The case of all cases

[STC]

Pondering this for many months, a few years ago, I plucked for the DVINE 4 chassis. It still looks as great today as the day I bought it. Brushed black aluminum, Full sized motherboard, VFD display (which I replaced and modded for an LCD display) and 2x 5 1/4 bays. I love it. It has the same form factor as all my other HiFi compnents, and I have fitted a few low RPM big fans. It's silent, can hold three HDD's and looks as though I just bought it from the local electronics store.
What do you have?

[StumpyBloke]

Pondering this for many months, a few years ago, I plucked for the DVINE 4 chassis. It still looks as great today as the day I bought it. Brushed black aluminum, Full sized motherboard, VFD display (which I replaced and modded for an LCD display) and 2x 5 1/4 bays. I love it. It has the same form factor as all my other HiFi compnents, and I have fitted a few low RPM big fans. It's silent, can hold three HDD's and looks as though I just bought it from the local electronics store.
What do you have?

Never mind what we have! How about some pictures of this bad boy??? But for info mine is a basic Zalman 160 in black.

[holidayboy]

I'm still using my Zalman 160 (silver) too.
Apart from the useless VFD, which has been removed - and replaced by the guts of a Microsoft IR transceiver, it's a nice case.
I definitely can't fault the build quality.

[StumpyBloke]

Yeah the VFD was a useless POS! Am liking the idea of replacing with the MS IRT. Was it easy?

[holidayboy]

Really easy - a crowbar and some stickytape is all that's required!
I just opened up the transceiver, cut the USB cable and soldered on a motherboard connector, then I just fixed the board behind the window.
I kept meaning to put a few LEDs in too to show how many recordings are taking place etc.. but I never did get around to it!

[StumpyBloke]

Nice1, I dont have a crowbar but I do have a huuugge lump hammer which will do nicely! If you ever do the 'recording LED' mod let us know!

[sgtpokey]

I plunked for an expensive case import back in 2005... I'd like to say I haven't changed since but the truth is they've gone through 3 revisions of the basic case and I have all three versions

Fanless HFX ATX:
http://www.hfx.at/index.php?option=com_ ... Itemid=118

[StumpyBloke]

Nice case, bet it had a not so nice price too?!!

[sgtpokey]

I got a "deal" since the price they quote on their international web shop are with Austrian VAT included... once I configured it to ship to the US the vat tax was removed. But yes, those austrians are charging a good premium for the prviliege of a good fanless case. For the US, the recent reviews of HD Plex have me thinking of switching to them in the next iteration -> as long as they give me a couple expansion slots and room for 2.5" drives.

[dduk]

This thread has reminded me that I have a black Ahanix D.Vine 5 case gathering dust. It's completely empty, except for the parallel-connected VFD. The blue power LED has blown as some fool connected it to the 12v supply rather than the 5v one. There's one non-critical missing screw (one of six) and a couple of scratches on it.

I doubt the screw can be replaced, but the LED would be a couple of pounds from Maplin at the most. It would also need a Micro-ATX PSU.

I have no plans to throw it out, but if anyone's in need of a premium case, feel free to throw me an offer for it.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article104-page1.html

[asm495]

My HTPC is basically headless (it does have a monitor but it is hidden away in the garage). As I couldn't find anything which fitted my requirements I built my own out of MDF! Does the job well enough for me.

[Fleadh]

I have the antec remote fusion black case.

I love everything about it from the chrome accesnts to the lcd display.

Before buying it I serched all over the place and kept returning to it as my favorite case and if I were to buy another case it would probably be this one again. I realise its big but its a feature in my livingroom and I like that.

[dduk]

My HTPC is basically headless (it does have a monitor but it is hidden away in the garage). As I couldn't find anything which fitted my requirements I built my own out of MDF! Does the job well enough for me.

Hard core. What are you using as a driver for your VFD?

[Pixelz]

I'm still using an OrigenAE S16V as my HTPC case. Very well built, but very expensive. Takes a full-size ATX mobo, 4xHDD and an optical drive. If I was starting out today, I'd probably choose the smaller S14V with an mATX instead.

http://www.origenae.co.kr/en/htpc_s16v.htm

[StumpyBloke]

Nice case is that! It was on my shortlist once upon a time but had to discount it when I realised it wouldnt fit on my AV rack! Glad I found out BEFORE I bought it!

[tony_park]

Antec Remote Fusion Max case here.

VFD in use as a display, but not as a transceiver, as it would only toggle power on or off from my harmony 700 remote - which was getting annoying! Plenty of space for drives, some nice big fans to slowly rotate and move air.

I also have hfx t-balancer to accurately and effectively manage the system fans - have 2 fans on my processor, and then 2 case fans - 1 case fan is currently the original one from the case, and one of the cpu fans has a knob to adjust the speed, but both of these are due to be replaced when I next open up the case. Whats great about the t-balancer is you can accurately control the fan speed in relation to the different conditions, and link fans so that they act together, so if my case temp raises, but the cpu isn't affected, its only the case fans that react, or if the opposite happens, the cpu fans react and this tends to keep the fan noise down. Can't recommend the Noctua case fans highly enough.

Also in the case, is a Nesteq 450W semi-fanless power supply - I swear if the fan ever comes on, I'd be surprised!

The cpu cooler is a Scythe Mini Ninja (V1), which is quite impressive. Sure has a large amount of surface area, and very flexible to attach further fans to.

For my system drive, I have an OCZ Vertex2 SSD drive (60Gb) and a WD Green hard drive (750Gb) for recordings.

Any recordings set up for me, rather than the wife, are moved overnight to our Tranquil pc home server, and her recordings stay on the media pc for 2 weeks before they also get moved.

We have a hardwired cat6 network installed, using netgear hubs, and now just wish that we could get a nice decent BB speed into the house, so we can take advantage of the network properly

In our kitchen, we have a 21" MSI all-in-one pc, that uses DVBLink for dreambox software to get TV signals. However this is mostly used to playing back my recorded tv off the server, since I'm the one that spends most time in the kitchen...

Pretty much sums up our setup here, most of the time, it works well... unless the wife is in control of the remote!

Tony

[acraigl]

I'm using a Silverstone Grandia GD04B. Picked it up a few months ago and loving it over my aging nMediaPC 500BAR case. Smaller footprint, and bigger fans allow me better cooling. At first it was WAY too loud (noise was motivation for upgrading in the first place). Removing the fan filters and then adding this little piece of magic did the trick:

http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/pr ... dex=94&g=f

It can control up to 4 fans (I'm using 3) and you can "dial-in" exactly the right ratio of noise to cooling. I even picked up a molex to sata power adapter so I did not have to run extra cabling from my modular power supply. I have to put my ear up to the thing to even know it's still running. Very happy. Not missing the VFD one little bit.

[asm495]

I'm using a homebuilt case made of MDF! The only way I could get a case to do exactly what I wanted was to design my own. It has 2x 2.5" HDDs and 5x 3.5" HDDs with space for a Micro ATX motherboard and a small-size PSU. It doesn't look the best but it is hidden away in a rack case in my garage so doesn't really matter!

[acraigl]

@asm495 - how about some pics of that badboy!

[UCBearcat]

Can anyone here comment on Lian Li cases? I've heard a lot of buzz about them, but I'm curious to know if anyone has any dealings with them.
I found the PC-C33B on newegg, and it looks pretty slick with a mid-mount fan behind the HDD caddy... which would also blow directly on the video card and the infiniTV4.