The love story of a man and his case.
First off, let me make clear that I am in no way connected to Silverstone
My search for my ultimate silent pc case started back in the day when I got a noisy pc in a coolermaster centurion 532 with lots of noisy parts in it.
I don’t even remember how I ended up here, but it surely was an eye-opener. My next rig was by the books: the P182, arctic accelero S1 rev2 with scythe slipstreams,…
In short: the whole shebang.
This case was a bit like the first big high-school love: a great memory, a tremendous experience, but somewhere deep down, you know this wasn’t meant to last forever.
Next on the list was my FT-02, which was a lot cooler than the (too hot) P182 case. I loved that case, even though it also had it’s flaws (more on that later)
Then I got to the gargantuan Cosmos II (my company paid for the pc
). Surely a great case: spacious enough for me to work in (My hands are too big to easily work in small cases), cool enough and you could get it to be quiet (with some modifications and clever parts choice). But the thing just was too prominent. I mean you could put Oprah, Arnold Schwartzenegger, The lion King, Mila Kunis & Darth Vader in a room with that case and all the attention still would go to the Cosmos.
So for the bigger part of 1 year, I’ve been looking for a replacement. I think I looked at literally all cases, and never found what I was looking for, but someday I noticed something: without knowing it, I compared all those cases to my old FT-02 (which was commandeered by the missus)…
But even though that’s a great case, it was flawed, was it not ? Yes it was, mrc112. But maybe we could fix those flaws ? Could we,mrc112 ? Maybe, let’s find out together (NO golem remarks on this part, please)
Let’s list up those flaws first before diving into possible solutions:
1. Too many 5”25 drive bays
2. Not enough front usb ports
3. Not enough SSD mounting capabilities
4. Rather noisy HD cage
5. 180mm fans aren’t quiet enough on the “low” setting of the fan-controller
6. Could use a bit more space on the back for cable management
The size & the “special” power supply mount don’t bother me. I like my cases big and the power supply mount never failed me in the old one.
Now, could those problems be tackled ? Let’s cover the list, starting at the bottom:
Point 6 is just something you have to live with. No changing that one. Too bad
Point 5: To solve this, I called in the help of another of my old favourites: the seemingly last Scythe kaze server that was available in Europe. Searched all big Pc-sites, amazon, ebay,…: only managed to found 1 ! Yessss, I has teh last one, my preciouuuuuus. *insert maniacal laughter*
Anyway: great fancontroller (manual, semi-automatic & automatic fan control) that can spin those 180mm fans at about 300-400 RPM range (or shut them down completely), making them virtual inaudible. Problem: SOLVED
Point 4: Benji-fun !!!! The HD cage has enough spaces in it to allow several HD’s to be soft-mounted. Extra plus: you can still use the hot-swap bays on those HD’s. I took out the plastic, installed the benji-cord et voila: problem: SOLVED
And now for the reason I started this list at the bottom: points 3, 2 and 1 could all be fixed with 1 solution: bring forth
the Silverstone FP56
This procuct, brought to you by Silverstone, features an SD card reader, 4 USB-3 ports (including 1 charge port), mounting space for 2 SSD’s AND it will walk your dog and clean your car
Ok, maybe I lied a bit here, but still: Wow, what a feature set
Since I also need a dvd-drive (yes, I’m old-skool sometimes): I now use 3 of those 5”25 bays, making it less of a waste to have 5.
Problems 3 & 2: SOLVED, problem 1: well, kinda solved
And there she is: the perfect case for me: a beauty to look at, one of the coolest cases on the market and yet: she can get whisper quiet.
Is she perfect now ? No, she still has a few flaws, but don’t we all ? I’ve looked long and hard for the perfect case and as in all relationships, you need to make compromises. There are some minor flaws you’ll need to accept, but if you work on it, you’ll have something special. So please, give here a try, there surely is a LOT more than meets the eye.
I’m sure: this one is a keeper !