Testing the SST-LC01 to it's full extent

To get a good idea of what the SilverStone LC01 HTPC case can truly handle, I completely loaded it. Rarely is a HTPC ever fully loaded, and one has never been reviewed before in this state. I also am led to believe that rarely or never do case manufacturers test them fully loaded as every HTPC case I have tried or heard about has failed miserable when users have mostly or fully loaded them.

The LC01 has the most drive bays available of any HTPC at 8 bays and supports 7 PCI/AGP slots, all will be filled. If a good high-end HTPC case is out there, I wanted to prove it would work for anyone, regardless of what they threw at it. I personally have wasted too much money and time trying to find one. I'm not sure what SilverStone expected, as my expectations were quite high but they were excited to have me test it out.

System hardware:

1 SilverStone ST46F (460 Watt) PFC Power Supply
1 AMD 2600 XP (333FSB) (Which takes 75 Watts, P4 northwood 3.2GHz takes 89 Watts)
1 MSI KT4V-L Motherboard
2 256MB PC2700 DDR RAM modules
1 NVidia FX 5200 128MB
5 200GB Maxtor 7200 RPM 8MB Cache hard drives (running raid 0,1 and 5 with 940GB of 1TB disk array usable)
1 10GB IDE 5400 RPM Western Digital Hard drive (running as idle)
3 pcHDTV OTA HDTV Linux Tuner cards
1 Audio Excel 5.1 Sound card
2 DVD-ROM drives
1 IDE-PCI controller to connect 4 more IDE devices.

The LC01 has a total cubic area of 1.01 cubic feet, minus what the drives, motherboard, power supply, and PCI cards take up. (The average Mid Tower case has about 1.2 cubic feet.) This is one of the lowest numbers I have seen for a case which is a good thing. With the case fan moving 27CFM and the ST46F power supply moving 43CFM this means that every minute, most of the air in this case has been replaced 70 times (But I'm more inclined to think it's 20-30% below this due to a non-perfect air flow). This is why having a smaller cubic area in the case is a good thing, but you have to make sure you have no dead air spots where hot air just sits and continually increases in temperature.

CPU Temperature

Cooling a CPU should not be difficult but for some reason most HTPC's struggle. What makes the LC01 unique is it was designed to work with SilverStones' 120mm fan power supplies. The placement of the power supply fan and the case fan right next to the CPU have the largest effect on the overall case temperature. All air exiting the case will move by the CPU and then right out the back of the case. Having the fans so close to the CPU will keep the hot air from drifting back into the case.

System Temperature

The system temperature is a good indication on how well your system is being cooled. If your case is not venting well you'll probably see high system temperatures but not always. The LC01, like other HTPC's, is designed to channel air through the system. You will notice in one of my graphics a major jump in system temperature but a drop in CPU temperature. This is when I removed the case top for 10 minutes and the fans were only moving air past the CPU.

Hard drive Temperatures

Most hard drives are warranted up to 55C or 60C. One of the previous HTPC cases I tried had 3 hard drive bays that were 3/4" from the CPU. After an hour burn test I saw the drives running around 65C and the CPU around 80C. I knew modification was my only saving grace for that badly designed HTPC case. You should keep your hard drives under 45C to be safe. A common rule for heat is that every 10C increase will half the life time of hardware, but this isn't totally true. Running most drives at 60C still gives you 10+ years estimated life, but it's not worth risking if you can avoid it.

The hard drives did show a little bit of a problem caused by the LC01's driver holder design. There is 5/16" space between the top hard drive and the middle hard drive, but only 1/8" between the middle hard drive and the lower hard drive. The lower hard drives were the hottest in the case. Whatever temperature the middle drive was at, the bottom drive was typically 5C hotter and the top drive was 2C hotter. I was surprised to see the middle drive the coolest but this is probably due to the 5/16" space above it. There was also only 1/8" distance between the top hard drive and the DVD drive above it. A simple redesign of the lower and upper hard drive holes to put more space between them would be helpful and may not even require redesigning of the front case bezel as there is 1/4th an inch below the lower drive and the case bottom.

Finding Dead Spots

Just looking at the LC01 there are 5 potential dead spots I see; both sides at the front of the case, between the drive bays, under the motherboard, and where the PCI cards are. I ran the system at full load and checked the temperatures in these areas. There were no major dead spot problems, but the hard drives stacked closely together made it hard for air to move over the drives to cool them. When I removed one drive the other two drive temperatures dropped 5-6C. Placing the smallest, slowest, and quite st fan I had (20mm) blowing air towards them also cooled the stack of drives 5C degrees.

Cooling behind the case

If you put your case close to a wall you are likely to recycle hot air back into the case. If you have high-flow fans on the back of your case you also need to have more room behind it or the fan will not be able to move as much air. The LC01 performed very well with a wall right behind it. This is mostly due to the intake vents being closer to the front of the case to reduce recycling hot air and hot air not being forced hard out the back. The surface area of where the air comes out is much larger on the power supply and is probably making a good share of the difference.

Putting inside the stereo cabinet

Closing the door to the stereo cabinet

Closing the door on the stereo cabinet greatly increases the chances of recycling the air since the only opening for this cabinet is on the back where the hot air is being released.