Why not buy some cheaper cases?

wrote:
I don't need a case to bi-function as a fish tank, I don't need neon lights. I
do need a case's basic funtions: enough drive bays, stable power supply, and
convenient USB and firewire ports in front panel, and good airflow.

Antec is mentioned a lot in this group. Sonata may be good, but it costs $102
the least at Pricewatch. So why not buy some cheaper cases? Pricewatch.com has
cases with 350w or 400w power supply at price range of $20 - $35. Do they
produce a lot of noise? Are they junk? I think after all a case is a case. A
box to house the more important things. I can't justify paying $100+ for a
case. What's your opinion?


A case and a power supply are two different things. You can put nice
components in a cheap case and all you're likely to miss out on is front
usb ports and such. You put in a cheap power supply, though, and you're
asking for trouble. Also, assembling the innards inside a cheap case is
likely to result in much swaering and bleeding, as well as aggravation
when it comes time to upgrade or make some other change to the hardware
profile. I deliberately buy cheap cases for case modding, as I like
turning relative garbage into functional art. I now buy good PSUs,
though, and sell off any that come with the cases if I'm forced to buy a
case that has a PSU already in it. I like Antec PSUs, and am VERY happy
with my Truepower 380W model.

HTH,

Ari

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I got a generic case for $40 with a 300w power supply that's "AMD
compliant," but after 5000 hours the fan went out in the power supply, and I
replaced it (around lethal capacitors). Now that I have an xp2000+ and 2
hard drives, the 5v rail is producing only 4.65v and occasionally goes below
4.5.

I'm looking to a 360 watt Thermaltake to replace it ($36).

Antec are among the best.
--
Ed Light

Smiley :-/
MS Smiley :-\

I got a generic case with my first barebones, which I'm still using, and the
pci cards and agp card don't line up right, so that you have to bend the tab
down to line up with the screw hole, or else use a twistem-tie instead.

I got another generic for another person and everything lined up perfectly.
--
Ed Light

Smiley :-/
MS Smiley :-\

wrote in message ...
I don't need a case to bi-function as a fish tank, I don't need neon
lights. I
do need a case's basic funtions: enough drive bays, stable power supply,
and
convenient USB and firewire ports in front panel, and good airflow.

Antec is mentioned a lot in this group. Sonata may be good, but it costs
$102
the least at Pricewatch. So why not buy some cheaper cases?
Pricewatch.com has
cases with 350w or 400w power supply at price range of $20 - $35. Do they
produce a lot of noise? Are they junk? I think after all a case is a
case. A
box to house the more important things. I can't justify paying $100+
for a
case. What's your opinion?


Most of the cost of a case is really the power supply. While a more
expensive case is not always a quality indicator of the power supply , I
would hope that it is. A friend and I both bought some $ 40 cases (350watt
power supply included) to put some P4 1.6 ghz boards in and they have been
runnig fine for the last year and a half. Maybe we lucked out. They did
have a front USB port and room for 4 of the 5 inch drives on the front.
Even the fan does not make too much noise.

On 8 Jul 2003 00:53:05 -0700, wrote:

I don't need a case to bi-function as a fish tank, I don't need neon lights. I
do need a case's basic funtions: enough drive bays, stable power supply, and
convenient USB and firewire ports in front panel, and good airflow.

Antec is mentioned a lot in this group. Sonata may be good, but it costs $102
the least at Pricewatch. So why not buy some cheaper cases? Pricewatch.com has
cases with 350w or 400w power supply at price range of $20 - $35. Do they
produce a lot of noise? Are they junk? I think after all a case is a case. A
box to house the more important things. I can't justify paying $100+ for a
case. What's your opinion?

Probably what is so important is the quality of the power supply. I
could care less about the ugly black case of the Sonata, but the 380
watt Truepower PS is worth having. Proper cooling is also important
and I can't see the reasoning adding (useless) lights inside a case.
I won't buy a case that's over $100.

I bought an BLACK Twilight Series PC Case for £38 (or $60) from
Ebuyer.com

It was advertised as Ebuyers own brand case. However it is actually
made by Enermax model(CS-305)

It came with a 350w PSU and has been running without a single glitch
for 3 months now with rock steady voltages.

With front USB panel, steel that is thicker than cheapo cases and bags
of room inside it, it was a good buy.

The only downside was the (ahem.!) "premodded window" and neon light
that came with it - which were a bit tacky. What IS remakable is, an
equivelant case without the pre-modding was going to cost £40 more to
buy!

So, their is cheap cases ....
and their is CHEAP CHEAP ... CHIRPY CHIRPY ... CHEAP CHEAP cases.

Personally I would find an expensive case (say $102), then find a
realy cheap case ($25), and then go for a case costing about half the
difference (say $55).

HTH

Harry




On 8 Jul 2003 00:53:05 -0700, wrote:

I don't need a case to bi-function as a fish tank, I don't need neon lights. I
do need a case's basic funtions: enough drive bays, stable power supply, and
convenient USB and firewire ports in front panel, and good airflow.

Antec is mentioned a lot in this group. Sonata may be good, but it costs $102
the least at Pricewatch. So why not buy some cheaper cases? Pricewatch.com has
cases with 350w or 400w power supply at price range of $20 - $35. Do they
produce a lot of noise? Are they junk? I think after all a case is a case. A
box to house the more important things. I can't justify paying $100+ for a
case. What's your opinion?

In article , says...
I don't need a case to bi-function as a fish tank, I don't need neon lights. I
do need a case's basic funtions: enough drive bays, stable power supply, and
convenient USB and firewire ports in front panel, and good airflow.

Antec is mentioned a lot in this group. Sonata may be good, but it costs $102
the least at Pricewatch. So why not buy some cheaper cases? Pricewatch.com has
cases with 350w or 400w power supply at price range of $20 - $35. Do they
produce a lot of noise? Are they junk? I think after all a case is a case. A
box to house the more important things. I can't justify paying $100+ for a
case. What's your opinion?

The case doesn't mean anything. You can make a perfectly functioning
case from a cardboard box, milk crate, and so on. As far as the case
goes about the only problem you will need to look out for is the ones
that have the pressed in motherboard stand offs. Often times you need to
take the Dremel or some other tool and remove one or more to keep them
from shorting out on the back of the motherboard.

The big problem with cheep cases is that the power supplies that come
with them is nothing more then functioning junk. Your asking for trouble
running any new modern high end system with one of these supplies.
Should you get lucky and actually get your system running stable with no
odd reboots, lockups, or BSOD's using one, you may not be so lucky a few
weeks or months down the road when the power supply blows and takes out
your entire system because it wasn't built to spec in order to keep the
price down, and didn't include things like over volt protection.

That being said, often I find a cheep case that I like better then some
of the more expensive ones. So what I do is buy the case then replace
the power supply with a good one like an Antec True Power. I don't
really save any money, but I get the case I like, and a good reliable
power supply.

Doug

I spent $200 for the case, then another $200 to modify it for a
one-of-a-kind custom job (no, no see-thru window, no ghetto neon).
Does it run faster? nope. Does it run better? probly not. But it's a
conversational piece, matches my furniture, it's a piece of art. No
other Jones has one like it.





-bobb

wrote:

I don't need a case to bi-function as a fish tank, I don't need neon lights. I
do need a case's basic funtions: enough drive bays, stable power supply, and
convenient USB and firewire ports in front panel, and good airflow.

Antec is mentioned a lot in this group. Sonata may be good, but it costs $102
the least at Pricewatch. So why not buy some cheaper cases? Pricewatch.com has
cases with 350w or 400w power supply at price range of $20 - $35. Do they
produce a lot of noise? Are they junk? I think after all a case is a case. A
box to house the more important things. I can't justify paying $100+ for a
case. What's your opinion?

Aopen QF50A, $41.00 from Newegg about two months ago. Nice, clean, cheap, well
designed, good power supply. Works fine for me and didn't look stupid like a lot of
the more expensive cases do. I'm running an 8RDA+ and an XP2500 barton. I've got it
clocked at 2170 which the wcpuid thing says is a 3000+ rating. It's very stable. I
did buy the cheap Kingston valueram and am planning a memory upgrade soon. Then I'll
be able to push it a little further if I want. It's not any noisier than a Compaq I
paid $2k for so I'm happy.

Roger