First post, by Almoststew1990
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- Oldbie
There is a company in the UK I've occasionally checked out called Evercase who sell new, beige desktop cases. I saw LGR's video on that checkmate case and that finally pushed me into buying one (especially his comment about it being rare to get a new, beige case!)
I bought a new AT case with a new AT power supply as my AT power supply blew a while back and I want to use a Sound Blaster 2.0 in a build which needs -5v. Together, and including delivery, it came to £111. The case by itself is £57 with VAT and without £12 delivery.
The main selling point for me was that I basically need an AT case if I want to expand into 486 PCs and I cocked up bodging one of my ATX cases!
Despite Evercase having quite a, er, low-key looking website (for instance I could bundle two different AT PSUs with the case for the same price uplift, but if you were going to buy the PSUs separately they have different prices!) everything checked out.
Case Quality
The case arrived in a decent box and was not damaged. I could hear a disconcerting rattling around inside but that was a brown box with screws inside. Don't expect useless pamphlets congratulating you on your purchase or wine vouchers (this is a UK specific thing we get if you're puzzled!) or whatever, but I'm just fine without that gumph.
There are no sharp edges and the case is reassuringly heavy. The metal is thick and even without the strengthening strut across the top doesn't flobble about. Even the rear expansion slot brackets feel nice.
It's also reassuringly enormous and takes up the entirety of my new 60mm desk when including cables around the back! I was not expecting this although this is of course my own dumb fault for not reading the dimensions.
There are quite big "panel gaps" around front for lack of a better word once you've put a few drives in, which I assume is to just give that little bit more tolerance with old drives or something.
Round back it came with a fairly random I/O shield but otherwise is pretty standard.
PSU
It comes with a Seventeam branded PSU. It's a new ATX PSU with an AT adapter installed (which is how it was described so no deception there). The PSU has ATX (20 pin) CPU 12v 4 pin, 2x SATA, 4 or 6x Molex and one floppy connector. It has a -5v rail which I thought I could only get from a real AT power supply, but nope, this one (and its adapter) are quite happy supplying -5v.
The PSU is delightfully quiet and whilst I haven't heard of Seventeam, it's a brand I'm now quite happy with. I hate loud computers and the noise from this unknown PSU was a bit of a worry for me, but its wonderful. I was expecting a new old stock PSU from 2002 or something but I think it's "properly" new.
However, in various DOS screens the PSU does emit a very quiet amount of coil whine. This can vary from none at all to ever so slightly noticeable, depending on what is going on on-screen.
What was also a let down was that the ATX to AT adapter that was included (and ready attached) was not long enough to reach the AT power connector on my motherboard, and also wasn't long enough to reach the top left corner of the case under the PSU (i.e. for a taller AT motherboard). This seems to be due to the cable from the power switch to the adapter being quite short.
This is a fairly major design flaw given it is specifically sold as an AT case and if you are a business replacing an ancient but necessary bit of AT kit you're going to be SOL! The AT to ATX adapter is wrapped in black plastic (which I think if anything makes it look less professional) so I just unwrapped it swapped the adapter out for my own, which has a very long cable from the adapter to the power switch, well in excess of the total length of the adapter that came with the PSU...
Case Layout
An ATX version of this case is available so I thought that the mounts inside this case must AT only. However it was a nice surprise to see that various ATX standard holes are also included and as such I can mount an ATX boards in here. Whilst the power button is a locking AT style switch, if I feel the urge to put an ATX board in here I can always just wire the reset button to the power button on the board.
The case includes a plastic long card holding brackety thing which is a nice addition to have.
Mounting floppy drives is a bit of a pain as the 3.5" bay has to slide out so you can screw in both sides, but as you can see the floppy drive mounting screw holes are continuous rather than integer holes (if you know what I mean?!) so it is a bit of a pain to get the drive to line up with the front of the case.
The front panel pops off nicely and actually has metal clips instead of naff plastic clips. I wanted to cover up the USB slots as I won't be needing them any time soon but in another poor design decision, the little plastic cover wont fit over the front I/O area due to a sticker that covers the hole for the leg of the plastic cover to pop into!
In the picture above I had already removed the ports themselves which were on a little PCB (and these have to be removed to fit the cover!) You can just about see the the hole as a lighter colour, covered by the front panel sticker, where something like firewire would go - I guess the case takes a few different I/O configurations or something.
So the longer leg is meant to go through a hole to the right of the headphone jack hole
Flip it over and it looks like this. "Whoops" says the designer...
I cut the sticker with my Stanley knife and the cover can click in place securely.
There is also no space for a proper PC speaker. It does come with a little beeper, built into the front panel, but I would have liked a little slot to put a cone speaker. I ended up just taping mine in place.
It's got a fan mount up front and at the rear. The front one only has two screw holes and I think it will struggle to pull air into the case given a lack of ventilation holes around the front.
The case shell is a pain to mount back onto the case but with one or both sides not properly slotted in place but I think this has been a problem with every "three sides in one panel" style case I've ever used and I'm glad that crap died out.
My Build
I put my 386 board in there which everyone has seen before, but it's the only AT board I have (although I've ordered a 486 board and 80MHz CPU - a nice bridge between my 40MHz 386 without cache and various Slot 1 systems I can build?)
What was great about this was I could dig out my Sound Blaster 2.0 again and once more immerse myself in Creative Music System music. The PSU is definitely delivering on the -5v rail as the sound card is working great.
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When it's all put together it does look quite nice, and I can't believe I'm saying this but it's crying out for a CRT monitor!
You can see what I mean about the panel gaps between the drives and the case. They're all mounted in place fairly tightly and straight so I think the case has quite a big tolerance built in for the front panel gaps or something. I think it would look better with the DVD up top.
And yes, that's a real floppy drive I've installed. I even used it despite hating old floppy disks and drives, having been coverted to Gotek emulation years ago, as I installed the original Sound Blaster software from the box. I had it set up as A: at first but got that sorted (also my own dumb fault for mouting the drives in the wrong order in the case).
I have to have the PC hanging over the back of my desk to have any chance of using my keyboard.
So in summary it's a good case, and a good powersupply with it, but there are a few poor design choices here and there but stop it from being a great buy.
It's pretty expensive but for a niche item (and a high quality one at that) I think it's worth it as now I have a case I can put pretty much anything in.
500th post <8-)
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