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the $40-50 I saved on the case I probably spent on new fans and my own time getting everything in. I also have a Sony blu-ray which slotted in no problem, but had difficulty aligned the drive doors on the case with the blu-ray. Got there in the end but it's tight.Cooling wise I replaced the fans that came with it, they were a little louder than I would've hoped.All in all I think it was a lesson learnt for me. Bought this case mainly because of price and looks. But all in all it turned out nice and the wife likes the look :) It was part of a DIY project to build my own PC and getting things in the case was definitely the trickiest piece. Definitely fits in well with my home theater equipment. To the point where I had to remove everything just move stuff around.I struggled getting two 3.5" HDD in here.
This might not be a big deal to most but it was bugging the snot out of me. Depending on which direction that fan is blowing you might have to crack open the power supply and flip the fan to flow upwards to draw out the heat. My only gripe was the dang leds on the power button are way to freaking bright and light up a dark room. If using IDE drives go with rounded cables or you might have space issues. This is not a bad case.
Same with the power supply, you want to use one with modular (removable)cables so you keep the clutter down. The power button consists of 2 super bright blue leds that shine into a plastic ring. Also it should be a power supply with 2 fans because it will sit upside down with what would have been the fan pointing at a cpu pointing up and venting out thru the top side of the case. The rear fan of the power supply gets extra help from a fan on the bottom of the case (make sure you plug that one in, it looks silly but there is some duct work that makes that work) All in all it looks nice and does its job well. They fans are fairly quiet and with a fan controler you could tweak them out to a perfect level. Nothing a drill cant fix but that was annoying.
And compared to others that cost $150 and up this is a steal. If your careful you can stick something in between the leds and the ring part to dim them down. There is a learning curve in adjusting the front DVD drive doors because they are spring loaded but after some fiddling it works pretty well. I was impressed with the build of it at its price point. The rubber feet are kinda lame in the fact they dont screw on to the case and are applied with sticky glue. So instead of a blinding blue they are a soft blue, not much brighter than my reciver lights.
I figured out a fix for that though. I used some white electrical tape I had and it dimed them down to a perfect level.
The EVO logo on the front panel is an eyesore so I put an AMD sticker on it and that seems fine. It seemed to make the assembly easier. I did all the installation with all covers removed.
I added an Antec 380W power supply Gigabite ATX full size motherboard with Geforce, Soundblaster and Hauppage TV cards. Not a big issue with an ATX system using windows to shutdown and you can always unplug if needed. I purchased this case for it's dimensions (it fit into my entertainment center cabinet).
Cooling is sufficient with the existing fans (some people complained of the noise, I did not think it was excessive) When installing the lower hdd, make sure it is as far to the front as possible with the SATA cable already connected because it is difficult to attach once the motherboard is installed. (any 1" square logo will cover it)I gave it 4 stars for the logo, power switch and cramped lower 3.5" slot, otherwise nice case for the price. 2 DVD burners and 2 sata HDD's and that is about all that fits in this case.
The power switch is located behind the front panel and it seems that they made a door to access it but I could not reach the switch through the door.
Realy nice case, all I had to do is remove my motherboard and other partand reinstall them, it was easy.Only one thing I belive could be done, is that a main power switch isneeded under one of the covers, Some people do turn off the computer totaly to change cards.Looks clean, well built, worth the bucks.Thanks Amazon for a great buy.Ngiacona
The case fan on the bottom is loud, so It disconnected it, now it's whisper quiet. One thing I would change is to make the case wider to match the width of the standard A/V systems, and not as deep, so it won't stick out of some shallow A/V racks. Overall I'm content with the purchase. Great looking case, especially with its aluminum face plate. It's almost indistinguishable from any of the A/V systems I have.
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