QBiN wrote:

I recall in the late 90's to early 2000's enlight cases were EVERYWHERE. And just seemingly a few years after that, they are gone with nearly a trace. I see fewer enlight cases on eBay and the like than I do even older AT cases. Does anyone know what their story was and what happened to them?

Thats a good question. I have no clue my self.

Funny thing is, I never saw any and the first time I did see one was on the internet. From what I have seen they actually looked pretty well made, so who knows. I suspect the demand for cheaply made, crappy "gamer" cases that are made of tinfoil and brittle plastic - crap like Xigmatik - saw them off as it did so many others. Look at XSPC, they practically withdrew all of their higher quality cases, such as the H2... Which I was buying parts for when they took it off the shelf, assholes.

I always wonder what happened to my favored case maker, Kate & McKenzie (Web Archive Link) as they were used by many organizations until at least 2008. Hull City Council's standard Pentium III used their Soho 3 models and Stone (A UK OEM used by Colleges and some council offices in later years) used them exclusively. At least, so far as I know. They were good cases, they looked plain and they could take a beating before they started breaking apart. Always wonder what happened to Mitac as well, their cases weren't as good and they made the occasional idiotic design choice, but they were cheap and they did their job as well as they needed to.

🤣 - I did my part to save as many as I could find.

I used the Enlight 7237 for a number of builds. Those midtowers in the center of the photo. I think I know of one still in use out there with a Core 2 upgrade inside. Originally a nForce2 IGP setup.

But to be honest I really dislike the screw on rails for drives. The plastic snaps that hold the front panel on also tend to break. And the plastic of course yellows.

Artex wrote:

🤣 - I did my part to save as many as I could find.

"snip"

Willing to sell any MR. hoarder

I've got an Enlight 6680 (third from the right in Artex's photo) that I used for a P133 build a while back. Pretty nice case, though I will have to agree that the drive rails can be a bit of a pain. I think my family's old K6 was in an Enlight case as well, looked like the towers in the middle of that photo. Used to have a P-II based system in an Enlight 7101 case which I got rid of a long time ago. As far as what happened to them, I don't know. Seems like they just disappeared one day.

I have quite a few of those mid-towers - 5 beige and 1 black. The beige cases house a Cyrix MediaGXm-266, a Cyrix MII-433GP, a K6-III-500, dual PIII-S-1.4, and another dual PIII-S-1.4. The black case houses a P4 Prescott. Those Enlight mid-towers constitute almost half my fleet. I haven't had any problems with the drive bays (yet?).

feipoa wrote:

I haven't had any problems with the drive bays (yet?).

They're not problematic, they are just annoying. I guess the rails are useful for quickly swapping drives in some environments for some reason.

The drive rails, IMHO, were an upgrade from the days of screwing in ALL drives directly to the drive cages. My hands used to get SO cut up and scratched from those early generation cases. So the enlights with rolled edges and rails that you could screw on ahead of time seemed like a vast improvement. Compared to today's tool-less drive bays/cages, there's no question it's a pain.

I think they fell out of favor to the gaming crowds that like plexiglass windows to show things off. And I also think white box makers kind of died out because OEM just got too cheap to compete with so the volume of cases dropped as well. Look at what you can buy now, they are mostly expensive gaming or server cases and complete junk aluminum cases.

Back in the day I used Enlight for my rigs (still have most of those cases) until I started liking In-win tower cases (they also seem to have fallen off the face of the earth).

P.S. Those Enlights in the middle with 4 x 5.25" external slots came in black as well (have a couple in use).

Enlight was the way to go for AT form-factor stuff. I prefer Inwin for ATX though. I had a friend with an Enlight 7237. Getting the front face panel off that thing was a real b@#%h! I also really liked some of the case designs from Aopen, though the one I have at the moment still doesn't live up to Inwin build quality.

Surprisingly Inwin is still around, but they've sold out to the dark side. I kind of doubt they still use Powerman power supplies and good sheet metal these days.

I think Enlight is still around, but they are no longer in the PC business. They seem to sell LED lighting products. At first I was skeptical it was the same company, but they use the old logo. They also removed all references to PC related products from their company history. http://www.enlighcorp.com.tw

About the time Enlight disappeared this new company called Ark Technology showed up.
Their first offerings were clearly rebadged Enlight models.
*I suspect* when Enlight quit Ark bought Enlight's old tooling and started building them in house.
They were even offering a huge AT server tower chassis (in 2008-2009-ish) on wheels that may have simply been old stock Enlight never got sold.
The stuff Ark is selling now though is the usual junky stuff about everyone else has.
.

There's one up on eBay right now. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Computer-Case … 34AAOSwcBhWVNOT

I think i have 2 or 3 in the garage that look like the one on eBay

torindkflt wrote:

There's one up on eBay right now. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Computer-Case … 34AAOSwcBhWVNOT

Woah this is a great case! Too bad I'm not going to the US this year =/