Enclosures
Enclosures/Cases
If your using 1 or 2 drives, 1 or 2 PCI cards, a sub 3Ghz CPU end CPU, and a graphics card that doesn't need a power cord connected to it, then quiet, small, and low CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) air movement cases are okay. If you're going for "high-end" then you need to be careful with the cute and small HTPC cases or even "High End" Antec Overture case. They may be quiet, but they're too quiet and don't move enough air which means it is not going cool your system well enough. You also better think twice before putting that HTPC in your stereo cabinet.
How it looks, the beauty part. This can be quite a bit more important than most people first think. Do you want a full or mid size computer tower case sitting next to, or on top of your nice HDTV or Plasma screen? That's probably a No. For myself, I originally took the typical computer case route and bought the cheapest case I found with a 350 Watt power supply. This was fine because it was hidden in a corner of a dark room. After a year and a half I finally moved to a HTPC but only because my HTPC didn't look like one when I went to shows or presentations.
My current opinion of most HTPC cases is poor. As manfucaturers continue to make them smaller and quieter they are outright ignoring and not testing them for problems. What good is a case and computer that is causing such heat problems that it does not let you run the processor at normal speed? I guess the good would be it is smart enough to maybe save you from ruining your hardware. But then there are dozens of other cases that people have tried and have ruined hardware or spent countless hours modifying to make their systems safe and cool to run. In my research, almost every manfucaturer out there is not loading the system up with hardware that is was designed to hold, and then test the system for problems. Another problem is people reviewing the cases are putting in 1 or two hard drives at most, when the case has slots for 4-8.
As an example of why testing is so important, in January 2004 I bought the Antec Overture HTPC case. I had seen the Antec Sonata tower cases around and was extremely impressed with the quality and how quiet they were. I thought the Overture would be the same.. Opps is a good word here. The best feature of Antec's cases are their True-Power power supplies. The Antec Overture caused the CPU to run at 72C Idle, 81C under load. The motherboard was running around 47C. The hard drives where 42-54C when idle, I saw one at 60C one day and that prompted me check online to see what others said. I found that others had also had serious heat problems with them, regardless what CPU they were using. I called Antec and they sent me Revision B(2?) that had an extra fan, a vented top cover, and should have been better (I did have to pay for my case to be shipped back at about $20 from my pocket).
When I received the case and spent a night swapping hardware from case to case I was not pleased enough with the new design. Temperatures only dropped 2-5C. I took things into my own hands and put a 40mm 36CFM fan on the back of the case. (Luckily my work had a drill bit that was the right size to make it look professional). I also put a fan inside the case that just moves air over the drive cage holding 3 drives (The drive cage is less than .5" from the CPU, a MAJOR problem). I removed the front 3.5 inch drive bay covers to allow air to move over the two front drives and allow another way for air to enter the case without going through the power supply and being heated before the air even enters the case. In all, trying different possitions of fans, types, and angles I was able to get an ambient/motherboard tempature of 41-46C, CPU of 63-67C, and drives of 40-47C.
70C is the general safe/max tempeature people recommend for my model of Athlon CPU (Even though 85 is the listed max temperature). Most hard drives allow for 60C max, but my Maxtor drives are 55C recommended max. I would have liked to see everything drop another 5C and I could have if I switch out the rear 92Mmm fan for a noisy, high CFM fan. But to note, my system is no longer silent, it's louder than my projector's fan (33db) plus I can't close the front door on my stereo cabinet or my temperatures raise 3-6C. (The back of the stereo cabinet is open and has plenty of venting room).
Many of the major design flaws, such as air being heated as it enters the case, the 3 drives sitting less than half inch from the CPU, air not being well channeled through the case, venting to the side of the case, and not channeling the hot air from the CPU out of the case quickly but instead letting to move through the entire inside of the case easily are just some of the major problems seen in most HTPC cases, this case did just about everything wrong. Other problem areas come when you fully load the system. As an example, many cases are sent with vented PCI card slot covers. That's great to help keep PCI cards cooler, but what happens when all your PCI slots are full? HTPC cases don't always allow for enough room between hard drives, or let any air move over them. The placement of the PSU or hard drives are often made to fit in areas due to space constraints, and not designed for cooling. In the end, your CPU may run cool, but what about everything else?
I have researched countless HTPC cases and have read "trusted" reviews on dozens of them. Most reviews don't challange the case or the cooling even slightly. It's quite amazing to look for bad reviews of HTPC cases and see that almost all of the complaints come from people who are putting a good amount of hardware in them. Right now there is only one HTPC case I trust or recommend. Many people were asking about the SilverStone brand of HTPC cases and there was one design that looked promising, the LC01. I recommend you read my review as it discusses what they did so differently from other HTPC makers that made their system actually work well when being fully loaded with 8 drives, and is still smaller than many HTPC cases (And it's fairly quiet). It may be a little more expensive, but if your putting thousands of dollars of computer hardware in the system it is worth the price.
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