Thermaltake Black SECC Japanese steel LANBOX Lite VF6000BNS Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Pros: It's pretty, and you can put a full size PSU in it.

Cons: Awful airflow. The fans are slow (perhaps in the name of noise), and the exhaust from the back is slow and hot. They don't connect to the motherboard headers, so the computer can't try and cool itself off when the airflow is bad.

I ended up buying some other fans, but they didn't arrive in time.

A normal PSU has a ton of wires that just make this worse.

Other Thoughts: I had this for about a month before the computer just gave up. I'm still trying to determine what in the build I need to replace, but one thing I know for sure is that this case has to go.

If you're stuck on trying to use it, a full modular PSU might help somewhat. And replace all the fans.

Pros: This a great case, the rest of the reviews of this product are pretty accurate.

Cons: One gripe: The bottom mounted HD cage (fits a couple of 3.5" drives mounted to the bottom of the case) is too close to the motherboard SATA ports preventing the use of half of them. You have to use an L shaped SATA connector which blocks access to the bottom SATA port. So, my motherboard with two 6gb SATA ports stacked on top of each other, I can only use one of them with the L shaped cable. There is plenty of room in the case, they could mount it closer to the front of the case an inch or two.

Other Thoughts: Other than that drive mount cage position, this case is solid.

Pros: - Good form factor for transport to LAN parties
- EXCELLENT ventillation
- Nice looking case

Cons: - This is a Micro ATX case, so do your homework on your configuration before buying
- I could do without the "piano" finish, but whatever - still looks okay.

Other Thoughts: I bought this case when I decided to get back into PC gaming and leave console gaming behind. I liked taking my PS3 with me when I go to other people's places on vacation, so my goal was to put together a very muscle-y PC in a small form factor. Here's what's in it;

- Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz
- CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) - 16g total
- CORSAIR Gaming Series GS800 800W
- EVGA Z68 SLI Micro
- EVGA SuperClocked GeForce GTX 580

So, this machine is no slouch for what it is. But the graphics card is long and in this case the power that plugs into the top of it presses against the CD-ROM/Hard drive cage. It fits, but just barely. The primary hard drive cage on the floor of the case, however, must be thrown out if you use this video card - no choice, trust me. The rest is perfect, and the ventilation is amazing. I don't use overclocking, so I can't speak for it, but as of this writing this configuration is a dream.

Pros: Perfect amount of room inside, plenty of ventilation, sleek look, easy to hide. I have an Athlon II X4 610e and Radeon HD 5770 inside this case and they stay surprisingly cool.

Cons: Heavy, CD/DVD openings cheap plastic (though they work)

Other Thoughts: My HTPC is tucked away under my desk in another room, so it is nice to have it be semi-hidden and run all day while staying cool.

Pros: Well designed case. Case is solid, a good thick steel that is strong. You can fit many components it to this case with out many problems. It will help if you get a modular power supply. Witch is always a good idea for a small case.

Cons: The buttons that open the drive bays is to small and would not make contact with the button on the drive that opened it. I had to cut the button off and glue on a much larger piece of plastic that would make good contact with the button on the drive. One of the tabs that holds the front face on was broken out of the box.It was not really a problem, it was the lower right tab. It is not even need, it does not cause any problem with front face staying on.

Other Thoughts: I would suggest to Thermaltake that they make the pad that pushes the button one the drive much larger to insure it makes good contact with any button one drive bays. If any one at Thermaltake would like to see how I modified the button let me know. It would make a good case much better.

Pros: I used this to make an ESXi machine and loaded it with hard drives. It has great air flow and works well for what I wanted. The 3.5 to 5.25 converter worked great in the non-broken 5.25 bay.

I did end up bolting two additional drive cages into the case, one on each side and it comfortably seats all six drives with good air flow.

Cons: The bottoms 5.25" mount was missing one of the sides, return shipping was too much to justify an RMA to have one more hard drive. It would have been nice to be able to add an optical drive to my storage server, but I also did not want to give up part of my raid.

Pros: Small form factor.
Fine for a low power HTPC

Cons: Large footprint
Cramped innards
Poor design
Hard to access

Other Thoughts: I wanted this case because I hoped it would save me desk space.

Unfortunately, it has a much larger footprint than even a midsize ATX case.

The PSU also sits directly over the CPU, and the cables attached to most PSUs (even modular PSUs) will tend to obstruct any access to the motherboard without a full dissassembly.

Case in point - when my front panel audio jack connection came loose, I had to fully disassemble/unplug everything just to reach the motherboard. Upon reassembling the case, I found that a cable had got caught in the CPU fan.

If I could go back in time, I would purchase an upgright mATX case instead with better ventilation like the NZXT Vulcan

Pros: Read previous review.

Cons: When using my radeon hd4890 and the phenom 2 x6 1100t the case got way too hot inside and kept getting artifacts on the screen due to the video card overheating, when having both installed the cpu temp would run 65c+ and the video card would run the same temps. It is placed directly beside the cpu so they were heating each other up... this is even after installing extra fans and trying different directions of airflow.

Other Thoughts: I've since gotten an Nzxt Guardian case and an Evga GTX 570, the 2.5 gb version. The 570 will fit inside of this case, I was in the process of removing everything so I thought I'd see if I could squeeze it in there.

I haven't tried the 4890 to see if it's still ok or not but it was getting random artifacts on the screen even just sitting at the windows desktop

So I do not recommend this case for a high power video card and suggest using onboard if possible. I didn't have any major overheating issues until I installed the new video card.

Now looking at getting a new am3+ board for the 1100t and using the current msi 890gxm-g65 with a less powerful cpu to reuse in this case.

Pros: Slick Looking with gloss black plastic and steel mesh grill front panel, very HEAVY GAUGE metal throughout, modular interior design, excellent build quality, though fans are 1 x 90mm front and 2 x 60mm rear they are almost silent, did I mention it's modular construction? Teh power supply cage lifts out (after removing some thumb screws), the DVD drive cage slides back and out, etc.

Hardeware used:
MSI 890GXM-G65 Mobo
Phenom II x 4 640 (unlocked Athlon II X 3 440)
2x2GB Kingston DDR3 1066
Corsair TX750 V2 PS
Gigabyte 460 GTX 1GB

I installed a 120mm fan, placed it against the vented side wall and directed the airflow towards the 460 GTX. Works great, keeps temps very low even with the top cover installed. Northbridge chip runs a bit hot though, might want to install a small fan to move some air in the NB area of the case.

Cons: absolutely none

Other Thoughts: through the years I've used many high quality PC cases and this one is probably the heaviest guage steel I've seen to date. All joints fit well, very heavy weight construction and temps are comparable to most mid-size cases I've had experience with.

Very impressed with this one. If you need a gaming box in mATX format I would say buy this without hesitation.

one note though - I would not recomment this case if you're planning to run dual card SLI unless you don't mind using the PC without the top cover in place.

Pros: Bought this awhile back as my media rig. Doesn't have any cooling problems for what I'm doing. Can hold 3 hard drives and everything comes out easy. Love this case.

Cons: None so far.