5 comments

• Cody Howland says:

  September 24, 2010 at 8:46 am

  Review by Cody Howland for MI-008 Tower Black P4 Chassis with 250W Itx Psu+sata Power Supply
  Rating:
  **Information about the case – DETAILED!

  The case is small and somewhat neat looking. The powerlight in the front is not blue, but green; which I found a little disappointing. The case is really tight! For a DVD Drive; it cannot exceed more than ~6 inches in length or it will not fit due to the position of the power supply. I used an Intel DG41MJ board with an Intel Celeron E3300 processor. The heat sink sits (touches) the CPU fan. It doesn’t seem to pose any problems since it’s not transfering heat to/from the processor. The case has no fans except that the power supply has one; however it blows air right into the wall of the case, so it doesn’t do much. The inside can get pretty hot, so I wouldn’t use this for anything that requires high performance. Make sure that absolutely nothing is blocking the air vents or else there may be heating issues. Due to the lack of room and air flow, I used a 2.5″ (laptop) SATA hard drive in this computer. You can use a laptop or desktop SATA hard drive and it will work perfectly fine! There is no slot for the 2.5″ laptop SATA drive, but you can set it down on the botton of the case if you lay the case down sideways.

  I loaded Microsoft Windows 7 Professional on it and it works fine! With the 2.5″ laptop SATA hard drive, I can bearly hear the computer running. It is very quiet.

  -POWER SUPPLY INFORMATION-
  
  The power supply has the following plugs:
  
  2x SATA power
  
  1x 20+4 power pins
  
  1x 4 pin (for the processor)
  
  1x floppy drive power connector
  
  I know it has some molex cables as well, but I forgot how many. I know there was about three or so.

  All the cables had either enough line or too much line. Make sure that when you’re done assembling the computer that none of the cables are touching the CPU fan; you can easily work the cables around the fan.

  Decent case for the price.

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• Glenn R. Howes says:

  September 24, 2010 at 9:04 am

  Review by Glenn R. Howes for MI-008 Tower Black P4 Chassis with 250W Itx Psu+sata Power Supply
  Rating:
  As the motherboard I used, a Zotac IONITX-A-U Atom N330 Dual Core 90-Watt PSU WiFi ITX Intel Motherboard came with its own external laptop style PSU, I ended up ditching the included power supply, which made this case comparatively roomy without the problems others have found with fitting in the optical drive. Into the case I was able to mount an optical drive, a 3.5″ hard drive and a 2.5″ SSD drive–although there was no bracket for the 2.5″ drive there was plenty of room under the 3.5″ internal bay, and if it bothered me I could place it there firmly with a few minutes and a metal cutting drill bit. I mounted a fan to the the CPU’s heat sink and another to the back of the case, and I’ve been happy with both the temperature and the noise level.

  It’s an attractive case for a small home server, I have it sitting on a wire rack above my desk where I can plug in USB devices in the hidden front panel and have easy access to the power button. Certainly an improvement over the old full sized tower I’ve replaced. Construction is a nice blend of sheet metal and shiny plastic ornamentation.

  Assembly was reasonably easy. Take care to fit the top piece snugly with the bottom or it will tend to splay awkwardly out. Do not drop the plastic slider which marries the external optical button to the eject button on your optical drive–if you do there will be trouble.

  So all in all, a good case, I just wish it were easier to find nice mini-ITX cases without power supplies so I wouldn’t have to shelve the PSU. By the way, I would not recommend the motherboard I used for a server–even though it makes a fine server–as you will end up paying for a number of home theater PC features you don’t need. I just had a spare.

  Reply
• Sven De Bie says:

  September 24, 2010 at 9:30 am

  Review by Sven De Bie for MI-008 Tower Black P4 Chassis with 250W Itx Psu+sata Power Supply
  Rating:
  It is very compact, but maybe one inch too compact in depth. When you install a CD drive, it almost touches the power supply and the (horizontal) 3.5 hard drive slot almost touches the memory. Half an inch higher and deeper would be enough to fit everything nicely. Now I installed the hard drive in the CD slot, and left the CD drive out. I had to put a fan in the vertical 3.5 slot to cool the unit.
  
  I used an intel DG45FC (a great motherboard) with a Core Duo, but it needed some extra cooling in this case. It might be ok if you use one of the Atom boards.
  
  Besides that, the case is well built and power supply is not exactly quiet, but ok.

  Reply
• Frank Hagan says:

  September 24, 2010 at 10:07 am

  Review by Frank Hagan for MI-008 Tower Black P4 Chassis with 250W Itx Psu+sata Power Supply
  Rating:
  This case is perfect as a HTPC case. Paired with a Zotac nVidia ION Atom 330 Dual Core mini ITX Intel Motherboard IONITX-G-E motherboard, there’s still plenty of room for a standard 5 1/4″ DVD and 3 1/2″ hard drive (I actually am using an older Atom 230 version of the Zotac motherboard and have a 2 1/2″ hard drive nested in the 3 1/2″ drive space). There is room for mounting another 3 1/2″ drive on its side. Shorter than the Shuttle Computer cases, it fit easily into my entertainment center.

  This case was reviewed on the SilentPC website, and they noted the included power supply was very quiet. I was skeptical, not because their reviews are biased, but because I thought perhaps they just “got lucky” with an abnormally quiet PSU. I was pleased to find the system very quiet, and my plans to use an external PSU were scuttled as soon as I turned the system on to test. There are plenty of power connectors from the PSU, a mixed blessing in such a small case. But I did find the extra cables nested comfortably in the space under the 3 1/2″ drive.

  Wiring in small cases is a challenge, and the only “con” with this case is that the included SATA cables are 18″ long. I purchased some 10″ SATA cables similar to these – mod/smart 10in SATA II Cable w/Latch, 3Gb/s, Straight to Straight, UV Green – with FREE MATCHING HOLD DOWN CLIP – and felt better about the airflow inside the case. But otherwise, working in the small case is fine: the manufacturer has most of the sheet metal edges rounded and I didn’t encounter any of the small scrapes and cuts you often get from sharp metal edges.

  I’m very happy with this case.

  Reply
• J. Chavez says:

  September 24, 2010 at 10:43 am

  Review by J. Chavez for MI-008 Tower Black P4 Chassis with 250W Itx Psu+sata Power Supply
  Rating:
  Must say at first i was questioning such box, but after i received it I have nothing but great things to say about it. This little M-ITX fits everything like a charm. Have a 3.5 hard drive mounted on the side of the case, a blue ray DVD-ROM and a memory card reader on it and it all fits working with a zotac ionitx f-e, a bit tight but just enough so it all works out. I had to mod 2 80mm fans for cooling but other than that, great M-ITX.
  
  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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