Accessories and Getting Inside

Because of the unique way in which components, such as the motherboard and drives, are attached to the ClearPC chassis, more than your usual collection of accessories are included. Here's a quick list of what you'll get:

• 2 x Fan Finger Guard
• Red LED, Green LED
• Momentary Switch (+ Switch Wiring)
• 3-bay clear cover
  
  
• Screws:
• Floppy Disk Drive (x4 pieces)
• Hard Disk Drive (x4 pieces)
• CD-ROM Drive (x4 pieces)
• Power Supply (x4 pieces)
• Front Bezel, Side Panel (x8 pieces, cap nuts)
• Main Board (x9 pieces) with Nuts
  
  
• Standoffs:
• Main Board (9 pieces)
• HDD, FDD (8 pieces)

As you notice the standoffs, you'll probably wonder why there are HDD/FDD ones, and just what they are. They are basically spacers to allow you to install the smaller 3.5" drives into a space that is larger than their width. Extra-long screws are used in order to hold the drives in place, and they go through the spacers. The motherboard spacers work in a similar way, which I will show you on the next page.

Included accessories.

Side view with four cap nuts in view.

Close-up view of the cap nut.

To gain access to the main part of the case, you simply remove the four cap nuts on the side. The side panel then comes off, and you can use the small at the hole as a grip for taking it out. The side panel does not comprise the entire side of the case as it would in a regular case, but a large enough opening is formed to enable you to do quite a bit of work inside of the case. You only need to take off the side panel to install the motherboard or to install expansion cards, but to install drives you need to remove the front bezel structure. Again, The Upgrade Path made it nice and easy to do so by securing the front bezel with cap nuts. Once they are removed, the front part slides out easily, aided by the fact that the top edges are curved. This is certainly a different way to install drives, but I believe it was necessary to facilitate drive installation due to the way the case is constructed.

The hole to use for a grip when removing the side panel.

The side panel removed.

Up-front: Cap nuts circled.

Here we see what the front structure looks like when removed, and how it is secured to the case. After the front is put into place, the holes on it will line up with the screws that are installed in the case, and then one just needs to put on the cap nuts to secure it. Another thing that was quite well done was the addition of the clear cushion feet on the inside of the case for the bottom of the front structure to rest upon when it is installed. This gives the front more support and at the same time prevents the clear case's material from rubbing against each other. In the picture, you might also think that the power switch and LEDs are attached to the front part. Actually, they are attached to chassis, not the front bezel, so the front bezel can be removed for addition of drives without having to detach switches and wires. The 3-drive bay cover can only be used if you have one 5.25" drive installed, as there are four 5.25" drive bays in this case. If you want to cover up open drive bays while having more than one 5.25" drive installed, you'll have to modify this drive bay cover.

The front bezel that holds all the drives.

Screw that cap nut attaches to.

This is what the front structure's bottom part rests on.

The 3-drive bay cover.

The interior of the chassis where mobo attaches to.

The area where expanion cards screw into.

The interior of the chassis has nine (9) holes for attaching the motherboard to. This will provide for even the largest ATX boards, as most use about six. The way you install the motherboard is a bit different than what you will be used to, but I will get on to that in the next page, as well as the drive installation. In the bottom middle picture above, you can see the ATX I/O opening below the rear 80mm fan placement. No ATX I/O shield (I.E., the cover with all the cut-outs for the video, serial, parallel, USB and other ports) is provided. If you have your own, it may be able to fit in this area. It would have been better had they provided one instead of having it as an option. Lastly, the area where expansion cards screw into is made up of extra-thick cast clear Lucite, which will stand up to the times when you have to remove and re-insert the retention screws. This is the only place where screws are directly inserted into the case material

The ATX power switch.

Switch after wiring completed.

The last thing to note is the power switch. It seems to be a standard momentary one that I have seen in radioshack. As mentioned before, it was fairly easy to wire. Let's get on to installing something in this case!

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