Installation:
For those who are interested, here are the system specifications for the older test system fitted into this Antec Nine Hundred Series case... System Specs:
» AMD Athlon XP +1700, 1.47GHz
» Biostar M7NCD Pro nForce2 Motherboard
» 512MB Memory
» 3x Maxtor 80GB Hard disks
» 1x Floppy diskette drive
» 1x Optical device (CD-RW)
» GeForce2 64MB video card
Now lets get this mid-tower case filled-up. Other than the already mentioned bottom-mounted power supply, the case interior looks like a normal machine. With minimal effort the case went together, it took roughly 2.5 hours to install all of the components into this case. The most difficult area of the installation involved installing the hard disks into the drive cages. The blind installation of the screws just made the job a chore without a magnetic-tipped screwdriver.
Here is a shot of the three hard disks installed into the drive cages. The drives were separated by one bay just so they could cool better.
Pictured below is a close-up of the thumbscrews that hold one of the two drive cages to the case. The cages are a great idea, but unfortunately they end up complicating the installation of a hard drive more than a generic bolt-in case. If you've heard reviewers saying anything otherwise they are not being honest with you.
Consider what it takes to install a hard drive in the Nine Hundred: 8 thumbscrews to get the drive cage out and then another 4 standard screws to fasten the drive to the cage - this design effectively makes more (not less) work! Compound that with the fact that the drive installation job is almost impossible without a magnetic-tipped screwdriver.
