Internal Inspection (continued):
With the side panel removed, the first thing we are presented with is the rather useless fan grid. While you could mount four 120mm fans here, they won't be drawing air from anywhere, and this piece is just going into my spare parts bin. Besides being useless, I'd rather have the window uncluttered to reveal the components inside. Actually, I'd rather have no window at all, and just have the paint job from the far side duplicated on this side.
Most of the 5.25" drive bays employ a tool-less design, but not all of them. At the bottom is a hard drive cage that has to be screwed into the case since the use of the tool-less tabs isn't extended that far down. Installing drives into the cage also requires tools, so this whole corner of the case seems somewhat neglected in terms of convenient tool-less features.
All of the front panel wiring is well labeled to allow for an easy installation. On the downside, the audio cable has a daisy chained series of connections for AC'97, HD, and Azalia audio that makes quite a mess of unused wires that will be dangling right off your motherboard and will be very hard to conceal.
The bottom of the case is perforated for ventilation, and you could even install two more 120mm fans in this location, too. The top of the case is also ventilated and includes a pre-installed fan to exhaust air out just behind the drive bays.
Looking at the case from the driver's side, but with the side panel removed shows that the tool-less mechanism for 5.25" drives requires you access both sides of the drives. The motherboard tray is shown in place, but by popping two latches and pulling the handle, it slides right out for an easy build.
