SILVERSTONE Black Aluminum front panel, 1.0mm SECC body Lascala Series LC19B-R Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Pros: Very nice looking case with quiet (but small) case fan and external power supply. Pair this case with a solid state hard drive and you'll have as quiet and cool an HTPC as can be.

Cons: Very low clearance above CPU. This case requires a 37mm high (or less) heat sink/fan combo and there is basically only one on the market that meets that criteria - the Silverstone NT07. It comes in AMD AM2 and Intel socket 775 models. Don't even THINK of ordering this case without the matching CPU fan. Also, it can only cool a 65w or less CPU, so forget about that quad core monster. If you can get by with a 45w single core processor do it.

Other Thoughts: I bought a slim Sony DVD/RW drive to go with this case and it comes with a slim SATA connector on the back, which does NOT work with the standard SATA power connectors in the case. Look at the picture carefully, the drive specs may not indicate which connector is used. The slim SATA combines the power and data channels into a single connector.

Pros: Case specifications

Cons: Front case door latch was broken on arrival.

Other Thoughts: I don't know who to blame here. Could be poor quality on Silverstone's part. Could be poor quality control in Newegg's RMA process. The case I received had clearly been opened and returned before. I was definitely not the first person to open the box from the manufacturer. I feel like Newegg received the RMA from (Protholl 2/19/09 review) and turned around and shipped it right back out to me. Unbelievable. Now they are out of stock and I don't have a case.

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you very much for purchasing a SilverStone. Please try contacting our US office directly for information on how you can obtain a replacement unit or part as soon as possible.

usarma@silverstonetek.com
909-465-9596

Pros: sleek, wellmade

Cons: can't cool anything serious. Keep the cpu under 40W or make sure the motherboard won't get stupid and run the fan at full speed when the cpu warms up.

Other Thoughts: newegg: please append this review on my previous ones.

Final state is that I installed a low power CPU, a 35W 2.4 ghz amd64.
I removed all case fans. Heat rises and leaves through the ventilation holes on the case top.

Pros: Silverstone used to be a solid company

Cons: Silverstone doesn't even monitor the build quality anymore.

Other Thoughts: If you expect top quality results from your top quality cash.. move on or you will be disappointed.

Pros: Great case from the ratings, looked like it was what I was looking for.

Cons: Front case door latch was broken on arrival. I've had the case less than 30 minutes and I'm printing out an RMA.

Other Thoughts: Silverstone case quality is dropping over time. My first HPTC case was great, no problems. My second case (CW-03) arrived with a non-functioning LCD. I had to take the case almost completely apart to find the cables that were not connected internally. This time the latch that is broken should have been caught in inspection. The tape that holds the door closed in shipping didn't keep the door held firm. Whatever tech that put that tape on should have noticed that the latch was non-functional. Now I'm having to pay 10 percent of the cost of the item just to RMA it back. I'm going to have to stop recommending Silverstone cases to my friends. This is sad because they used to be great.

Pros: see "AWESOME!"

Cons: see "AWESOME!"

Adding: very poor default airflow

Other Thoughts: The case is only quiet when the case fan is throttled down. When running for more than a day, my motherboard would eventually start to cook and the fan control would start to crank up the case fan speed making it a rather noisy case.

The problem is that there are four optional fan mounting locations and they are all inlets when there is no fan installed. Air simply flows from the left inlets to rear exhaust fan bypassing the rest of the case. I closed off the left side and the left top with packing tape. However, the sensor on my mother was on the left. A right to left airflow caused the cpu heat to heat the sensor and cause the fan to ramp up again. I moved the exhaust fan to the right, closed off the other right inlet and now the case is working like a champ. Air flows from left to right and everything stays cool, with the fan running at 45% (1500rpm). I've also ordered a couple of "ultraquiet" (whatever that means) 50mm case fans and will put them both on the right side

Pros: Sleek, beautiful
Incredibly quiet!
Well designed, well made, easy to set up.
Accepts a single full height PCI-express or PCI card.

Cons: none.

Other Thoughts: This is without the finest HTPC case I've ever come across. It isn't going to handle a high end cpu or graphics card. This isn't for a mythtv backend, but for a remote frontend. In that application, it is simply superb!

With the silverstone low profile heatsink/fan recomended at the silverstone site (and carried by newegg), on a motherboard with cpu fan control, it is absolutely silent. I run it as a diskless remote frontend and it is inaudible from 15" away.

Assembly took less than 20 minutes. There was nothing to it. Mount the low profile heatsink to motherboard. Mount the motherboard to the bottom tray. Plug in the power switch, power, usb and firewire cards. I had to remove the card reader assembly but that's just four screws easily accessible from underneath. Mounting a PCI soundcard was equally easy.

Pros: Stunning looks and design. This unit looks great on the shelf under my LCD 50" TV and does just what it needs to do which is hold a networked hard drive and pipe-out the content to my TV. I do not regret buying this and would highly recommend it to others looking for a great looking HTPC.

Cons: Tight, tight, tight! The low-profile design means that you really must think hard about what you need vs future flexibility. I would have preferred a modular design to the wiring so that unused cables can be removed freeing up internal space because there is almost no place to tuck unused cables.

Other Thoughts: You will have to spend longer looking for the right equipment (fans, cables, components, etc.) so as to minimize the space consumed. This in itself means added costs from low-production run pieces and shipping costs from multiple vendors since not every vendor will have all the bits that will maximize volume.

It also means making compromises on capabilities. For example, I went with a 3.5" Seagate SATA drive because I really *wanted* a 500GB hard drive for the HTPC, but now that I have it installed, I would recommend a 2.5" notebook drive because of space considerations and just have the storage networked.

This is a hobby for me and I enjoy pursuing these things, but if you find this type of activity to be a hassle, I think you'll be frustrated.

Pros: Awesome design, very sleek and non-distracting to your home theater.

Thinnest case I've seen for HTPC setups.

This is going to be a present for my dad on fathers day.

Cons: Would be nice if it included two expansion slots, maybe side by side...

No 3.5" external, have to swap out the card reader for a soundgraph iMON Inside-B Internal Type IR Receiver

Slim bluray players are really pricey, you could buy a standalone bluray player for the price of a slim bay one. Might have to externalize the blu-ray to save money

Other Thoughts: I haven't received mine yet, but I am excited to test it out! I will post a more thorough review when I get it on Thursday of this week.

From manufacturer's site:

＊Equip your LC19 with NT07-PRO for support with MoDT motherboard.
＊Equip your LC19 with NT07-AM2 for support with socket AM2 motherboard.

NT07-AM2 is designed for processors of up to 65W... I went with a AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor and a ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard. Both are available on Newegg, however for the fan I had to go to moc.UPCnezorF because Newegg only carries the LGA775 version.

Pros: looks like a DVD player. clean stylish look. simple operation. included card reader. quality build.

Cons: low power supply at 120 W. you need to use a 45 CPU if you can. the issue is the power spike when you boot. having a 2 core CPU will cause a bigger spike, but the power maxes out at 121. this can cause the system to fault when you shut down. i have to unplug it for a few minutes to boot again, but that is because i am using an old board and high watt CPU.

Other Thoughts: you need to use a 45 CPU if you can. the issue is the power spike when you boot. having a 2 core CPU will cause a spike, but the power maxes out at 121. i used an old Opteron 195 and micro Tforce 6100-939 board. better would be a newer AM2 board with 1 DIMM and a 45w AMD dual core.