Best noob case?

**wongerbonger** · 05-24-2004, 01:14 AM

whats the best PC case for a noob with the mp3 car computers?

**Q_gamelogic** · 05-24-2004, 01:31 AM

you could build your own .... i guess if you can run the wire's do the mods or mold or mount the screen , you must be able to make a wood or plexiglass box yourself (wood box covered with like subwoofer carpeting for trunk), or use whatever box you can find in the hardware store , put like spacers then mount the motherboard ..... electric box's (for outdoor electic wireing or teleophone box;s) , or key box's ( size of about 3 laptops stacked) or just could mod any case , just completely disasemble the front .. cut it then put the face back on it , make it shorter from back to front .

you could also buy a all in one mini pc's (more expensive of course) . or buy a mini case where you could mount a mini itx or mini motherboard

i hope it helps .

**gospeed.racer** · 05-24-2004, 01:56 AM

Originally Posted by wongerbonger

whats the best PC case for a noob with the mp3 car computers?

First, decide on a form factor....and then what size drives and such you require.

My personal case is a casetronic 2699r....works *ok* but wont work with anything but a Mini Itx form and a slim optical drive.

**wongerbonger** · 05-24-2004, 02:46 AM

well i was going to run a mini-itx board

or if someone could reccomend me a nice case for a regular size mobo

i am driving a 98 explorer

so i have some space underneath the seats

**carpcnoobie** · 05-24-2004, 08:41 AM

This is a long thread, but I really got a charge out of this. Talk about creativity and thinking outside of the box. Well, OK, actually thinking OF the box.

Found a perfect case!

As you can see from my nick, I'm a true newbie to this and I did a lot of searching and reading about plexiglass cases and making them. Finally I took a trip to the store and now I've got a case ready to go. My set up is using normal ATX factor.

Good luck.

**tom2112** · 05-24-2004, 02:31 PM

OK, I'll thow my 2 cents in.

For Mini-ITX, I can recommend the Chyang Fun Mini Cube case. It costs about $70 and is for the Mini-ITX Via M series boards only (Like the M10000). I've installed 2 of these units and they are sweet. They look cool and the Opus even fits inside where the conventional power supply was. That combined with room for full sized hard drive and optical drive makes this a winner. The case also comes with a right angle PCI riser card that allows you to put your PCI card sideways inside the case. (the cheapest place to get it is www.big008.com, www.mini-itx.com has them for those of you outside the U.S. but the price is higher) The Mini Cube measures 160mm(H) x 270mm(D) x 190mm(W) or 6 1/2"(H) x 10 3/4"(D) x 7 1/2"(W)

For Flex-ATX boards - go with a Shuttle XPC. It's a little bigger than the Chyang Fun case, but the Flex-ATX form factor has 1 PCI and 1 AGP slot, which is a double bonus. They also have room for full size drives. Just make sure you don't overpower your power supply. You can also get a bracket from Opus for the 150watt supply to fit in the XPC cases. The XPC's are more expensive because you buy the motherboard with the case. But it works out to be a little more expensive than a normal motherboard and case. I think they're worth it. The XPC measures 185 (H) x 300 (D) x 200 (W) mm.

For micro-ATX, I can't really say. There's TOO many options. AOpen makes a whole line of micro-ATX cases that are good. I've put together a couple of them based on the H340 (I think that's the model number) and they're good small cases, and not too expensive. Don't expect all the bells and whistles of an Antec case, but they're still good. One warning about their slim cases - you can only use low profile expansion cards in them.

Check out the AOpen H420, it looks pretty slick and is for micro or flex ATX boards. It even has temperature sensative speed control for the fans. Cool!

Obviously, you can tell that I'm NOT too concerned with size. I'm sure there's a lot of smaller cases out there, but the price goes up the smaller you get. The Chyang Fun and Shuttle cases are bigger than a lot of mini-ITX setups, but as long as you're not putting it inside your dash or under your seat, who cares? They're smaller than mini towers, so what the heck, right?