NSK2480B and Asrock H170M-Pro4: Not Ideal

I recently had to change the motherboard in my HTPC. The case is an Antec NSK2480B, a horizontally aligned case that fits up to micro-ATX motherboards.

I picked up an Asrock H170M-Pro4 to put in along with appropriate CPU and RAM. Didn't think there would be an issue as the Pro4 is a micro-ATX motherboard, matching the case. No issue, right?

Unfortunately, the Pro4 is a full sized micro-ATX board, larger on the "width" axis than most of the mATX boards going around these days. It physically fits in the case, but four of the six SATA ports are arranged so that the plugs go in parallel to the board — as shown in this pic:

The Asrock H170M-Pro4 side-mounted SATA ports

In a normal case this would be okay, but the NSK2480B has a solid metal divider that runs in between the motherboard area and the drive/PSU area. The side-mounted SATA ports on such a wide board do not fit. I managed to get two 90-degrees connectors in before mounting the motherboard, but the other two ports just can't be used. The pic below shows the mounting (bit hard to see due to the other cabling):

The Pro4 mounted in the Antec NSK2480B

The wall the SATA cables are pushing against is a solid piece riveted in to the case. Other than grinding out a chunk, I can't see any way to get access to those bottom two ports.

So...a full sized micro-ATX board with side-mounted SATA ports is not a good match for this case.

Coolermaster Silencio 352: Case Notes

A few quick notes on the Coolermaster Silencio 352, which I used for the first time recently:

It's a micro-ATX (so relatively small) case aimed at quiet computing. Pictures on the net often make it look glossy, but it has a matte finish. It does show some fingerprints, but not nearly as much as you'd think from some pictures.

The side panel had quite a lot of flex to it — the thumb screws were under a fair bit of tension. It's a budget case, the flimsiness of some of the material shows in this. The side panel has about 3–4mm of noise-absorbing foam.

The case is aimed at quiet computing, and it is pretty quiet. You need to be in a quiet room to even tell it's on. However, with only a minimal setup of i5-6600, one SSD, HDD, DVD drive and the PSU, CPU temperature got really high under load, up to 80°C. I'm not sure how it would go with a graphics card in there as well, so I wouldn't recommend this case for a gaming machine.

You can remove a panel at the top with an optional fan mount, which might make airflow slightly better.

Finally, there is very limited space at the back of the case behind the motherboard. This makes cable management really difficult. But it doesn't look too bad when finished up.

Review: Deepcool Tesseract

Recently used this case in a general purpose machine for a friend. At only A$49 it's at the budget end, but for what you get it's pretty good value. With 165mm CPU and 310mm GPU clearance it'll fit most setups.

For whatever reason, the Tesseract listing on Deepcool's website doesn't show the windowed version of the case, only the regular version.

Positives

• Lightweight, but doesn't feel too flimsy.
• The fans have both 3-pin and 4-pin molex connectors. Handy if you need it, but could be a negative if you only want the 3-pins as the molex connector is quite bulky.
• Even when plugged into via the 4-pin, the fans were pretty quiet.
• Lots of screws, cable ties and an onboard speaker for troubleshooting. (No rubber mounting grommets for hard drives or anything, but you can't have everything in such a cheap case).
• Internal USB and case button cables are quite long.

• Plenty of drive bays and room internally.
• Cutout behind the motherboard to mount a CPU cooler if needed.
• Large window to show off to show off your insides.

Negatives

• "Punch out" PCI expansion slots, rather than ones held in place with screws.
• No cut out at the top of the case for the 4/8 pin ATX power cable, so you need to route around the motherboard. (This is pretty common in cases in this range).
• The short fan cable on the front-of-case fan would be tricky to reach the 3-pin header on an ATX motherboard.
• The blue LEDs on the fans and the "power on" at the front of the case are all quite bright (could be considered a good or bad thing, depending on how much you like blue LEDs ;)
• Not a whole lot of cable routing room at the back.
• The connectors on the front of the case work okay, but do look a little cheap.

Summary

A good budget case where the value proposition and positives easily outweigh the negatives.

Build Log: Fractal Midi R2, i5 4590+H97

Putting together a new machine for a friend. This is its story...

First up, the list of parts used:

CPU: Intel i5 4590 CPU cooler: Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo Motherboard: Gigabyte H97-D3H RAM: G-Skill Ares 2x4GB 1600MHz SSD: Plextor M5S 256GB HDD: Seagate 2TB 7200RPM ODD: Lite-on DVD-RW Case: Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 PSU: Antec True Power Classic 550W

The usual suspects

Initial reaction to the Fractal Define Arc Midi R2 is that for a mid-sized case, it's...big. At least, it's very wide. Good for big CPU coolers if needed (180mm of clearance).

The Fractal Design Arc Midi R2

The case has some nice features, including an in-built fan controller for up to three fans. The switch for fan speed levels is built into the front of the case. Switching between the speeds after completing the machine, at 12V the fans audible but not too noisy, while down at 5V they're barely audible at all.

Arc Midi R2 front panel connectors, including fan controller switch

The R2 comes with a bunch of screws, cable ties and risers as you would expect. Below is the inside of the case with both side panels removed. If there was a blemish with this case, it was that one of the side panel screws felt slightly cross-threaded when first undone. Very minor in the scheme of things, hardly worth even saying, but I liked everything else about the case :)

On to the rest of the components. CPU is the i5-4590, motherboard is the Gigabyte H97-D3H. Both solid mid-range options for a non-OC machine.

The Gigabyte H97-D3H

I've heard people say that when installing an Intel CPU for the first time, they get a bit scared by the sounds that the lever used to hold the CPU in place can make. It can make creaking sounds, but this is normal in my experience. It is applying a fair bit of force, since it needs to keep the CPU absolutely stationary in its socket.

The i5-4590 in place in the motherboard

Next I installed the RAM and cooler. I did this outside of the case, but that turned out to make accessing the top left of the motherboard awkward when screwing it in place (fat fingers!). Putting the motherboard in first and then mounting the cooler (there is a cutaway behind the motherboard that lets you do this) would have been easier. And while this is a non-overclocking machine — and so the stock cooler would have sufficed — for a little extra quietness I got the aftermarket cooler.

Motherboard with RAM and cooler installed

Adding the other components to the case was fairly straightforward. The drive bays all have rubber sound-reducing grommets to screw hard drives into, and mount points for SSDs. Cable management was an absolute breeze in this. I think I only used two of the cable ties that came in the box, the rest more or less managed itself. I'm far from great at cable management, but this case made it really easy.

The finished product...almost

The picture above is the complete machine, minus the graphics card, which I'm waiting on for stock. Intending on a GTX970, hopefully an MSI model so it will fit without needing to remove the top HDD cage. The loose cable at the bottom of the case is the PCIe power connector for the GPU. I'll post an update when the GPU is in. Currently the machine gets about 10FPS on the Unigine Heaven benchmark the poor dear. I'm sure a GPU will help out a little there.

Update: Addendum for the GPU installation.