CASE

[theodyssey]

Hi,
this is just some info i thought i'd pass along.
i just built my first pc from scratch.
i think i used pretty good stuff - certainly not the latest and greatest but some pretty good stuff.
what i want to mention here is the case.
i had a very difficult time with the case. the price range is unbelieveable.
however, the case and power supply and really very vital components of the pc and easily overlooked.
i bought the LIAN-LI all aluminum case. yes, it was on the pricey side but i was absolutely impressed with it and glad i paid the extra money. i used the MICROSTAR (MSI) K7-MASTER motherboard and everything fit like a glove. i was extremely impressed.
plus, the case comes with a good supply of air inlets in the lower front, a removeable air filter behind the air inlets and 2 air intake fans behind the filter. the case also comes with a third fan that sits on the back side of the case about 2/3 of the way up and this creates a crossflow of air through the case. the motherboard tray and the back side of the case are integral and makes for extremely easy access to everything.
great case!!!

[sea69]

Originally posted by theodyssey:
the case and power supply and really very vital components of the pc and easily overlooked.

very true!

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif



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homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)


;)~

[iisbob]

yes it's sad that many people concentrate on the cpu and accessories, but skimp on the case, then wonder why they have so many problems! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif

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iisbob
"Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run."

[spaceAlien]

> plus, the case comes with a good supply of air inlets in the lower
> front, a removeable air filter behind the air inlets and 2 air intake
> fans behind the filter. the case also comes with a third fan that sits
> on the back side of the case about 2/3 of the way up and this creates a
> crossflow of air through the case.

But does it sound like a vacuum cleaner on steroids?

Grins --



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HEY YOU -- MODERATOR -- CHANGE MY STATUS TO "HECKLER"

[pjungwirth]

I just built my first home-grown computer, and I have to confess the case has been my favorite component! (The motherboard is running a close second.) I bought an InWin S500 ATX at a local PC shop for *much* less than the cases in the big stores. It's a sturdy guy with 2 3.5" bays and 3 5.25" bays and 7 expansion slots. The front has a power button, reset button, power LED, and IDE LED. There's just the power supply's fan, but there's something on the back that looks like it's for mounting a second fan.

One feature I like is that below the two 3.5" bays, there's this metal frame held in place by runners and a single screw. It's also 3.5" wide, so you can hold hard drives there.

My favorite part of this case was that it came without any instructions at all, plus a bag *full* of various screws and other oddities. Over the last week I've managed to figure out all the parts but two funny-looking screwish things.

The greatest initial mystery was the bag of eight metal strips with something looking like handles on the ends. They were all roughly the size of expansion slot covers, although four were a larger size and four a smaller. Since the drive came with expansion slot covers, I knew these didn't go there. For a while I tried to fit the smaller. strips into the larger strips, but that didn't seem to be working. I'm not sure what it would have accomplished, anyway. Then I thought maybe they were supposed to *replace* the expansion bay slots if you wanted to use the little handles on top. After some more experimentation, I gave up on that idea, too.

Then I thought maybe they were runners for the motherboard to rest on. (I'm not sure what I was thinking here.) Fortunately for my motherboard, I couldn't get the holes in the strips to line up with the case's mobo mounting holes.

Eventually I set all the strips aside, but quickly a new mystery confronted me. I was trying to attach my drives, but there were almost no holes in the drive bays to screw them in! There were just these slots . . . for the metal strips! So both mysteries were solved at once. You screw on the strips, then they lock into the slots in the drive bays.

Only I screwed on the strips backwards the first time around. I kept trying to get the handles past the end of the bay, thinking I was supposed to hold them against the drive, put them past the end of the bay, and then they would snap into place. I almost did it, too, but there just wasn't enough room. The drive wasn't seated very securely, but I probably would have left it if it hadn't been protruding out the front of the case just a *hair* too far. I went to trying to push the handles past the end of the bay for a while, and eventually it dawned on my that maybe the handles beloned up front (where they would actually be *useful*).

Another mystery involved the four plastic disks. I've heard about people attaching plastic washers to their motherboards to avoid shorting the circuits, so I thought maybe that's what these were for. Only they seemed awfully thick for that, and they were the first washers I'd seen without a hole in the middle. So I thought, "Well, maybe they're for the motherboard to rest on." (Why was I so convined motherboards need to sit on something?) But it looked to me that I could hook up the mobo without using them at all, so I set them aside.

At one point I had the case on its side, and I happened to notice these four round markings on the bottom. . . .

I'm especially proud of figuring out the little triangle-shaped piece of metal with a big hole in it. You screw it in near the back, and you can put a padlock in the big hole to block the case from opening. That one had me baffled for days!

So now I've got just two mystery parts. One is a rubber "screw": the sort of thing that you can push into a hole but can't pull back out again. It doesn't have threads, but the part that has threads in a real screw has a steep widening and then a gentle taper, so you won't be able to pull it out of the hole you put it in. (I'm a little more hesitant to experiment with this guy.)

Mystery part number two is a bronze-colored screw whose head isn't really a head but a hole for another screw. The outside of the "female" end is hex-shaped, but barely wider than the threaded part.

Alas, the computer is running now, so I will probably never discover what these parts are for.

I hope these "Stories from a Newbie" have entertained someone out there!

--Paul
~{:-)

[mike3169]

I don't know what the rubber thingy is, maybe a plug for a drain hole???lol. But the Bronze goofy screw is a Motherboard mounting post. It screws into the plate where the motherboard mounts if you need it. It lines up wiht a correct hole on the Mobob, thus the threaded head. You put a screw in through mobo into the threaded head, wala, nice and tight. Those rail thins for your CDROMs and stuff. I have the same rails and took me forever to figure them out.. They work great.

Mike

[kenja]

I got a rubber cone-shaped thingy with my Antec desktop case. It has an adhesive pad on the large end. I believe it's intended to be used as a non-conductive "stand-off" for the motherboard.

The narrow end will need to be trimmed to the right height, but I definitely have a use for it: my Soyo motherboard was designed with the ribbon cable and DIMM connectors on an unsupported edge, so the board bends down when I'm inserting things (if I don't wrap my finger tips under the cantilevered edge).

[Bailey]

i bought the LIAN-LI all aluminum case. yes, it was on the pricey side but i was absolutely impressed with it and glad i paid the extra money

Beautiful case. But if i spent that kind of money for a case, my wife would make me live somewhere else.

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"Ooooh, They have the
internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson (http://asf.allwavs.com/wav4/Simpsons/inetcptr.wav)

[RadPike]

I bought one and i'm still with her (why? i don't know). I was sure that was the last straw http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/eek.gif

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