Silverstone Lascala LC13B-E Black HTPC ATX Case No PS

Comment:
Solid develop excellent and very plain front. When the door is closed it looks absolutely nothing like a pc. Brushed aluminum is really nice. The interior layout is quite nicely thought out and air flow is very superior as well. A 92 or 80 mm fan is moutnable forward of the difficult drives and the two rear included 80 mm fans are somewhat silent. The blue led lights are somewhat vibrant which has become somewhat normal with pc equipment lately. Component installation is far more time consuming than other cases, but offers greater cable management and airflow so the tradeoff is worth it. This is my HTPC build.Pheonom X3 720Asus M4A78-E ATX moboZalman 9500 CPU cooler (initial was Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro but it died...)HIS Radeon 4670 graphics cardswapped out stock fans for two Silenx 80 mm fans ྮ db modelၠ mm Silenx fan for hard drive ྫ db model)Lite-On iHES208-08 Blu-Ray multi driveWD 1TB green challenging driveOCZ Modstream 600 watt modular PSU

Comment:
Solid case for HTPCplenty room for all drives 1. The 2 rear fans are a small bit loud for HTPCtwo. The screws: quite a few, but smaller ones far better.

Comment:
Gorgeous. Could not ask for a sturdier or greater searching case. No cuts. Really tight space. I knew this going in but didn't assume it would be as tight as it was. 1 DVD, 1 HD, 1 Card Reader, full ATX MB, Little passively cooled video. Fans make more noise than I'd like, not bad for a Computer at all just a small louder than my PS3. drive cages a pain. I would buy once again in a second! This factor looks so great I won't anticipate it to do any housework.

Comment:
nice, sturdy case. excellent good quality for the price tag range. lots of drive bays if you want them. Door keeps drives and front ports out of sight of kids and pets. included fans are quiet sufficient and case it setup for very good airflow with out needing too several added fans no IR (didn't need to have it, so that was ok with me). a small tight for a full size motherboard since it comes correct up to the drive bays. could be an issue depending on motherboard layout.

Comment:
This case is gorgeous in my entertainment center. The black front blends with the rest of my stereo equipment, the door hides the fact that it's a Pc.It's 17" wide, the common size for A/V equipment.There's space for extended video cards or lots of hard drives.No rattles when all the screws are tightened down.Excellent cooling for the CPU. This case doesn't even try to be tool-much less. To get the center difficult drive bay out you have to take away ten screws (of two diverse varieties), which is ridiculous. The seventh three.five" drive bay (under the five.25 bays) is not advertised for a reason - the mounting holes are drilled at the wrong height. It'll function if you bend the flat support plates down, although. Clearance is really tight to the motherboard, but I did fit a drive there (with a MSI P965-DS3 motherboard).The intake fan by the CPU socket overhangs the motherboard if you use a standard thickness 80mm fan. The front intake fan (inside the center hard drive bay) seems pointless because there's no front-panel vent. The 3.5" and 5.25" drive bay covers are painted steel, not aluminum, and don't fairly match the front panel. Not a large deal due to the fact they're behind the door. The included fans are noisy, and seem inexpensive. It'd appear far better with a more discreet Silverstone logo. Even with all those negatives, I'd nonetheless obtain this case once again. It looks fantastic, and will take a common ATX motherboard. Now that it's assembled I don't program on upgrading it, so it doesn't matter how many screws there are holding it together. Other comments:The LEDs are way too bright. I added a 27k resistor in series with the energy LED and disconnected the HDD LED (the blinking is genuinely annoying).The body of the case is painted steel, not brushed aluminum. It's a pebbly texture that doesn't show fingerprints, and looks okay. There's no standard case speaker included (but who cares these days?)This case is huge. Remember that the cables will add two" or so to the depth - it just barely fit on the shelf in my entertainment center.

Comment:
Soon after building (or rebuilding) a hundred or more systems, I have to say that this is the greatest case I've ever employed. Properly construct, rock solid construction compared to all the others in my encounter. Every thing fits perfectly, including all of the screws and other hardware that came with the case. None that I can feel of. If you are getting complications with the create, slow down and recheck what you are undertaking. This case is just too effortless to put together if you do it correctly.

Comment:
Extremely sturdy, plenty of 3.5" bays, Two five.25" bays. All of the versatility of a tower in an HTPC form factor. Fans could be quieter. Led lights are too bright. This is a excellent case with a few points I could nit choose about. There are incredibly couple of trade-offs

Comment:
Silverstone High quality - Even for a steel case, the overall quality of this unit is fairly high. Dual 80mm fans are good and quiet. There's a lot of external vents to permit for decent heat dissapation. Effortlessly accomodates a micro-ATX / common ATX motherboard. All-in-all, it functions well, is reasonably quiet, is regular component-sized (blends perfectly with other residence entertainment equipment - home theatre receivers, amplifiers, and so on.) - an excellent HTPC case for this cost point. Only consists of two 80mm rear case fans...although the case itself supports many much more. Case does not include vibration dampening grommets, so if you want to make certain vibration free operation, you'll have to spring for the power provide, fan and drive grommets oneself. This was a small disappointing, considering that the quantity one priority in an HTPC case is silent operation. I knew this ahead of time, even so, and for the cost, what can I say. If you're working with a huge HDCP-compliant video card (think ATI 4870 or GTX260) you'll have to take away the internal HDD cage (center cage) in order to get the card to fit. This generally isn't a problem, given that you can use the adjacent cage (which would be applied for floppy or other three.five" drives needing exterior access). I basically left the three.five case covers on, and mounted my drives in that cage rather. This does present a challenge if you want to double this as an HTPC / Media Library that utilizes a number of HDDs. Removing the center cage means you can only mount three HDDs and nonetheless enable for cooling. Speaking of cooling, if you use a big CPU cooler, like the Zalman CNPS9500, you can anticipate some of this fan noise to be audible, since the case exterior has many vents.

Comment:
Exceptional cost for a steal and aluminum case.The front panel is amazing and minimalist, not distractingThe weight and feet on the bottom make it impossible to slide, very good if you have it on leading of a cabinetGreat cooling layout Drive bays:I couldn't use the middle drive bay mainly because of my video card, so I ended up making use of the other bay, which is directly in front of the power supply. The drives inserted left really little room for the energy cables and sata cables. I couldn't fit a fan on the side intake because my mobo (gigabyte UD3R) had a heatsink factor there.Front panel connections hard to reach with bays in, but that's my fault The blue LED isn't really as bright as some make it out to beThe dual 80mm fans are somewhat loud for an HTPC

Comment:
This case looks wonderful and has very great construct good quality. Air flow seems to be reasonably good; my hardware is staying cool inside it, anyway. The wires for the front USB ports are held together in a solid plug, which makes hooking it up so significantly easier. Even with an extra fan in the front, it stays fairly quiet if you maintain the door on the front closed. Overall, I'm really happy with this case. If you have both a long video card and a lengthy PSU, some creative re-arrangement is necessary. The PCI slot openings in the back have notches at the bottom for the small metal tab on the bottom of the card bracket (the metal tab that slides into the bottom of the case, beneath the edge of the motherboard). If the tabs on your cards are straight, you'll have a tough time acquiring them to press all the way down into the slot. I had to bend mine a bit with a pair of pliers just before they would fit. There are two three.five" bays: 1 in the middle and one on the proper side (when you're standing behind the case). The middle bay has a bracket for a fan, and the correct side bay does not. If you have a long video card, but nonetheless want to use that middle bay with the fan, do this: Get rid of both bays. Mount your fan in the bay from the middle, then put it back in the spot where the right-side bay was. You'll have to shove on it, but it'll fit. This puts the fan behind the openings for the floppy drives; this delivers great airflow, but it also signifies you can't put a floppy drive in it if you do this.

Comment:
Fantastic good quality, has each and every feature you could want in an HTPC case. Has plenty of space for HDDs LEDs are a bit bright, but was bought to be a HTPC. Take your time, as the other evaluations state.

Comment:
Looks good for a HTPC. Would be nice if the power supply area was on the other side of the motherboard. My initial power supply would not reach the motherboard power - I had to open boxes at neighborhood personal computer store to discover a power supply with longer cords. two rear fans are not a silent as I would like, just average.

Comment:
Excellent case. Well believed out style. Fairly rather (but some silent fans are good). Lots of room. Sturdy and sharp. This is the only con. and Honestly its most media center situations that have this concern. Why dont they incorporate a IR receiver. if the case had one built it it would be amazing.

Comment:
Purchased for HTPC use, every thing came apart just fine, no proble installing any parts at all MOBO, drives, full height PCI's...no issue Blue LED's can be distracting...60mm fans a bit noisy...I personally don't care but some people might

Comment:
The case looks even better in my living room than in the pictures, and it works great - the front opens and closes quietly and smoothly, all the parts inside work ok. The manual is quite useless - it gives you the general idea but it seems translated online and the pictures are small and vague. I still don't know what the last part, the case lock, is or how it gets installed. As it is not essential, I don't care either. The only problem I had was with the too short wires coming out of the power supply. I had to install the power supply upside down to bring the cables a bit closer. Truly, it is the cheapest power supply money can buy, until I can get a silent one - later. Even so, I had to route the CPU power connector under the video card (...) and it is pretty tight. The other cables are ok. I did not have any problems installing the other parts, I do have a small video card (5450 passive) and it did not disagree with the hard drive. The setup for now is: 400W power, p5ld2 mb, pentium E2160, 4GB DDR2/667, Radeon 5450 passive, 120 GB PATA HD, BD reader. Right now, the noisiest part is obviously the power supply. And another thing: I tried to fit a fan on the side of case, the square hole next to the CPU (and the other 2 fans the case came with). The motherboard is very close to the case panel though and I could not get the fan in there without touching the mb. Maybe I should have installed it in front of the hard drive bay... With only one hard drive I don't think it needs it. I give it 5 starts even with the little problems: cable lengths, unhelpful manual,... In the end, the price was very good and I would buy this case again any time.

Comment:
Overall the case seems nice, the front panel opens and closes well, and I was able to fit everything in except my hard drives. If I allow them to loosely float around in my case, occupying the vacant 5.25 and other bays, I can use *both* my video card *and* have a hard drive, all at the same time, but I admit this is less than ideal. Let's just hope I remember and keep perfect balance whenever I move my case in the future. If the hd mounting area was swapped with the 3 inch bays, everything would fit perfectly, including all bay devices and all hard drives with any video card, but instead it seems we are left with a case where video card installation was not anticipated. Rated 3/5 for this reason. Probably 2/5 is more accurate since I would have looked for another case, but I don't want to spend half an hour confirming my purchase.

Comment:
Very clean front finish. Looks a lot like any other audio/video equipment in my rack. I adore how it blends in and I adore how clutter cost-free the front is. Its cramped. I had to remove the center HDD cage just to fit my video card in. Not to mention the only locations to stuff wires are in the cage locations. I was a small bummed that the inside is so small. Smaller than most mid tower ATX circumstances anyway. I would have prefered they made it a little bigger. Wire management is tuff if you have a lot of kit to install in the case. All in all I love the look and it is a top quality produced case. Lack of wire management selections and the smallish size make it shed 2 eggs for me. This is just my HTPC and older kit at that but I barely got almost everything in. A tight fit for confident.

Comment:
High good quality materials not cheap plastic parts. Looks stylish from each angle. User friendly. none that I can see but. When I install all of the components I will write an additional evaluation this is just for what was correct out of the box.

Comment:
Great case, looks wonderful. I have a baby who's running about pressing buttons. When the front panel is closed, there's only 1 energy button that I can disable from within the OS (I run Linux), so no challenge there. IMHO, the case looks elegant. Internally, it's quite uncomplicated to add all the components in, but somewhat cramped. I installed the full ATX motherboard in, four hard drives, 1 dvdrw. No builtin IR receiver.

Comment:
Excellent finish, awesome design. Every little thing fits nicely with room to spare, simple to install almost everything, and it looks wonderful with my receiver. Nice excellent construction, highly recommend this case. Didn't get cut a single time either. Stock fans are quieter than I was expecting. Would have been cool if the screws for the top panel had been thumb screws. If I genuinely want to I will replace the screw with thumb screws, straightforward... I have a Biostar microatx mobo with onboard graphics, so I don't know for how cards will fit yet, but it looks like it has tons of room. Also, my AMD 955 BE heat sink has tons of room and the additional fan spot next to the heat sink is nice to have. Over all a Incredibly nice case.

Comment:
Wonderful case, fits in my media rack quite nicely. The case is solid, very heavy. Good quality craftmanship. The removable tough drive enclosures are good. The three.five internal bays have a removable enclosure identical to the 1 for the difficult drives that can mount internal tough drives or three.5 media bay items, identified it quite handy for RAID disks. Case fans are SILENT. Also can barely hear any of the 3 hard drives inide the box, once again solid construction. -Power LED too bright.-HD enclosures difficult to insert, screws are in a complicated place to reach, just under the lip to the removable case cover. Magnetic screw driver a must.

Comment:
Excellent quality case for the price. Stock fans are fairly quiet with the option to add 2 additional to the case. Solid construction and a quite sleek style added to the look of my entertainment setup. A lot of room if you take the time to wire manage. HDD cage has the capacity to hold a cooling fan but causes HDD's to stick out more than the mother board. This triggered some issues with the RAM. Had to use RAM without having tall heat sinks to make use of the space. Also, 1 of the HDD slots is located under the 5.25" slots and has limited cooling. The LED's on the front are really bright and can be distracting when watching a movie in low light. A built in IR sensor would have been nice so an external sensor did not have to be employed.

Comment:
Fantastic look, tons of room, fans sufficient, two other spots for additional case fans (also a negative), vented PCI covers, fairly light weight There is a spot for a fan in the front of the case at the front the center challenging drive bay.. but there is truly no where for the air to go, so that doesn't make significantly sense to me. Looks freaking awesome in my setup.. looks hotter than my Onkyo 707.. LEDs are not as vibrant as you think.

Comment:
Appealing black case, lots of room inside. Comes with two 60mm fans. Lots of drive bays. As other reviewers have noted, the blue LEDs in front are fairly bright. The fans are a small louder than I would prefer, but not obnoxiously so. It is a small big for HTPC use, but if you have an ATX mobo lying around like I did -- and need a new HTPC, this is a terrific choice. Aside from the modern styling, it's about the similar size as the desktops I applied to see fifteen years ago just before everybody had a tower.

Comment:
Looks nice with the front door closed, plenty of room for tricky drives and optical drives, quiet fans, great size. This case holds six three.5" drives and two five.25" drives. With an simple mod, you could also add a couple of 2.5" drives for a total of 8. The PSU is mounted in this case on the opposite side of the motherboard from exactly where a PSU is typically mounted. Most cases have the PSU mounted at the CPU-finish of the motherboard. This case mounts the PSU at the opposite side, which makes it important to have a longer-than-usual CPU energy cable. The Gigabyte GE-P450P-C2 power supply I purchased did not have a lengthy sufficient CPU cable, so I had to acquire an extension cable. Otherwise, the case works fine. I actually like how the drive bays come out with only two screws... this makes for simple installation of HDD/ODD's. Other reviewers here have complained that the drive mounting must be carried out with out screws. Nonetheless, tool-much less cases have a tendency to vibrate and make noise. This case is really quiet. Other reviewers have also complained that the front door doesn't remain closed. It stays closed as long as the PC is on a level surface. If the surface is tilted slightly toward the front of the case, the door will open. Make certain your shelf is level to maintain the door closed.