SILVERSTONE Black Aluminum / Steel Lascala Series LC13B-E ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Pros: Nice layout. Room for a full length PCI-E (11 inches) video card if you remove the middle drive cage. Decent cooling options. Built like a tank.

Cons: Rear 80mm fans are kind of loud (not annoying loud, but noticeable) and on 3 pin connectors only (no 3-4 pin converter). Have to lose 3 drive slots for a long video card (GeForce GTX 285 in this case). Blue LED's are distractingly bright.

Overall Review: This is an excellent ATX, long video card supporting HTPC case. It is built extremely well, and is incredibly solid. I bought it to house a PC built around a long video card, while still maintaining a profile under 7.5 inches, and it is working wonderfully. If you are concerned about airflow, I recommend replacing the bottom drive cage with the hard drive bracket from the middle cage. You will have two 3.5" slots open in the front of the bezel, but the door will cover them up. This allows you to use the fan bracket, which was important to me for airflow to my video card. I recommend a modular PSU, just so you don't have tons of excess cables around - but in my case I just shoved the extra cables under the second hard drive. I searched for a long time to find a sub-$200 HTPC desktop case under 7.5 inches tall that could support a full ATX mobo and 11 inch video card...and this is pretty much the only one! It's pretty nice though :)

Pros: Nice case.

Cons: My vid card prevented use of middle HDD cage with fan blowing on HDD's but no big whoop. I did not find wire routing to be easy. Things got crowded pretty quick mainly because I had to leave in the center cage just to have the front fan mounted. If no front fan, you can remove middle cage alltogether and have some extra room to play with.

Overall Review: I am mainly reviewing this right now to tell people that your 4 pin cpu power plug wire from your power supply may not reach the MB plug. Newegg sells an extension wire by Athena Power (CABLE-AD09) that fixes this problem. I would order one with the case for $2.99 just in case and not have to wait a week like I did.

Pros: Very sharp looking case and it does not draw negative attention when used in an audio equipment rack. Overall, I’m very happy with the case, but during system build I had some issues with the case. Despite any negative feedback below, I still would buy this, as looks were most important to me. Sitting in my living room, I found almost all other HTPC cases appalling to look at. This one is not! If you’re careful with component selection you should have little problem with fan noise, although the built in case fans were the loudest fans in my system it was acceptable from a distance though.

Cons: As others have mentioned the middle drive bay must be removed to accommodate larger video cards. Moderately sized cards may very well still cause problems too. I have a Sapphire 5770 (Vapor-X) and could not use the middle bay to hold a hard drive by about 1/4-inch. An added 1-inch in the case depth would be perfect. For your reference, the Sapphire 5770 Vapor-X is roughly 8.5” long. Realistically you can expect two 5.25” bays and three 3.5” bays (two of which have a front panel face plate).

Overall Review: It would be nice to have more passive ventilation openings. Given the target audience, I think it’s reasonable to expect this to be placed in shelves or audio racks and I’m not concerned with perforations on the side and top. I would rather the extra sources of cool air then a clean looking top and side. It’s not bad as it is... I’m just saying it could be better. I would also check the layout of your motherboard, as some larger components may conflict with the drive bays (i.e. RAM height, or using the lowest of three remaining 3.5” bays). Again, careful though beforehand will avoid this issue.

Pros: Will fit a full set of normal sized parts inside. There is even room to hide unused wires and cables. You can fully disassemble this case to install any configuration you want. Thre are 3 bays to install what you need and all 3 are removable. You can remove the center cage if you want to make room for longer video cards if you wish.

Cons: not really cons but a few things to consider before purchasing this case. 1.) video card length. if your going to use a stand alone card, watch its length. the hard drives can mount in the middle cage, there is an option to install a fan in the front of that cage and the back of the hard drives will stick out a little bit more if you do that. I use a HD4650 card. no problems. i think you can get away with a HD4830 length but a 4850 will NOT fit. you can always move the drive cage to the PSU side if you wish and free up room. but the fan in that bay might not have a good source of intake. 2.) PSU mount forces the intake fan on a traditional "bottom" of a PSU to suck air from the outside on the left. not fmor the inside of the case. be careful where you put this case as you might block the intake of the PSU. I use a PCP&C 400. takes air from vents around it not from the outside vent. works well. but if it sucked air form the inside of the case it might aid cooling.

Overall Review: PSU location is across the case from the motherboard so please check your ATX power attachment length. I run an e5200 inside this in an enclosed TV stand, with some holes cut in the back board just to allow the fans to breathe a bit. 100% load hits righ tat 60c. im going with an aftermarket cooling fan. ones that fit. 92mm models that have a height no more than 126mm. (AC7 92mm model fits but just fits, zalmann 92mm fits. those styles work but the big 120mm stuff will not) the front fold down plate fits rather close, so anythign protruding out the bays (like fan controllers with knobs) wont let it fit flush. only fan controllers with flush buttons will fit. This case has all the options you could need in a VERY affordable price. Very nice and conservative. it will match all other stereo equipment without drawing attention to itself. i recommend getting an external USB hub to plug into the back and have that sit on top of the console to plug anything in without having the door ope

Pros: Full ATX MB and PS; Sleek/Clean front design; Looks great with my existing entertainment center systems - I agree with others that nothing is uglier than seeing ports and bays on a htpc when not in use; Solid case with multiple cooling config options.

Cons: Internal reminded me of the old steel 386 cases from packard bell - removable drive bays a small inconvenience to get to/work with; prefab bay holes don't really line up well and had to spend some time lining the drives up seamlessly to bay.

Overall Review: For any decent video card or dual cards you'll have to remove the middle 3.5 drive bay to accommodate length and plugins. Not a major issue as I chose to house two HDDs and a 3.5 card reader in the left 3.5 bay. Overall I'm very satisfied with the product - a good buy for me.

Pros: Looks great, compliments the rest of my entertainment system. Fairly Compact, Yet allows for a full ATX System, that is not without its cons however. Solid Construction, Very Stout and Rigid. Decent Airflow. Great placement for PSU. There is SOME Wire management, but it is a small case, so I was pleased with what was available.

Cons: The drive bay blanks are flimsy, cheap, and never stay in place. which brings me to the next, why include 3.5" drive bays? this case is too modern for floppies, an LCD? No Way, there is a cover/door that would defeat the purpose. due to the placement of my GTX 460, the middle bay was not available for HDD use (I damaged a SATA connection in fact). So using the bay with the bay covers/blanks was difficult because a HDD cannot fit with the blanks fastened in. After chopping up the blanks and mount-taping them in place I was able to use the furthest bay for my HDDs. The Lid/Top can be a pain to line up, seat, and slide in.

Overall Review: This case can be very unforgiving. If something is forgotten or if something has to be moved, many other components may have to come out. Something as simple as a HDD swap or install may consume up to thirty minutes or more just because several other items have to be removed in order to pull out the HDD bay. I Will say the size of this case has allowed me to use a full ATX Board, with two GTX 460's, an 850 PSU, three HDD's and a BD drive.

Pros: A solid case. - 2x External 5.25 ( Not many other cases have that ) - 2x External 3.50 ( Almost no other cases have it ) - 4x Internal 3.50 - Has a front cover plate which actually reduces the sound of the drives a bit - Comes with a boat load of screws, stand offs, etc

Cons: - As others have mentioned, the front LEDs are a bit bright - but a few resisters and some heat wrap later you're good to go. - The video card can't be too long. In fact, it can't even be the full length of the motherboard, without going into the internal 3.5 inch bays. I had to move my hardrives over to the external 3.5 inch bays to accommodate a slightly large card. - Maybe my LG Blu-Ray player was a bit long, but it covered up the 24-pin connector on the motherboard. It was a bit of a pain to get it connected. - Included case fans are a bit loud for a HTPC - Those darn screws that secure the internal removable bays are a PAIN to get in and out. You'd better have a magnetic screwdriver or you'll be cussing the case out. - Manual was a bit unclear about going about setting up a raid config A lot of the parts in the case overlap, and I ended up having to put them in in a specific order. Here's how I would recommend to put this thing together:

Overall Review: 1) Take out the internal removable bays ( the ones you'll be using, of course ) 2) Put your drives in the bays. Put them aside. 3) Pull out your motherboard, and follow the included instructions to install the CPU and Cooling. 4) Replace the IO Shield 5) Install the standoffs in the case. 6) Install the motherboard onto the standoffs 7) Put the removable drive bays back in 8) Connect the front panel headers 9) Connect the SATA cables ( or IDE ) to your drives 10) Install memory and other cards 11) Install power supply 12) Hook up the power This is a great case! I used it in the following HTPC build: Silverstone LC13-B OCZ StealthXStream 600W Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R Intel Core 2 Quad 9400 ( Q6600 was out of stock ) 8gb ( 4x2gb ) G.SKILL PI Black DDR2 800 4-4-4-12 Memory Sapphire HD Radeon 3870 Hauppage 1800 MCE Tuner Card 2x Western Digital Caviar 1TB LG Blu-Ray w/ Lightscribe

Pros: I bought this case initially not knowing if I wanted a simple HTPC enclosure, or if I wanted something really fancy with a touch screen. I looked at many of the high end HTPC cases like the Zalman HD160 before ordering this Silverstone. I could not be happier with the purchase. The case looks right at home in my Bello stand with other high end stereo equipment. It does not draw attention to itself and looks right at home. The flip down door is nice to hide the DVD drive, floppy, card reader, whatever really. Lots of flexibility in this case. In the end, I'm really glad I got this case vs some of the much more expensive ones on the market. It exceeded my expectations with respect to fit and form. Newegg was fast as usual w/ their shipping.

Cons: The blue LEDs for the power and HDD are insanely bright. I left the HDD one disconnected and used a little piece of foam to knock down the brightness of the power LED for now. The next time I'm in the case, I will probably add a resistor to the power LED to tame it down.

Overall Review: Case is hosting a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L mobo and Earthwatts 430W power supply and one Seagate SATA drive The included 80mm silverstone fans are not bad noise wise, but I think I will be swapping them out for some quieter Enermax ones soon.