A Cheap case

Just incase anyone's intrested in low cost case options I did a experiment (sort of)
This is a sort of mini-review/my experience so far.

After a good deal of time, money and experimenting I've finally got my own pc in a state that I'm pritty happy with, it's pritty quiet and still cool.
Then other week my girl frend was colouring the latest page of the comic she working on in photoshop and the droneing of the CPU fan was really bugging me.
It's an older socket 478 pentium 4 that I built for her a few years back when her old tiny pc went bang!
At the time I built it it was pritty high spec cpu, motherboard and monitor, so the left over money was rather tight and hense the reason for a rather cheap crappy case I built it in.
Now I'll admit to not knowing as much now as I did then and got one with a generic 350w psu :crazy: granted the 478 p4 was lower wattage one and it's only got my old fx5200 graphics card in there (which is more than enough to run a desktop at 1600x1200)

So I decided to give her a surprise and my ears a rest, I got her a Scythe Samurai Z Rev.B to replace the stock cooler.
Now the case only had two baddly vented 80mm case fan slots at the back no side pannel air vents to speak off, I'd already fitted on 80mm fan so I decided to get her a new case and a couple of decent 120mm fans.
Also gave me a chance to replace the generic psu with my old thermaltake TR2 470w, granted not a great step up but it's another 120mm fan and still a setup from a generic 350w ;)

I was thinking of an Akasa Zen however a budget case caught my eye.
EV Black Mesh Mid Tower
It looked quite nice and as I already had a couple of 120mm Sycthe S-Flex fans I could put in it I thought what the heck and added it to the cpu cooler order.

Well they arrived today and I've just finished putting it together.
Overall opinion, cheap cases are cheap cases.
It does look quite nice, but building in it was a mixed bag.

To start with the whole thing was twisted slightly so it would wobble on the floor and the side pannels were a bugger to get off. :( Plus side held on by 4 thumb screws.
Once I did get them and the front pannel off I was able to use a little brute strength and twist it nearly stright.
It has some hard plastic feet, so by cutting up some of my left over PAXmate and sticking to them it sits neatly on the floor now, no chance of it slipping if pushed and any case vibrations will not be trasmitted into the floor.
The mesh side pannel is really nice, although agained warped slightly when removed because of the mesh, I think it's been cut slightly longer than it should of been. :rolleyes:

The front pannel is very nice, it's a black painted mesh front with screwed on metal corners, over a plastic door. held shut by 3 magnets, also has a letter bix slot so you can access a 5.25" bay (cr/dvd) wthout haveing to open the door
I'll have to have a look at putting some thin rubber or such in there to stop the plastic on plastic clunk when it shuts.
And annoyingly the front USB and Audio are actually at the side of the front pannel and not hidded behind the door. Granted this means you can use the with the door shut but it does spoil the outward look of the case slightly.

The insides are pritty much cheap case standard and layout, most of the main sharp edges have been rolled over which was nice (main frame around the door, edges of the drive cage) it comes as many cheap cases do with "snap off" plates over the IO shield, drive bays and rear card slots.
The top most drive bay was pre-snapped off which is sort of odd as the bay exposed by the letter box slot in the door is the 2nd one down. :rolleyes:
The snap off IO shield was a right bugger to get off and I had to file off a couple of nasts spikey bits left behind. :(
Just double checked my hand, not a single cut, granted I was be extra carefull, but that's still good going.

I removed the front 7bladed Blue LED fan and put in a scythe s-flex 800rpm :) the stock fan is from "Keep", I've come across Keep fans before in low cost PSUs my old Q-tec had some in it.
It's lightweight clear plastic, a little flimsy feeling (but almost any fan does after an S-Flex) I can get a little noticeable twist to the surround with a small pressure.
The 4 blue LEDs are the older type, large rounded, not the far smaller square resistor looking ones you normally find on pc bits these days.
It's a 2 wire fan leading to a molex through and through, so I plugged it in just to see what it's like and I was plessently supprised
It's very quite with no noticeable vibration, while I don't know what the rpm is it does appear to be spinning very slowly (800rpm ish is my guess) not a great deal of air flow but would expect it at the slow speed.

Finally the size, I was quiet impressed at the amount of space inside this case, the 5.25" bays have a full row of screw holes, so no problem fitting the dvd.
The holes in the 3.5" bay slots are badly placed :( just two front and back so the hard drives stick out far more than they need too, if the bays had been move forward a bit it would of been far better.
As it was the back of the hard drives reached to the edge of the mother board (so a very long graphics card would be a problem)

However a drill and a couple of min and you could put in a couple of extra holes and slide thoes hard drives forward about 2 inches which would give plenty of room. :)
There is enough depth to this case that the hard drives could be turned 90degrees to be slotted in left to right instead of front to back, if someone had the time and desire to mod it, which would free up another couple of inches on top of that.
(I might try this some time, but not now)

All told not too shabby, it looks very nice, good air movement (that mesh on front and side should help reduce dust buil up), has some nice modding potential, but does show the low quality when you have to work with it.
If your the type of person or your building for one, who never really opens there case once it's all put together and running then this sort of case is fine. :)
However if you're like me and tinker alot, then pay the extra for a higher quality interia. The time and stress saved from smooth opening sides is really worth it, as is the saveing on sticking plasters ;)

Now I'll just have to find out what my GF thinks of it when she get's home, as she know nothing about me getting her a new case aswell :mrgreen:
I'll psot some pic's too once the good camera has recharged.

Well she's very pleased with it :mrgreen:

and the cpu temps are now 25c idle and 39c after 30min of orthos and lovely an slient at all times.

must admit I'm quite impressed with that Scythe Samurai Z Rev.B cooler. :)

Nicely done.....so where are the pics then? :)

Managed to pinch the good camera so the pic arn't a mess of grainy black.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...c/n_case01.jpg
the flash has made the mesh a bit more see through looking than it is and the front mesh looks more solid than it does is this pic


http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...c/n_case02.jpg
Behind the door and yes I did try to colour the front of the dvd draw with a black marker a while back, only it ran out half way through :rolleyes: I'll have to snap it off and get some black spray paint. ;)


http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...c/n_case03.jpg
Inside it's a pritty common layout you have in the majority of cheap cases, almost identical drive cages to the one it replaced.
But there is quite a bit of space in there.

Still looks quite good for a £20 case, although that front door does feel light weight and flimsy.

Sounds like a bargain for £20!!

Am just in the middle of "silencing" my own machine, but I will stick with my exisiting case which is an old Coolermaster Aluminium jobbie.

I can't believe the gall of manufacturers as these were touted as for superior cooling - all I would say is they (aluminium cases) make zero difference to case or CPU temperature relative to equivalent steel cases.

Should have saved my dosh and got something like your case here.

Tidy!

Is it a less deep case as EB sometimes supply in their budget range? circa 380mm instead of circa 440mm from back of case to join between case and front bezel?

I would like similar meshed side panels to yours on my Rebel9 to match the bezels!

the Back of the case to the back of the plastic front (ie the actual wroking space) is 445mm
Width 200mm
height (not inculdeing feet) 430mm

There is a lot of space inside for a cheap case, the metal is a little thin and flimsy, which proabaly lead to the twist the case had to start with.
Haveing to screw the hard drives in whith so much sticking out the back is annoying esp as the cage is placed backward from the front to start with. that bit is soo calling out to be cut out and modded.

It is a cheap case and the quality is not great by it does look very pritty. :)

Yes they have some quite striking cases, I had some nice wndowed cases from EB in the past, including a 'Spiderman' type... Bit gaudy but was 12+vat or something like that, cant complain at the value for sure!

I looked at the case as well, but then I decided to spend an additional 5 quid for the Sharkoon Rebel 9 without the side fan. It's not an impressive case either, but I think it's pretty decent. I'll probably try some ducting to decrease as soon as all my components are in place (still waiting for the darn GPU).

Yes I did look at the Rebel 9 it's not a bad cheap case ether, I was a little dissapointed especially when compaired to the rebel 12.
It doesn't have the good psu at the base layout like the Rebel 12 does, which is a real shame.