing is I'll just plugin the power LED on "LED 1" or "LED 2", and I'll be able to plug in the "on board network" LED on my motherboard.

I would have prefered to be able to put a 80mm front fan, 120mm seems overkill and 120mm fans are more expensive and much less common. but I guess I'll simply use no fan here (my HDD are at 45° and 40° this way in my current noname case..)

Other than that, I haven't even seen the case for real but I already love it . (it even has usable front USB ports, that's quite rare, most of time there's some retard design on other cases)

I think you will find that you will not even need a HD fan with this case. Under load my Maxtor 7200 rpm runs 30° to 32° with no fan. With a fan abou 22°

I also wanted a smaller fan and have a 92 mm panaflow "L" at 5 volts. You can mount smaller fans by using 7/16 by 3/16 grommets which will fit the grill holes just right. The 120 holes are there to allow quiet operation with a slow speed fan.

I put a 120mm fan casing (just the outer plastic) on the inside of the panel over the lower vent to install an air filter. You could do the same and then mount a sleeve, 92mm, or 80mm fan to it. for your video.

The CPU duct does not have to be a perfect fit to provide significant cooling, it does fit my Asus A7V600 board almost perfectly. As above, you could mount a 80mm fan casing instead of the Antec duct, and offset with 92mm casing, ducting, or whatever, if necessary.

I have a K7S5A pro and the socket is about an inch further to the right compared to an A7V600 or a prescott board.
I'll see if the duct helps a bit or not.

I only have to cool a XP2400+ (at fsb 138 ), my ti4200 (which I will o/c a bit) and two HDDs (which, well I agree, will cool themselves , we've always had "fanless HDD")

thanks for the suggestions about the lower vent, although I saw it as a source of fresh air for my VGA, I never even thought to kind of mount a fan to it.

/edit : I think I'll somehow put my 80mm on the vent like you said, to suck in air, and not worry about ducting, mouting parallel to the vid card or whatever (I'm laaazy!). I think the air will be quite attracted by the two 120mm's (PSU and case fan) and gently run over my gf4.

My Hitachi 7K250 80GB (windows) runs at 36ºC idle and my Seagate 7200.7 120GB (storage), both P-ATA, runs at 40ºC. I think *I* need a front fan :/

Has anyone else had problems using the two front USB-ports? On my case it seems as if the USB ports are too far inside the front bezel to be of any use. Both the devices I have tried to plu in (mp3-player and digital camera) have been unable to get full contact and get kind of twisted sideways because of the plastic of the bezel blocking access to the ports. The front bezel is fully installed on the front so it shouldn't be that.