Joined on 08/18/05
Worth every little penny
Pros: Build quality, fit and finish are top notch, even the bottom is painted, with screw-on feet, not the usual press-in type. All drive rails are tool free, you either love or hate that, the card holder works well. The front panel is a cinch to take off and put back on, I swapped out the green and yellow LED's for an ultra blue and hyper red and it's a great looking case. Fans are exceptional. Rarely does a case come with 2 120mm fans with 3 pin wires (with tachs) that are long enough to reach any header on any mobo. The front fan has a very reusable screen filter in front of it, and the rear has a finger guard over it, nice touches. Rosewill has built a very nice case, I will hopefully get a chance to build another PC with this case. Good work Rosewill.
Cons: Can't really think of any. LED's are green and yellow...if you like that, great..if not...mod it!
Overall Review: Motherboard tray does NOT require standoffs for most ATX mobo's because the tray has stamped risers, all you need to do is screw the board in. I know we've all tried to unscrew a motherboard only to have the standoff come out with it or bend the board. Came with adequate hardware, nice latching drive rails, just wish the screws would have been threaded instead of just pins. HDD rails have rubber isolators, how often do you see that on a 40 dollar case? It will accept 5 HDD's up front with adequate airflow over them. Great big side vent lines up with my Athlon 64 socket 939 and keeps the temps nice and cool. The front flap, although it only opens up to 95-100 degrees, it feels solid both open, and when closing. The flap that covers the power and FPC's is nice and sturdy. Power switch works great. Case is built like a tank, weighs a bit more than el-cheapo cases, but definitely worth it. As always...pay attention to detail when you're building a computer and you'll never go wrong
Backwards thinking....
Pros: Inexpensive, includes everything you should need to get up and running, lightweight, looks pretty decent, blue/red power/activity LED
Cons: Qualty, materials used in construction, craftsmanship, no effective cooling for HDD, terrible layout and just sheer stupidity.
Overall Review: It's my fault for buying a product based on price alone. Construction is a joke, aluminum sides may help slightly for cooling, but not much, HDD mounts on 2 acrylic rails by simply inserting stationary pegs into HDD mounting holes (upside down), once you get that figured out, you then have to use an adapter cable to hook up your SATA drive's power connector, and a short-but still too long and VERY stiff, SATA cable to a flimsy connector on the PCB. Then put the 3 pieces together where it's held by acrylic clips. CHEAP! On top of this, the drive only functions reliably at USB 1.1 (2.0 causes drive to lockup after a few megs of transfer, requiring a pull, a loss of data, and a re-plug. (tried another identical drive - no joy) I'll probably save this for down the road and get something more reliable right now. My theory is that my WD draws too much power for the PCB's converters at full speed USB, unable to verify though, would not recommend, sorry.
Worth every penny
Pros: Excellent fit and finish, very sleek and modern looking, excellent airflow and venting options, will accept just about any full size power supply, expansion slot card holder is VERY adjustable, excellent included accessories and hardware.
Cons: These are not even really Cons, more like minor personal gripes or words of caution if you're reading this... The case I received, wasn't quite the case pictured? (see below in other thoughts) Not necessarily for my application, but there is little room between the back of the drive bays and the front edge of the motherboard. If using anything longer than standard ATX, it can make the lower few drive bays difficult to use. May want to consider a deeper case in that situation.
Overall Review: I will assume it's not I-Star's fault, probably Newegg's fault. I read the review from the person who said they got 2 of these cases and neither had doors. Newegg DOES sell an almost identical I-Star 4RU case...just like this one...but without the front doors. Possibly there was a mix-up on their end so I took the risk and ordered away. When I got the case...and saw that it had arrived in flawless condition, from CA to MN, via UPS (amazing huh?), I was thrilled. When I popped the cover off, I noticed one of my drive cages wasn't what I was expecting. Instead of having 4 vertically oriented 5.25" bays, I had 3 horizontally oriented 5.25's and a 3.5" Basically a mirror image of the other side. Not a big deal, but it would be great if someone could figure out why it happened to prevent it from happening to someone else. Overall, I am very pleased with the case and it's flexibility, and plan on purchasing many more. This time, I got way more than I paid for, what a great value
Great product at a great price
Pros: Simple design, quality construction, beautiful design, simply perfect. Acrylic base with indirect blue LED lighting is really cool looking. Finish on the metal side panels and polished plastic case is really nice. Red panels would look better with red LED lighting, but I knew it was blue, if I want, I'll change it myself. Had a cheap SATA enclosure that would die after a few mins of heavy data transfer, this one took 100 gigs without a hiccup.
Cons: Absolutely none so far.
Overall Review: I highly recommend this product if you're looking for a vertical external enclosure. It WILL NOT lay flat without modifications. Blue glow through the base is not overly bright like so many other LED lights out there. For the money, this thing just can't be beat.
Works perfectly
Pros: Price, performance, ease of use. Great little inexpensive HTPC board. Do your research, compatibility is the key, get it right the first time and you'll be happy.
Cons: No cons at all, I knew what I was buying, I knew I wasn't buying add-ons like SATA cables and USB brackets, I knew that this was what I needed so I bought it, and I'm glad I did.
Overall Review: I needed an inexpensive replacement for an A$U$ board that had a bad reaction to a defective USB Keyboard. I was truly surprised how easy it was to use this board. Booted up on the first try, as usual, Installign windows from RAID array has me baffled, I can't find the F6 utility anywhere, but everything else works perfect. I love it, saved a bunch of money, and yes, while socket 478 is obsolete, a lot of us with good fast P4's that fit into a socket 478 and good video cards, and DDR333/400 RAM that need a new board, will appreciate this quality unit. Very nice board, don't expect the world, if you're looking at this board, you should already have the rest of the parts, this is not a starting point for a new machine, but rather a replacement for a similar board. P4 2.8Ghz, 1Gig Kingston DDR333 Dual Channel, 2 250 Gig WD HDD's, NEC DVD, Onboard video...for now. Now I just need to find something to give me HDTV output.
Not a "Bright" idea
Pros: They work great and look beautiful when they work.
Cons: Unfortunately for me, when I received mine, one of the internal tubes was snapped. I noticed this even before I installed it. The way they package these lights is awful. Both lights are wire tied together along the length of the tube, not at the caps. This causes the tubes to bend towards each other, link a convex lens. I believe this is what caused one of my tubes to break, either that or in shipping, there's no protection between the tubes and the rest of the packaging either, just stupid in my opinion. I wouldn't necessarily say these are fragile, but they need more protection during shipping and rough handling.
Overall Review: I've used this same kit before, I have a pair mounted on my glass desk, they work great, I love them. I have a UV kit mounted in my other computer, and I've used this same blue kit on several friend's PC's. I broke a tube before, that was my fault, it got caught on an edge in the case and snapped the inner tube. This time, it wasn't my fault, it was broken when I removed it from the package. Logisys needs to re-evaluate their packaging method because now I get only 1 tube instead of 2. No sense RMAing it, need to give the PC to my brother as a Christmas present. I would still purchase again though, I love the blue glow! These are definitely bright if you can see the tube, try to keep them out of sight wherever you mount them, I mount them on the side panel of the case below or above the window to give off the best effect without actually seeing the tube. The nature of the beast is that they ARE bright and can't be dimmed. Try an LED tube if you want something less distracting!