A New Case

Subscribe via: RSS EMAIL

Categorized | Uncategorized

Posted on 11 April 2007 by Jerry Raia

I went to my computer dealer the other day to pick up a $10 CF Card to PCMCIA adaptor and left $300 later. This happens quite often; sometimes I just can�t help myself. I had been thinking about a new case for my PC for quite some time. When I upgraded my motherboard and processor a while back the wires for the front panel USB/Firewire connectors could not reach their mates on the motherboard. In addition the old case was stuffed to capacity with�two CD drives and three hard drives that I could barely get to without removing the four memory sticks.

So I happened upon the Thermaltake Armor Jr. case. The case came with 2 large cooling fans, one in front and one in back. My old case had 3 of the smaller fans which were quite noisy. A larger fan can turn slower to move the same amount of air and is thus quieter; this alone cut down the noise by about half. �

Notice the cool looking blue lights in the front panel fan? This fan is in front of the hard drive bay to cool the drives. The drives sit sideways in this case which I would guess provides better cooling and also makes it quite easy to hook up the connectors. The little wings that open and close in front look nice, but I could have done without them. �

Ok it isn�t pretty but it gets the job done. You can see in the lower right my�three SATA hard drives are facing sideways and easy to reach. While I was at it I upgraded my power supply to a 750 watt Thermaltake. You can never have enough power especially with my power hungry NVIDIA 8800 video card. �

Here is a nice feature, but I wish that these connectors would have been on the front of the case…

I often use the top of my case to put things, and this will limit that practice. Overall I�m pretty happy about finally upgrading my case. This particular model was $125 and the power supply was $135. A few other odds and ends got me up to $300.

What will I do with that old case you ask? Build another computer with my old motherboard of course!�

This post was written by:

Jerry Raia - who has written 18 posts on Gear Diary.

Jerry Raia is a full time Airline Captain when he is not playing with all the latest gadgets he can get his hands on. He is also a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI-AIM). His primary interests are with Smartphones and more recently, Photography. He was a Unix programmer in the 1980s and wrote assembly for HP proprietary handhelds like the HP71B. His interest in handheld devices led to being a beta tester for Windows CE (Pegasus), the first incarnation of the Windows Mobile operating system. He is also a Contributing Editor on Smartphone Thoughts. Jerry’s interest in handheld computing goes all the way back to the HP25 calculator that came out in the mid 1970s and was one of the first programmable calculators.

Contact the author

http://www.geardiary.com Mitchell Oke
Nice case!! Looks pretty heavy with all that metal though. I agree about the wings, they could be done without. But still, very nice!
http://www.geardiary.com Allen Hong
WOW, sweet looking! Jerry, are you going to put in some lighting on the back end of the case? It looks so dark back there looking through the side window.
http://www.jerryraia.com Jerry Raia
Thanks guys! I thought about that but the window side is normally up against my desk so I can’t see it anyway. The lights you see are actually part of the front fan so all I would really need to do is put in a new rear fan. The case is aluminum and is actually lighter than my old one.
Pingback: Jerry’s Thoughts » New Computer Case
http://www.geardiary.com Mitchell Oke
Well that’s good then! My friend got an new case recently and its made of metal, and let me tell you it is HEAVY! and it’s only got your basic components (mobo, PSU, one HDD and DVD).
http://www.geardiary.com Mitchell Oke
I thought about modding my cheap desktop case adding a windows and lights and stuff but I have it in a cupboard to reduce noise (being used as a media centre in my room at my mums house) so it would never be seen.
http://www.jerryraia.com Jerry Raia
I was toying with the idea of going liquid cooled just cause. The case supports it too. I could have all those lit up hoses in the case. OK too geeky, I admit it!