SILVERSTONE Black Aluminum front panel, 0.8 mm SECC body Lascala Series LC17-B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Pros: I've owned this case for awhile. I had a core 2 setup with 5 hds + optical for awhile (a Raid0 and a Raid5) - with a full size PCIe card - I just cut out the metal area in front of the middle bay to be able to moved the drives forward.

A week ago, I rebuilt this box using only (1) 3.5" and (1) 2.5" WD black drive (will buy SSD soon) with a Z68-UD3H-B3 and i5 2500k proc. Just using the onboard Intel HD3000 now. Made it into a hackintosh/HTPC and it's fantastic.

Mounted the power supply "upside down" as many have suggested.

Cabling can be a bit tight, esp. with sata connectors that point parallel to your mobo, but with patience you can make things work. Again, I had this box loaded for bear for almost two years without a problem.

The two included 80mm fans are FINE noise wise for HTPC purposes - my wife would normally notice something like that and hasn't at all so far.

Cons: Yeah, it's tight space, but bigger would mean.. bigger!

The stick on dvd plate looks good and works except for one niggle.. Because it's attached to your drive, when you're reading a disc, it can amplify the vibration a bit- the metal stick on place inside the case. But who uses optical drives anyway nowadays? With my recent rebuild I almost just pulled the optical drive out altogether.

Other Thoughts: Going from (5) 3.5" drives to 1 2.5" (750gb WD Black) and 1 3.5" (2tb WD Black) and onboard video instead of the full sized xfx 8800 that was in there, I feel like I have tons of room now! If I were you, I'd either use onboard video and then just use the center drive cage (leaving the one behind the PS empty) or if you need a full sized video card, then leave the center one empty. But with some work you can fully stock this with 6 HDs.

Actually, if you used all 2.5" drives, since you can fit (2) 2.5 in one 3.5" slot - you really could load this thing up if you so desired. But this isn't really meant to be a NAS case, now is it? =)

I really do love this case, and let me tell you, I have a wasteland of cases downstairs. From Lian Li to Antec and onwards.

One last big piece of advice: GET A MODULAR POWER SUPPLY!! I don't have one for this and wish I did. The less cables the better.

Pros: This is a great case for HTPC. It feels very sturdy and seems to have a reasonable design for cooling. This can hold two optical drives and up to 6 mechanical hard drives. I used the HDD bay closest to the PSU for my HDD and SSD. I was able to fit an 80mm fan in the center HDD bay to help cool the Radeon HD 6950 and everything fit fine. I wouldn't say I had a lot of room to work with, but everything fit well enough. Just make sure you do some test fitting before final assembly of your build.

Cons: Wasn't fond of the way you have to stick on the cover for the optical drive so it lines up with the finish of the front of the case. Also, the power light in the front of the case is probably the brightest blue light I have ever seen. These still aren't enough of an issue to take away an egg.

Other Thoughts: Asus PZ68V-Pro
Intel i5 2500K
Hitachi Deskstar 7K300 1.5TB
Crucial M4 64GB SSD for OS
Sapphire Radeon HD6950
G.Skill Ripjaws 8GB
SeaSonic X650
LG Super Multi Blue BD-RE
Silverstone LC17b HTPC case
Win7 Pro OEM

Pros: This is a great case for a HDPC or Music studio scenario. It is very well built, very clean design and has plenty of front panel ports. You'll need additional brackets to rack mount it. I choose to use a retractable shelf so I can easily pull out the system to work on it.

The dual 80mm fans are pretty quiet. There is an addition 120mm fan port in case you want to use a more quiet 120mm fan or need extra cooling.

Due to the smaller form factor, the optical drives can overhang and compete for space near the MBO power connector. A little tricky with bulky cables.

Cons: None.

Pros: * Stylish, aluminum front is nice
* Roomy - fits 6 HDDs, 2 Optical.
* Well ported for ventilation
* Quiet 80mm fans (2) on the back
* Hidden Front-panel ports for USB, Audio, Firewire

Cons: * While the aluminum faceplate is a nice aesthetic, the ancillary optical drive cover plates were slightly distracting to deal with. I *strongly* recommend that you affix one side of the double-sided tape to the optical drive before putting the drive cage back in the case. It will make aligning the plate easier.

* Bright LEDs for power and HDD activity. They don't really bother me that much, but worth noting. You can always decide to not hook up the cables to the MoBo, or someone else suggested a small square of scotch tape over the light and putting a ink dot with a Sharpie over the light.

Other Thoughts: Branding your product is fine, but a little more discrete of a logo on a black case would have been a nice touch.

I used an ATX mini MoBo which only had one case fan port on it. This case has two, so either get a cable to power the other fan, or leave it unplugged (this is working out okay for me so far for HTPC usage).

This is a big case... knock your tower PC on it's side and you're close. Check your dimensions before you buy.

Some reviewers complain about the space if you use an expensive/high-tech PCIe video card. I did not, but it's worth mentioning in case you didn't read many reviews.



HTPC Build:
Case: Silverstone LC-17B
PSU: Antec EA-430D [Earthwatts, 80-plus Bronze]
MoBo: Gigabyte 880GMA-UD2H
CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 Regor 255 3.1 GHz Dual Core
RAM: 4GB dual-channel G.Skill F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ
Optical: Lite-On 8x Blu-ray Disc Combo, SATA
OS drive: WD1600AAJS 160GB Caviar Blue, SATA
Storage: 2x WD15EARS 1.5TB Green Drives, SATA
Input: IOGEAR 2.4GHz Wireless

Pros: - Looks great in my media cabinet. A lot of people think it is a receiver which is kind of funny
- Value
- Size
- Very solid and heavy

Cons: - Because of it's size, it is a little hard to work inside the case or fit items. For example, if you want to use the second HDD bay, good luck if you have a video card. My HDD in the second bay is literally touching the power cable for my video card. In fact I trimmed the power connector with a razor so the HDD rubs less against it
- Cable management can be another problem
- Sound, see my "other thoughts"...

Other Thoughts: It can be pretty quiet and cool, but my video card and power supply make it sound a little loud in the cabinet

Overall, great case and I'm quite pleased. My biggest complaint is certainly the HDD and video card issue. I don't like components that crowded.

Pros: The color matches with my odd.

Cons: It has a problem since I got the case. The odd rack was bent when I assembled the system and it causes the eject button on the case couldn't reach the button on the odd. I already trashed the box, so I contacted Silerstone customer service. I emailed 3 times to replace the odd rack, and they answered for the third one and said sent pictures of the part. I sent them 7 pictures from the different angle, and they ignored. I emailed a couple of times more, and they just said attach it correctly. Yes I did, and it was correctly placed since I opened the box! After that, I emailed a couple of times more, but they didn't response at all. It's ok if you like this case, but don't believe the warranty, they are gonna just ignore you as I got.

Other Thoughts: It is just suggestion. If you have more than 4 HDD, and want to use a large graphic card, then you'll be in trouble. I have geforce 450GTS and 3 HDD, 1 SSD and couldn't install SSD on the right place because of the power plug on the graphic card, I just lied on the bottm of the case.

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you very much for purchasing a SilverStone. If possible, please also check your inbox for e-mails from SilverStone that may have been sorted or blocked by spam filter. We will make every effort to help you so please also give us a call if e-mails aren't getting through. We have a local US office that will be able to assist you directly. Our phone number in the US office is (office hours 8:30am to 5:30pm PST):

909-465-9596

e-mail address of our USA support team:
usasupport@silverstonetek.com

Pros: Its quiet and keeps things cool. I chose "silent" or low noise components when building my machine. Even with slow turning fans and a passive heat sync on the 9800 seres nvida card the temps are surprisingly low. in fact the i5 quad core CPU drops to an astounding 32C (89F) when idling windows 7 at 3-5% usage.

The included fans are also surprisingly quiet.

Construction is great, very solid and heavy which cuts down on vibration. Anything that would be a pain to get into comes apart with a few well placed screws.

I had to remove the center drive bay box to fit the long graphics card leaving only 3 HD bays (plenty).

Switches are high quality with a good click to them.

I didn't wire up the power/hard disk lights. If something is so wrong that you need to check if the motherboard is getting power Ill use the motherboard's on-board lights.

The innards are tight but with patience and a little planning everything fit nicely. For my parts the inner/outer space trade off w

Cons: Cant fit drive bay accessories as the front plate's holes are sized for CD-rom trays.

Pros: Large - tons of room. Easy setup. Looks nice in my home theater setup.

Cons: Only con is that the power supply is located a long ways away from the connector on the motherboard(not in it's usual location in a tower). I had to stretch out the wire harness in order to get it to reach. I have a cheap and old PSU though, so it might not be a problem with a newer one.

Pros: Looks unassuming and even stylish next to my Onkyo receiver. Black aluminum finish doesn't add glare. Plenty of fans for my standard duty usage and easy to install components with removable drive bay trays. Silverstone case fans are much so quiet, I sometimes have to listen closely to determine if the computer is even on.

Cons: The blue power and HDD LEDs are too bright, so I disconnected the leads at the mobo. The case is on an open shelf below the TV, so watching movies with blue light glaring at us wasn't going to work.

The 5.25" drive bays are right above the 24-pin power connector, which would concern me if I wanted to install two 5.25" drives and might make it difficult to install more than two or three 3.5" drives with the power wires cutting across. This may have more to do with the mobo than the case itself based on where the power pin is located.

The aluminum exterior drive tray covers are affixed with double-sided tape, which is fine, but with the plastic tray cover on my drive being curved, it was almost impossible to get the aluminum cover flush. When the optical drive spools up, the aluminum cover sometimes rattles against the aluminum face of the case. This may be a function of the optical drive more so than the case itself.

Other Thoughts: Overall, this is a good case and I am happy with the purchase for my first HTPC.

Pros: For a basic htpc it looks pretty sharp.Solidly constructed & the 2 included 80mm fans do a good job.I added 2 94mm to the drive cages because i overclock.ATX Board,[GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P],Fits.It's tight but fits.Some reviewers disliked the support rail on the top.I used it to wire tie cables to.I was glad it's there.The Led's , buttons & front inputs are nice.Dvd drive looks good without the cover so i did'nt use it.Looks good in my entertainment stand.Goes well with my reciever & other components.Beats the tower i had on the floor.Iknow i;m diggin it.

Cons: None. Removing the drive cages was no big deal for me but may be for others. The led's were not to bright for me either.

Other Thoughts: If you are putting this in an entertainment stand or center with front doors like mine then go crazy on the fans. You won't hear them anyway and your box will stay nice and cool.