microATX full-height case recomendation

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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kostya
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Joined: Thu Jan 30, 2003 11:14 pm

microATX full-height case recomendation

Post by kostya » Thu Jan 30, 2003 11:41 pm

Hello everyone,

First (since that's my first post) let me thank the ones who organize and contribute their time and effort to this forum. It is a very educational and helpful resouce for a silent newbie like myself. Carry on!

Back to the business... I'm designing my HTPC and I looking for any recomendation/reviews regarding small desktop cases that are obviously quiet.

Ideally, that should ba a standard microATX since I'm planning to use an AOpen SilenTek MB (with Celeron 2GHz) and it has to accept a full-heigth PCI card (low-profiles are out). And lastly, the price should be reasonable-- CoolerMaster, for instance, has very nice cases but I just find it real hard to buy an idea of shelling out $100+ for a shell (pardon the pun). Besides these are hard to get in Canada (that's actually another preference).

I'm basically round my choices to the following few
Aopen H400(A)
InWin D500
Enlight 7180
Possibly Casper cases (if somebody could me find them in Canada)

Particularly, it's not trivial to get any info regarding power supplies used in a particular cases, which is my biggest concern. This and overall impression are the things I'm looking for so I'd really appreciate if someone could share their positive/negative experience or any ideas at all.

Thanks!

mudboy
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Post by mudboy » Fri Jan 31, 2003 4:49 am

The InWin V523 is a nice case, has some good features. I bought one for a project but it ended up being too deep for my requirements (yeah, yeah, I know, measure twice, buy once) so there it sits in my basement.

Pete

DaveSimmons
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Post by DaveSimmons » Sat Feb 01, 2003 7:34 pm

Look at my Cooler Master 610 thread if you're willing to spend $200 USD for just a case -- it can use a full-size power supply so you can either buy a quiet one like the Nexus or mod the fan on something else if you're not afraid of electrocution :wink:

Justin_R
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Post by Justin_R » Sun Feb 02, 2003 11:49 am

It probably doens't fit your size needs, but lately I've been eyeing the Sky Hawk IPC4032 4U Rackmount Case as an HTPC case. It's gigantic, but it has a bunch of front I/O ports, and (I think) would look better as an HTPC case than most of the desktop cases I've seen. You could even get really crazy and cut out the space for the front-mount 120mm fan intake and put in a small LCD screen. :)

Tore
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Post by Tore » Tue Feb 25, 2003 6:23 am

I like the Lian-Li PC9300 USB case, but it's a bit more expensive than the cases you mentioned, I think.

Tore
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Post by Tore » Tue Feb 25, 2003 1:07 pm

I got the lcd display for my HTPC project now, so I'll just tell you a little bit about what I'm doing. Maybe you'll decide to shell out more money for the case :shock: :wink:

Image

I removed the HD led and inserted the IR receiver (I had to make a plexi glass bracket and drill a hole in the case to do that, but it was easy and is not visible from the outside of the case). The front of the case has a plastic piece that spread the led light, or collect the IR light to the IR receiver. The led is not mounted directly on the front of the case, but sits in the front of the main box behind a transparent plastic piece that looks like those Ts they use in golf to put the ball on. Not sure if it's possible to understand what I mean? :oops: The IR receiver had a led that would light up every time I used the remote controll. I cut that of and connected the blue led that sit under the blue line. So now, the blue line lights up when I hit buttons on the remote controll.


Image

I bought a large Matrix Orbit graphic lcd panel with blue backlight (the one on the picture does obviously not have a blue backlight). The display itself is almost as big as a 5 1/4" bay, and the few millimeters that will be visible is a grey color that looks nice together with the aluminium. I will insert it in the right bay. I will have to cut away some plastic from the right side, but again it will not be visible from the outside. The left side of the lcd unit will almost reach the left bay.

I haven't decided on which CD/DVD unit I will buy, but I got some aluminium front covers with the case, and Lian-Li have others for sale. There are also a few CD/DVD units that come with a "silver" look, which is suposed to look good in alu-cases.

The drives in the Lian-Li PC9300 is tilted a little bit. I put the harddrive inside a SmartDrive, but the bottom got in the way for the connectors on the motherboard. I then got the bright idea of using the other holes in the Smart Drive so it would tilt the other way. It worked great, and it should also improve the air flow. I don't know yet if there will be space after I mount the lcd unit, but if not I'll just have to make a ghetto HD-suspension.

Anyway, I'm having a break in the PC building process because the Fortron PSU I bought had a nasty coil buzzing. I'm now waiting for the Seasonic PSU to arrive before I continue. I expect this computer to be really good looking when I'm done, and I expect it to be pretty quiet. I will have to take some pictures and write a little bit when I'm done :D

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