In search of a small and slim desktop case

gadgetzilla · Post by **gadgetzilla** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 12:48 pm

Can someone please recommend a decent slim case that will house a micro ATX motherboard ?

To give an example of the type of case I'm looking for:

cases made by " In Win" or The dell "Studio Slim" desktop case.

Thank you

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 1:21 pm

gadgetzilla wrote:Can someone please recommend a decent slim case that will house a micro ATX motherboard ?

To give an example of the type of case I'm looking for:

cases made by " In Win" or The dell "Studio Slim" desktop case.

InWin makes good cases.

Antec Minuet is kinda big and way overpriced, but okay.

Nothing in this form factor is easy to silence. I gave up on it. Some variant of a mini tower just works better.

gadgetzilla · Post by **gadgetzilla** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 1:39 pm

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm leaning towards the In Win cases but wanted to make sure I'm looking at all the options.

In this particular pc configuration, I'm not building it from the 'silent' perspectives, I'm going after the compact size of the case first. Silencing and cooling will be the next priority. I plan to use the integrated video.

The PC will have the mobo / ram / 1TB hard drive and a DVD player.

Thats about it.

Thanks

KyonCoraeL · Post by **KyonCoraeL** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 12:08 am

What form factor is preferable? Mini tower, HTPC?

I would suggest:

antec NSK3480 for a mini tower

http://www.antec.com/usa/productDetails ... 80&lan=us#

or

Silverstone ML2 for a slim case.

http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/ ... ml02&area=

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 1:37 am

AOpen make a decent slimline case but it would be a challenge to silence and it is a little thermally disadvantaged - ok for a moderate power cpu and onboard graphics .

gadgetzilla · Post by **gadgetzilla** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 11:45 am

Thank you for all the feedbacks.

After much consideration, and research, I opted to purchase the Antec Minuet 350 case. It has a $25 rebate so my final price became $60. Antec case generally have a solid reputation for workmanship and design. I had read elsewhere that the power supply fan of 'in win' cases were very noisy. Minuet's power supply is rated at 350Watts, the highest I had seen for cases in this class and it is very quiet. All in all, it ended up being a great price for this case, so it became very hard to pass this deal. As a bonus, this case is very nice looking. The piano black shines

I built an Antec Fusion case based HTPC (see another post from me a few months back)

This particular PC will be serving a work related need, the footprint of the case became important (over the noise factor)

I installed a mATX mobo (Intel), 4Gb RAM, Core2Quad 2.33Ghz CPU with a 500Gb Seagate Drive which has 32Mb buffer. It also has an LG DVD burner. The OS is Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005.

The removable frame to install DVD and hard drive is definitely very convenient. I didn't run into too much difficulty with the complete installation. The most challenging part was the installation of the CPU cooler. It took a few extra minutes to get that take care of. The 'pushpins' were a bit difficult to 'push down' due to tight space all around. I suppose I could have done that part prior to putting the mobo in the case. The seagate drive appears to be very quiet and fast. The 32Mb buffer surely helps. **As a sidebar - The sales guy at one store actually told me that a 32Meg buffer doesn't help as much, meaning the bigger gain comes from when going to 8Meg to 16Meg buffer. I suspect the sales guy was trying to steer me to a different drive - the one probably had a higher markup for profits

.

For now, I'm using the standard 3speed 80mm antec case fan the case came with. At present, I'm running it on high speed and it is noisier for my taste. I will be experimenting with other speeds as well then eventually using the SPCR's fan recommendations, will change it out for something quieter.

I saved the best for last - The CPU cooler

After much research for low profile CPU coolers, I chose to install the Scythe's Shiruken low profile cooler. It fits very nicely in this case. In reading here at this website, often people want to know what case fits what fans so thought to mention this information.

The Fan on the CPU cooler is VERY quiet. Actually, the case fan is lot louder in comparison (LOL). I don't have any temp reading as of yet. I'm having a hard time trying to find a software that will run on Windows 2003 server that will allow me to monitor core temps and control fan speed. For now, I'm running the CPU fan connected directly to the 4pin molex connector, so its on all the time.

Feel free to ask any questions regarding this install - I'll do my best to provide additional details.

Gadgetzilla

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 2:38 pm

gadgetzilla wrote:...a 500Gb Seagate Drive which has 32Mb buffer.

The seagate drive appears to be very quiet and fast. The 32Mb buffer surely helps. **As a sidebar - The sales guy at one store actually told me that a 32Meg buffer doesn't help as much, meaning the bigger gain comes from when going to 8Meg to 16Meg buffer. I suspect the sales guy was trying to steer me to a different drive - the one probably had a higher markup for profits .

No, the sales guy was right about the cache. And you got lucky with a quiet Seagate. I would have recommended a Western Digital.

It sounds like you got a good deal on the Antec case.

gadgetzilla · Post by **gadgetzilla** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 4:19 pm

I guess lack of knowledge on my part regarding the Hard drive technologies drove the decision of Seagate

Obviously, now I'm curious to learn more about the gain in performance from 8Mb to 16Mb versus 32.

Actually that's really the only reason I bought the seagate drive, figured 32Mb is double the 16Mb buffer from most drives so it should help with SQL server performance.

In search of a small and slim desktop case

In search of a small and slim desktop case

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