LoVermeCases.com's Mid Tower Clear Case Review
Date : Friday, 24 May 2002
Author : Thor
Provided by : LoVermeCases.com

UPDATE:

I've received a response back from Chris regarding the review... "We're going to make the changes (as suggested in the review) by adding 2 blue led's (power & hdd), a secondary switch for reset, larger floppy bay, and full color instructions. All these changes will be made on all the model 2 & model 3 cases going forward."

Introduction

Today we'll be looking at LoVermeCases.com's Mid Tower Clear Case (known on their site as the "Super Transparent ATX Display Case w/ Four 92mm Fan Holes - Model 2"). Clear cases have increasingly become popular of the years, starting out originally as display cases manufacturers would use to display internal components. They provide a few different advantages over traditional cases, but they also have some disadvantages.

Advantages:

• lightweight - their weight is less or equal to their aluminum counterparts

• 360 degree viewing - no need to peer around the side of a case to see the components inside

• easy modding - this type of material is incredibly easy to cut, making it very easy to cut blowholes...switch holes...etc

Disadvantages:

• durability of the finish - with some clear cases the plexi or acrylic tends to scratch easily...and we all know scratches are bad.

• no protection from EMI - this IS a factor...the more EMI you have the more random lockups and crashes you get.

Packaging (sorry but I lost the pics)

The case came wrapped in plastic originally surrounded by foam peanuts. This wasn't sufficient to protect the hinges from damage,  as I received the first case with a cracked hinge, which forced me to return the case for replacement. Fortunately the second case was in excellent condition as the hinges were wrapped in bubble wrap. While he said that was the first time someone received a case with cracked hinges, he has continued to wrap them that way since my shipping incident.

Extras I Received

• 1 - 92mm Ultra-Cool Clear Fin Case Fan

• 1 - very bright Blue Cold Cathode with inverter and switch

• 1 - Virtual Hideout Cold Cathode Etch

• Assorted mini Cold Cathode Etch (of which I only used one)

• 1 - Full size Window Etch from their gallery of 800+ etches (warning - some etches contain adult themes) - I chose "VIKING1"

Case Accessories

The clear case was pretty lean when it came to stuff that came with it.

• bag of hardware - to mount the various computer components inside the case

• the power button

One thing that disappointed me on this case was the lack of a reset button and the lack of LEDs (such as power and hard drive activity). The only button provided was the power button and there were no LEDs whatsoever.

Another thing I really have to say I was disappointed with is the lack of instructions regarding what screws to use and how to install components. It took me a while to figure out how to properly install my hard drives using the supplied hardware. The below pic shows how this is done. Since all the bays are full size bays (5 1/4"), you need to use standoffs when mounting things such as your floppy drive or hard drives.

Specs, Construction, and Installation of the Mid-tower Clear Case

Case Specifications

• 17.375"(H) x 18"(L) x 8.5"(W)
• Material: 1/4" Cast Clear Lucite®
• Slide out front panel and Hinged left side
• 4 - External 5 1/4 Drive Bays
• 1 - External 3 1/2 Drive Bay
• 5 - Internal 5 1/4 Drive Bays
• 4 - 92mm Fan Holes (Locations: Top, Lower Front Bezel, Left side over the graphics card, and back behind the processor)
• 2 - 5 1/4 Bay Covers

Case Construction

The overall design of the case is excellent, though it does have a few bad spots.

• All edges are polished so no where to cut or even scratch yourself...makes a very professional look.
• 1/4" Lucite® makes the case very sturdy yet very light...and it does not scratch very easily.
• The hinges swing very easily, making access to the case easy once you have the door unscrewed (see the next bullet down).
• The locking mechanism for the door is rather awkward as you have to unscrew the door every time you want to access the internal components. I would like to see him come up with an alternate way of securing the door.
• The slide out front bezel makes it easy to install components such as hard drives, CDROM's, and other things that use the 5 1/4 bays. Though one draw back to this particular design is that if you have a large drive in the very top 5 1/4 bay, it makes it very difficult to remove the front bezel.
• One particularly bad part of the construction of this particular case is that the floppy I was using (note: this was a standard 3 1/2" floppy drive), did not initially fit into the hole cut for it. I was forced to get out the dremel and shave away part of the hole to make it fit. I hope this will be corrected after the people over at Loverme read this review (if they haven't already).

Please make note, the floppy drive pictured on the left fits so tight (after I trimmed the hole with my dremel) that it was supporting itself just by simply being in the hole.

Installation of components

Installation was very easy due to the removable front bezel and bays. This feature makes it almost as easy as having a removable motherboard tray.

Conclusion and Other comments

Many people may be wondering about the cases durability and resistance to EMI. I was wondering this also, this is why I decided to test it by taking it to a LAN party on the 27th of April.

The LAN: Lanaholics Anonymous (http://www.lanaholics.com) (for those who don't know, I'm a staff member at Lanaholics also)

The Date: 4/27/02

The Cases Role: Housed one of Lanaholics Primary Game Servers (hosting 3-4 games at all time)(for those wondering, the games were the Soldier Of Fortune 2 Multiplayer Demo, Medal Of Honor, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, and C&C Renegade)

The Case's Initial Condition: Excellent as I had installed most of the components a week earlier.

The Case's Final Condition: Excellent...no scratches that I could see.

The Pic:

The Next LAN (I hope Wolfie and LoVerme won't mind ;): June 15th and 16th 2002 (2 room event and Lanaholics' 3 year anniversary). Now as for the EMI, the case has it's moments...It ran those servers all day with no problems whatsoever, though it has a tendency to lockup if it has nothing to do (it does this every couple of days here at home where it sits between my other computers). This may or may not have anything to do with the case, so I can't say conclusively. I would not consider EMI to be a major threat to this case and any system in it, but if you need something that will be stable 24/7/365...this may not be the case for you.

System Specs

• Abit KT7A-RAID
  
• AMD Athlon "Tbird" 1.33Ghz
  
• Globalwin CAK38 with a 60mm "Screaming Like A Banshee" Delta CPU Fan
  
• 2x 92mm "Screaming Like A Banshee" Delta Case Fans
  
• 1 92mm Sunon Case Fan
  
• 1 Ultra-Cool Clear Fin Case Fan (supplied by LoVerme)
  
• 512 MB of Mushkin PC133 Rev3+ SDRAM
  
• Radeon 64MB DDR Vivo with added Ramsinks
  
• 3Com 10/100 NIC with 3XP Management
  
• 2x Netgear 10/100 NICs
  
• Soundblaster Live! Platinum without Live drive (just not using it)
  
• Creative 6x DVD Drive
  
• 6GB Western Digital 7200rpm ATA100 HD
  
• 22GB IBM 22GXP 7200rpm ATA100 HD in Lian Li Aluminum Removable Hard Drive Rack

As for case temperatures, with all the 92mm blowholes in this case it keeps the CPU temp between 25-35 degrees Celcius (this system's previous case kept it between 35-45 C) so this case does an excellent job cooling compared to my last case.

One thing to note though, if you do order one of these cases, delivery time is 4-6 weeks. I think this is due to the fact that these are made when they are ordered, ie...he doesn't stock these cases. Overall this is a decent case, despite the problems I had or currently have with it. Many of those problems can be fixed. I'd like to thank Chris over at LoVermeCases.com for the Mid-Tower Clear Case he supplied for this review.

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