DIYPC Skyline-07-R Black / Red SPCC ATX Full Tower Gaming Computer Case with 7 x 120mm Red Fans, Hot Swap Docking, Fan Controller

Pros: - Great sized case with fairly easy to use/build features.

- The amount of fans you can have in the case is great.

- I really like that you can space out the drives on the case to optimize airflow

Cons: - the "instructions" that are included are pathetic however if you have any background in building a computer or know how to google things you can build this without any problem.

- The airflow on the stock fans is not that impressive. I upgraded the fans with aftermarket 120mm fans.

- The limitation of 165mm for CPU cooler is a little bit tight. I am running an COOLER MASTER RR-212X-20PM-R1 on my CPU and the little nubs of the heatpipes will hit where the fans mount on the side cover so I had to remove a fan from the side to make it fit.

- As others have mentioned the cable management out of the box is poor with how the hard drive dock and fan controller are sitting in the case but if you look near the top edge right behind the fan controller you will find a tiny slot where you can move the wires through and down the side panel opening and then stick them back into the case from the bottom area where the motherboard mounts.

- the fan controller problem others have mentioned I believe is partially due to a poor soldering job on the fan control board. I had removed the top panel of the case and unscrewed the fan controller from the bezel and found a few crossed solder joints on the same switch pins. With some flux and a desoldering wick I fixed up the solder joints and made them work fine. I also tested the switches with my oscilloscope to make sure it had no shorts and it worked fine

- removing the front cover on the case is a bit hard but that is not a bad design as it holds the panel nice and tightly to the case.

- the bottom fan filter is a pretty dumb design. It would be better if they had a tray for it to slide into that went through the entire bottom not where it has little tabs that are spaced apart from each other so when you go to slide the filter in it gets stuck and you need to reach your hand down and under the case to push the filter up to the case and slide it in. It would be great if they made it similar to the filter on the top but also made them removable from the front but it's not a big deal.

- some of the screw threads are a bit tight to install screws into but if you just insert and remove the screw back and forth a few times it will straighten the threads out and make it easy to install and remove.

- I am not a fan of the quick release setup they have for the Optical drive bays. I removed them from the one side of the case and just mounted the drives in with all 4 screws to the case.

- the metal vent tabs where the PCI slots are can vibrate quite a lot. The easy fix for this is to remove all of the vent covers for the PCI slots and pinch the bottom clip of the cover where it slides into the case and then screw it in firmly.

- the hot swap dock on the top is nice but as others have mentioned it is not sata3 so it will be slow for large transfers but it is still handy for recovery or backups

Overall Review: - The fan controller on the top is handy but only can switch between 5v and 12v for speed on the fans so it isn't the best but if you bypass it and use a PWM fan system and your motherboard supports it, i'd suggest using those fans and not the fan controller.

- the hot swap dock that others have made complaints on I believe is an issue with their motherboard of choice. I had played with the dock and found that if I didn't have the SATA connection the dock was connected to the motherboard with configured as hot swappable, when I disconnect the drive it would render it useless until I reboot the computer. The easy fix is to go into your BIOS (if supported) and set the port your hot swap dock is connected to so that it is hot swappable.

- there is an extra fan connector to the fan controller that does not seem to go anywhere. I looked into the case and could not find any other places a fan could go except for the bottom which I am using and still have the spare port on the fan controller. Maybe it is a reserve so you can perhaps mount a fan where the optical drives are even though there is no mounting locations but you could rig one up? I have a fan on the bottom and the front bringing air in and the side fan, 2 top fans and rear fan are exhausts.

Pros: It has a lot of pre-installed fans and a lot of room to work with.

Cons: The wiring for the fans is awful and parts of the case (like the power button) feel cheap and flimsy.

Overall Review: None