Just rebuilt inside a Fractal Design Define S - Impressions

[Millennium]

Hi there

This morning / early afternoon I took my PC out of it's current case (Zalman Z13) and put it into a Fractal Design Define S case - which was boxed unopened for months.

The reason was to give my old case to my brother so he can build his new Ryzen 1200 system.

This is the first time I've ever built inside a premium case (unless you count the Lian Li PC-60!) and it was a pleasure. Everything was clean and well made, the screws were well packaged. There was no need to look at the case manual. I simply inserted my motherboard and NH-D15 cooler (which incidentally didn't even fit in the old case properly ) and lined it up after inserting the motherboard stand screws. They came with a handy insertion tool which I found very handy, though you do need to use a screwdriver with it to get them properly tight in the case.

Next was the USB3, HD Audio and front panel connectors. This was easy once I had a copy of the manual to refer to on the pins to use. There are power and HD LED connectors, and reset and power switch connectors. The case is roomy so I wasn't rooting around in a corner on this.

After the motherboard was screwed down, I installed the SSD and 3 HDD (leaving space for just one more SSD - so I've really filled this case properly. Lucky I sold off a HDD earlier this year ! ) and wired up the SATA. This was pretty straight forward. Something I'm not used to is the rubber grommets that allow you to get wires from one side of the PC to the other. These are a great idea and super handy.

Power was next, screwing in the power supply and trying to route cables properly. This left me with a big nest of cables in the front of the case that I've just left there for now - there's no side panel window so no-one's gonna know and it didn't seem like a good idea to try and move them to the back section of the case and wrap them up because again no-one sees this. Also it's stress on the wires and there are so many I might not have got the side panel back on had I tried

That's pretty much it, went smoothly other than I had a load of right angle SATA cables I couldn't use any longer, these have been retired and I scrounged together various SATA cables from over the years with straight ends. On this point, I'm pretty sure not all of these are specced for SATA 3 - is there a way in Device Manager or System Events or some software I can use to check for SATA errors on the various ports? Then I can check if I need to invest in some new cables.

I would recommend the Define S and will be sticking to it or buying Fractal Design in the future. The R5 was the one I really should have got (I'm not planning on water cooling) but for reasons I don't remember the Define S is the one I ordered. It's quite big, but exudes quality and I'm very happy with it.

Thanks for reading, questions welcome.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Post a few pictures please!!

[pp05]

I snagged this case at weekend off someone for 40 quid, was looking at itx setups up to this point but I just find it hard pulling the trigger on itx.

Did you keep the top modvents closed or install an AIO radiator in it and add a dust filter?

Did you keep case fans that came with it or replace them. My one won't have any. A pair of 120mm/140mm? 1 exhaust, 2 at the front? I'm going to stick to air cooling initially.

Is it worth considering semi/modular psu or is it so big it doesn't matter.