Casecom KM-6788 Review by Pob

[Pob255]

Yes finally after months of waiting here is the review of the case I've been promising you all.

Now ever since I first saw, in person, the Antec 900 I've had a list of requirements for a case in my head.

• Mid tower
• Wide enough for 120mm fan based tower CPU coolers
• Lower mounted PSU, the right way up with fan vent in the bottom of the case
• Mesh front
• top fan slots
• 90degree hard drive bay with rails or trays
• Mesh front panel
• Front switches and USB ports
• low cost (under £50)
• Black interia (a relative new addition)
• I like the look of it

Now a lot of cases have come close but never quite ticked all the boxes, untill I saw the Casecom of Ebuyer for pre-order at £25 !!!
http://forums.hexus.net/chassis-syst...se-ebuyer.html
It seemed to tick every box and for only £25 I couldn't resist, then followed the delays, not directly Ebuyers fault, well I've finally got the case and finally got around to getting the Camera out to take pictures.

[Pob255]

Part one: the Case it self.

No opening the box pic's, I'm too impatient for that sort of thing.
Here's a pic of the box.



Basic carboard, nothing fancy, the packageing is two bits of polystyrene to keep it safe from knocks, the case is wrapped in a large polythene bag and has another polythene sheet over the bezel.

So lets look at the out sides of the case.

Left hand side


Now this shows up a major problem with my photos, the finish, the flash make the paint finish look very shiney, but it's not and the plastic look grey but it's not.
I tried without the flash.



Gives a better idea of the finish but lacks detail, as with all the digital cameras I've used, they don't play well with black esp with indoor lighting and it's just cold to take the case outside to take these photos.

The Paint is a rough/textured matte/satin black finish, the plastic of the bezel is a smooth glossy black.
The colour is solid and even over all of the case, I've yet to chip or scratch it so it seems pritty robust.
The smooth glossy black of the bezel and textured matte black of the paint don't quite match, not a glareing miss match but still a miss match.

As you can see from thoes shots the right side panel have a large air vent, not hexagonal honeycomb but circular holes in honeycomb pattern, the vent has mounting points for two 80mm, 92mm or 120mm fans.
The vent is 260mm tall by 140mm wide, I find it slightly dissapointing They* didn't take the step to make this vent just 20mm taller so two 140mm fans could be used.
* As we've seen so many cases which all seem to share this same identical chasis & components I don't know if CaseCom is the originating OEM or not, so I'll call the manufactures "They" or "Them"

Right side


All solid, depression to form a sort of handle, but nothing much to report here.

Front


The inner section of the bezel is a nice fine black mesh and while the external sockets and buttons do take up the space for the top drive bay, I can forgive it I really do like the look of this front bezel.
Not too plane like the Antec 300 and not too showy like the NZXT M59.
A nice middle ground, plane but with thoes little angles couple of swept groves give it a nice little dynamic touch.

2 Audio sockets, 2 usb sockets, power button, reset button and HDD activity light.
That's right, there's no power led on this case, I'm guessing They are relying on the fact the front fan is LED to let you know when your pc is on.
There's a space for a E-Sata but it's not punched out (more on this later)
The buttons are silver in colour, not metal, just plastic and feel it they do Click well though.

Rear of the case.


Here we can see the lower PSU design, no IO sheild plate come with this case, no big loss and no punch out IO sheild plate ether which is common on very cheap cases and it's lack is a big plus.
The IO and expansion slots are correctly sunk into the back, again common on cheap cases is to have them level and a screw on section to hold expansion cards in place. (nasty, nasty, nasty)
Rear fan vent with holes for 80, 92 or 120mm fan (again round holes not true honeycomb)
Two rubber gromits for water cooling pipes.
The case panels are held in place by thumb screws (more on these later)
There's a small section cut out of the left panel at the back to make room for the fan and the hole is in a different location so the two panels cannot be swaped over.
Finally a sticker with CE so it's European Directives conforming. i.e. legal to sell in Europe

Top of the case


Opps forgot to get a pic here

However if you look back over the photos you can see the vent designed for a 120mm or 140mm fan in the top.
It's not right at the back but set forward slightly, now I would of prefured it to be ether thurver back or better yet a larger vent designed for two fans. (as this case is 185mm wide I'm considering seeing if I can mod it, enlarge the vent and fit a silverstone 180mm fan in there it should fit nicely)

Bottom of the case


On the under side of the bezel there's a gap, my guess is to make it slightly easier to remove (more later) also two stickers, RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliant, so no Lead or such used in the paint and picture of a Wheely bin with a line through it, I'm guessing that this means it's not to be treated as household waste if you chuck it.

Also we have on the bottom, 4 plastic case feet, not soft or rubber, a vent for the PSU and a few strange indentations (more later)

That's generally it for the out sides of the case, other things I should note, is that while this case feels very light it does also feel quite ridged and sturdy.
From what I've seen able to dig up the case is 0.6mm SGCC not the higher quality 0.8mm SECC, the reason it's so light, however the paint thickness and overall structure make the case feel far stronger and the steel thicker.
The only real area of flex I've found so far is the bottom between the PSU vent and hard drive bay.

There's a few niggling missing features, like no true honeycomb vents, the size of the side vent, only a single top vent, no e-sata and the slight miss match between plastic and paint finishes.
However they are all fairly small and minor and for the low cost this is still looking very good.

[Pob255]

Part 2 Inside

Remove the thumb screws and take off the panels . . . wow that was easy, lets just try to put them back on . . . still easy!
What's going on? I'm used to cheap cases, I'm used to having to struggle to pull the side panels off, normally having to get them going by leavering them slightly with a screw driver.
These panels come off so smoothly and going back on, normally I find myslef having to bend a couple of the catches open slightly to get a panel to go on neatly, not here.
I've carefully checked, They've not done anything differently, same normal L shaped latches along the top and bottom of the panel with tabs at the front to grip the front of the case, just like you find on any cheap case, but these ones work, first time.

The inside of the left panel



Still the same nice solid Black paint work, no "Ahh we don't need to do such a neat job inside"
The panels a slightly bendy but far from the Rolf Harris wobble board that many cheap case panels are.
I think this is down to the steel not only being folded over to form the edged with latches cut out, but has then gone on to be rolled over into a tube shape to add that little extra strength.

On looking inside the case up I found a bag of bits taped (I think it was taped ) inside the hard drive bay, this bag contained the screwless mounts as well as stand offs and general screws (more later)

And here's what it looks like inside



Sorry not many photos I forgot I may well do more and add the in later.

You can see the Audio + usb + button&LED cables as well as the front fan cable.

Four 5.25" drive bays (although the top one is not useable from the front as that's where the power button & external sockets are.
Two 2.5" drive bays (only non-toolless bays)
A 90drgree hard drive cage, with slots for 5 rail mounted hard drives.

There's a very large hole behind the CPU area, which is so big I doubt it'll black any cooler back plate.
Hole around the edge of the motherboard tray for cables as well as loops pressed out behind the tray for places to secure cables to.
There's not a lot of room between the rear of the motherboard tray and side panel so getting the side panel back on with a mess of cables running back there may be tricky, thoes loops should be very useful.

One thing you can see quite clearly in that photo is the raised areas in the bottom panel where the hard drive cage is, compairing these to the normal cheap case hard drive cage layout, it looks like these are designed for a more standard front back cage to be pop riveted in.
I'm glad They when for this 90degree cage layout as this is one area that does seem to add a fair bit of rigidity to the case.

Now one thing that surprised me, in a good way, was I was expecting sharp edges all over the place.
Yes the main edges frame and the ends of the drive cages are all folded, however all the cutout sections and slots that are too small for folding and normally like razors in a cheap case, are smooth.
Yep Smooth not sharp at all, I did my known danger test and ran my fingers around the insides of the hard drive + 2.5" drive + 5.25" drive cages.
Now on evey cheap case I've done that to, I've had to be very carefull and gental or I'd slice my finger tips to ribbons with optional metal splinters.
Nothing.
I tried again, this time less care, more pressure.
Still nothing.
This just couldn't be right, a cheap ass case with no sharp edges?? I felt around some more, inside of fan vents (another key place) nothing, I've run my fingers around just about ever edge looking for sharp bits, and I found some.
The edges of the fine mesh (but lets face it you cannot cut mesh easily and not leave spikey edges) and the back of the holes in the motherboard tray where the stand off screw in.
That last one has given me a clue to what I think is going on here, looking at the stand off holes, they are tapped, bare metal inside, while every thing else is covered in paint.
And that I'm sure is the secret, as I said before the paint feels pritty thick and by just covering everything with a layer of paint They effectively smoothed over the sharp edges, that or as a pre painting treatment They've had to acid dip the case or sand blast it again removeing the sharpness from these cut out sections.
The Stand off holes needing to be tapped well to support the weight of the motherboard & cooler, have had to be done after the painting, thus being the only machine worked part after painting.

Behind the Bezel



Not a massive amount going on here.
No nasty Snap out plates covering the drive bays always a plus in my book.
A cable hole mid way down the right hand side that just is no use to this design of front bezel with all the bits at the top.
A 2nd cable hole next to the front fan (note I've already remove 2 of the screws that hold the fan in in)
The fan is recessed with holes only for 120mm fans (more on this later) the fan is clear, 120mm x 120mm x 20mm, 4 blue LEDs and 4pin molex only. I've not yet tested it so I cannot tell you much about it at this point, I'll test against my standard Antec tri-cool at some point.

The inside of the Bezel



To start with this front bezel is not easy to remove, I'm guessing (as there's no instructions) you're suposed to reach into the gap at the bottom of the bezel and just leaver it off.
Far too tight a fit to do that, it's held in place by 6 round peg type clips, common on cheap cases, to get the bezel off I had to use a ruler (didn't want to rip the paint up with a metal screw driver) to pry the bottom 2 cips off then I could eaisly pull the bezel off.

At the top we have 2 micro switches for the buttons an led and a pcb with sockets.
The wires to the pcb are connected by plugs so can be removed, the pcb is held in by two screws, micro switches and led hled in by clips and reinforced with gluegun glue.

More importantly all the mesh drive covers are foam backed as is the area infront of the front fan so all the air that goes in this way will be filtered.
However there seems to be no easy way to remove this foam for cleaning, the drive bay covers just hold the foam in place with bent tabs, so are doable, However I've not figured out how to remove the foam from infront of the fan.

There are 4 clips surrounding that bottom air vent so that a fan could be clipped directly onto the inside of the bezel.

All told the inside of this case is really nicely layed out and well finished.
There's approximately 11inches between the expansion card slots and the hard drive cage, so a 10.5inch graphics card should fit without hassle (as long as it's sideway faceing power sockets)

I'm not sure I'd want to try to squeeze a water cooling loop in there but this is a mid tower case.
The front filtering is a nice touch but without being able to clean it I'm not too sure how good it will be, also given the big unfiltered air vent on the side panel I'm not sure how much filtering will get done.

But that total lack of sharp edges in a case this cheap has left me gob smacked

[Pob255]

Details, Niggles and Other bits

Some parts I've only mentioned in passing so far I'm now going to go into detail on and other little bits that have struck me as odd or intresting.

The Bag of bits



This was the contense of the bag of bits I found inside the hard drive cage.

As you can see the bag contained 3 pairs of 5.25" drive toolless locks.
I forgot to flip some over to show the backs, but they are just a simple couple of plastic plugs and a twist lock, in theory you slide the dive in the correct distance, slot in the lock and twist the handle 90 degrees to lock it in.
I can forsee 2 potential problems, incorrect drive hole spaceing, granted drives and there screw hole alignment should be standard but you never no, more importantly there's no pressure so they might not hold the drive in that tightly and no vibration damping.
I'll have to find out what they are like when I do a test build.

Next is 4 pairs of hard drive rails.
These have metal pins and silicon pad rings around them, so there should be some vibration reduction.
However these metal pins are not threaded and don't seem removeable so you could use screws to hold them on, what this means is that you'll have to hold them onto the sides of the hard drive before you can start slotting it into place in the cage and I can see them and the rive going flying if you're not too careful when removeing the drive.
They do clip and lock in place when pushed all the way in and fit quite tightly so the hard drives shouldn't rattle about inside the case if you maove it around.
Again something to test.
One thing the shrap eye'd amoungst will of spotted is the same thing I spotted when I counted them out, in the hard drive cage there's slots for 5 hard drives, however there are only 4 pairs of rails.
All the toolless bits are an acid green colour blue to match the fan would of been better.

Finally a bag a screws, motherboard stand offs and such.
There's no sign of a pc speaker anyware, not even a little plug in one or the non-conductive washers you often get.

Mesh bits



Some of the sharp eyed amoungst you may have spotted something on the picture of the back of the case, two mesh expansion slot covers and you where right.
two of the expansion slots had simple mesh covers prescrewed in, the top two to be exact.
the others are snap out unfortunately although on closer inspection the snap outs are only connected by two small joins at the bottom of each, so breaking one out without twisting the thin mental of the frame should be easy and one reason I generally hate these things.
These mesh covers are also a major source of pointy edged mesh so watch the fingers when handleing them.

Also in this picture are two of the mesh bay covers, the ends are solid (like the expansion slot covers) and are held in with two plastic clips that are part of the front bezel, while the 5.25" cover came away easily enough the 3.5" cover was far more of a struggle, I doubt I could get it off with out removeing the bezel first.

Thumb Screws



Now I first came across these when building Project Spork, basically a long screw threaded through a plastic knob, this means you can still tighten/losen them with a screwdriver if needed.
As I thought when I first learnt about these, they are cheap and not really up to the quality of good metal thumb screws, However I've realised one advantage to them, having a plastic base means they are not going to run the risk of ripping up the paint if you screw them in tightly.
So I'm now sort of undecided about them.

PSU Vent



From the inside of the case, you can clearly see the four raised rubber feet for the PSU to rest on, a very simple and nice feature.
No removeable PSU plate or rear rubber seal, but for the cost I didn't even expect the rubber feet.

This is probably my 1st big Missing feature, No PSU filter



Now what makes this feature so Missing, is that for underneath the case you can clearly see the slots where a filter would go and given that a filter is just a simple plastic frame with some mesh glued to it I cannot really see it adding a great deal of cost to the final case price.
Guess I'm going to have to try to make one, unless I can find someplace that sels them that, will not only fit but are not going to cost a bundle (inc p&p)

No E-Sata?



Next major missing feature is the lack of E-sata, again it's not so much the lack but that fact that it's obsiously originally designed to have one.
As you can see in the photo, the bit covering the hole is just held in by 2 small lugs, the pcb has the space pre-assigned, so how much would this of added to the final cost? Granted probably more than a simple dust filter.
What's more annoying is that while the traces are there on the under side of the pcb then holes to soilder it in have not been drilled and the traces are very small, so I very much doubt I'd be able to drill thoes holes and soilder one up even if got the bits to make it.

The fan

Major niggle



Apart from no 3pin motherboard connector it's the very annoying size of only 20mm wide where as standard fans are 25mm wide.
Now while I've not yet tested this fan, I'm not holding out great hopes for it given the general feel of it, the Hub is larger than most 120mm fans so there goes some blade area, the blades them selves seem nothing special, They've not tried to compensate for the reduced depth with a more aggressive blade pitch or over sized blades.
But most annoying is the mounting methord, the fan is held in place with long screws, just long enough for 20mm fans only.



This means that these screws are just not long enough to replace this fan with a normal 25mm wide fan, so your stuck with the fan that came with this case or have to find some work around.



This is the Fan mount as you can see two flaps with tapped screw holes, these holes are smaller than normal fan mounting holes so you couldn't use rubber pulgs or normal fan screws.

Also there is no vibration damping at all so any fan vibration will go stright into the case, if you look at the corner of the fan in the 1st fan photo you can see where the fan corners have been pinched together by the screw and damaged the palstic of the fan frame.

Bezel fan mount



This looks like the only way you could mount a wider fan stright out of the box, but again vibrations stright into the bezel.
I'll have to do some testing to see what can be done.


Ok that's about it for now, my test build is currently delayed due to the fact that I've STILL not received my ddr3 from paly.com I think it's been lost in the post but I have to wait 29 days before I can clame anything

Wthout building a system in this case I must admit I'm still very impressed, even with my major issue with the front fan mounting, the minor niggles of the top and side vents that could of been that little bit better and the couple of obsiously missing features.

The over all feel of this case is one of a case that's more than just the El-Cheapo that it is.
The full black paint, the lack of sharp edges, the overall solid feel

One of my Big questions for this case was is this going to be an Antec 300 beater for a good cheap mid tower case.
I'm still not sure

The Antec 300 comes with both a 120mm and 140mm fan both tri-cool speed controlled, not the best fans but decent and a possible max of 1x140mm and 4x120mm
The Casecom KA-6788 comes with a single 120mm (still unknown performance) but also a possible max of 1x140mm and 4x120mm
The Antec bezel is fare eaiser to remove and getting at all the fans is easy.
The Casecom bezel is not that easy to remove and the front fan may be a pain to replace.
The Antec has more width giveing you that little extra space to work with and space behind the drive bays to hide cables
The Casecom has that all black interia, holes for cable management and 90degree hard drive cage.
Both have 3x5.25" bays, the antec can take 6 hard drives, the Casecom only has rails for 4 hard drive but still has 2x2.5" bays
The Antec is made from thicker steel, but inturn the Casecom is lighter and a good chunk cheaper.

Well you're going to have to wait untill I try a build in it before I can give you any more, if cableing is a right pain or the case rattles like some old boneshaker going down a cobbled road then the Antec is going to keep it's crown for now.

However as it stands This Casecom is getting my award for best Sub £30 case I've ever looked at, knocks the Coolermaster Elite 330 so far out of the ball park that it's someware in the suburbs.

Also this Casecom is looking to me like a very nice Modding case, esp if you're new to modding and don't want to accedentally destroy an expensive case.

[Pob255]

Test Build version 1

Ok after much bugging, I've finally got around to a test build.

For this I'm using



AOpen AX6BC motherboard
Pentium III 500mhz Slot-1 Passive cooler



With this I've added, S3 Trio3D agp x2, pci network card, ISA CRYSTAL audio card, and a mix of old DDR memory (pc100 & pc133, 64mb & 128mb)
Also a Ati Rage Pro turbo AGP x2 not pictured


1st thing is to sort out the front



I've wrapped the front cables through a ferrite toroid, I then braded the motherboard connectors (hard drive led+reset+power)
And I forgot to that a photo

Front fan, now I'm planning to use the ThermalTake cylo for the front, however it's currently with my dad as he know electronics far better than I do and he's seeing if it can be modded to make the fan motor run at a reduced voltage while the LED's are still run at 12v.
So instead I've just mounted my Xigmatec LED fan in there, using lengths of hair band to get around the non-standard screw issue.



To do this I took two hair bands, cut them into 4 equal lengths, melted the ends with a lighter to seal them. then put a knot into one end of each and finally threaded them through the holes from behind (which was a bit tricky and required tweezers)
To mount the fan simply feed the hair band length through the screw holes and pull tight, that's it.
Pulling it tight causes the hair band to contract, when released it expands again and the friction is enough to hold the fan quite securely.


Now in with the rest of it.



It all went in fairly easily, granted on the motherboard this old there's far fewer cables to connect up.
The fan guard on the Lian-li 1400mm top fan got in the way slightly and the cpu unit is right up against it.
There's a definate lack of a cable hole at the top so a current motherboard with ATX+12v or EPS cable will have to be run over the front of the motherboard rather than behind it.
(cutting a hole is a definite mod project)

Rear fan is a Coolermaster slient LED fan.



Hard drive went in easily, although due to the position of the pegs on the rails means you have to have the drive faceing this way with the cables toward the right panel.
Would of been betterif the pegs where for the screw holes at both ends of the drive, rather than the back and middle holes, that way it could be used in ether direction.

My Enermax Pro82+ 525w had a lot of spare cables for this build and it was very easy to just tuck them into the bottom of the drive cage.
(the white bit around the end of the PSU is a silicon anti-vibration gasket, not that it needs it)

Round the back



I've run the main power cable up behind the motherboard, folded the IDE ribbon cable neatly (I much prefer ribbon to the round IDE cables, round ones just aren't flexable enough and flact ribbon cable can be very neat if you know how to run them.)
Both the Lian-li top fan and Xigmatec front fan are pluged into molex connectors below the hard drive.

Both side panels went on without issue, it all powered up nicely

However no monitor out put I tried the other agp card, still nothing.
So I dug around and found a pc speaker in my bag-O-bits, 1 long 3 short bleeps for both cards = vga fail
Cannot tell if both cards are dead or if it's the motherboard.

Here's a "glowy" photo for you


you can see then end of the braided front cables here

Well as a quick test build it worked well, nothing was too problematic when fitting it.
I can see that more cables will start to make cable management a bit more tricky but not insurmountable and half expented from a case this size, a modular PSU would be a big bonus here, as would flat power cables. (the type used on the corsair HX520 & HX620)

[circuitmonkey]

Reserved 2..3..4
Oh, the suspense is building!

[Pob255]

Well I've finally filled 3 of 4
Only one left to do is fan testing and test build, however I'mm still short of ddr3 to test build my i5 system in there I should have the bits to put an old working p3 system in there, fill it up with fans and a non-modular psu.
That should make a good test.

Overall I'm impressed with it for a £25 case.

Any requests for photos just ask.

[Lanky123]

Great review, I like cheap cases. Never understood why anyone would buy an expensive case and subsequently lower their CPU budget by £50 or so.

Ok that's about it for now, my test build is currently delayed due to the fact that I've STILL not received my ddr3 from paly.com I think it's been lost in the post but I have to wait 29 days before I can clame anything

I wouldn't be so sure, though I don't know quite how long you've been waiting for it. There's been a couple of things I've ordered recently and they've both taken more than a week when normally I'd get them in a few days. I think Royal Mail are really ing things up this year making the posties walk marathon routes and probably setting the sorting staff similar stupid targets.

[tonschk]

Well done review , I like the full black matt external , but I preffer the traditional silver internal colour , if the internal colour is black I am not able to see properly the components inside the computer , the problem with this cases is because are made with 0.60mm SECC and therefore are so flimsy

[circuitmonkey]

The actually chassis is very similar to the M59, i'm starting to kick myself for being so impatient and paying nearly double.

There are a lot of similarities between the two, they have to be made by the same people.

[Ulti]

At first glance it seems very similar to the M59 and to be honest, if I wasn't such a kid and loving the looks of the M59 so much, I'd go with that case and save myself almost half the money. However, side panel and unique front bezel does it in for me.

Still though, I'm surprised at how similar it is to the M59 for almost half the cost. Nice review!

[Cheapy]

I completly agree with what Pob255 said about this knocking the Coolermaster 330 out of the ball Park having one myself. Coolermaster has only two mountings for 120mm fans and one 80mm on the side panel. PSU unit at the top and cable management is somthing of a pain with no routing holes nearby like the casecom. But on both of them the front bezel is a right pain to remove and clean the dust filters.

If only if had come out a few months earlier I would have got the casecom instead. Excellent review as well.

By the way to remove the foam air filters you have to bend the mesh tabs backwards enough to get the foam out same as on the coolermaster.

[Ulti]

Surely if you bend it too much/too often they'll just end up falling off altogether so it's not a good idea?

[GheeTsar]

Nice review - thanks. I look forward to the build.

What's the distance from the back of the case to the drive bays? Would it fit an 11" graphics card for example?

[Ulti]

Nice review - thanks. I look forward to the build.

What's the distance from the back of the case to the drive bays? Would it fit an 11" graphics card for example?

Already been answered:

There's approximately 11inches between the expansion card slots and the hard drive cage, so a 10.5inch graphics card should fit without hassle (as long as it's sideway faceing power sockets)

[Pob255]

I'm glad you all enjoyed the review, I'm now typing this from bed as I'm ill, although it better than felling hot while uncontrolably shivering in front of my pc last night.

@GheeTsar, I did mention it in passing, it's roughly 11 inches between back and hard drive cage
a 10.5" card should fit, longer probably not
It might be possible to put a single longer card in at the top, if it's high enough to miss the cage then you might just squeeze an 11" card in.

@tonschk, Now a lot of flimsy steel was what I was expecting, I wasn't expecting the nice solid construction of a Chieftech or simular.
However the case doesn't feel that flimsy, which I'm sure is down to some very carefully thought out construction and design, things like that extra roll to the inside of the side panels, reduces the flex of the panels greatly.

@Cheapy, Yes just bending the tabs slighty would let me get the foam out of the drive blanks, however the area infront of the fan is of more concern and there seems to no way to remove that, no tabs seems to be sandwiched between the plastic of the bezel.

@circuitmonkey & Ulti, yes the M59 costs more, yet at the same time it comes with thoes added extras, the two top fan mounts, psu filter and that windowed side panel (I would much prefur that panel or even just a solid panel, to the vent on this one)