Silverstone Lascala LC13B-E Black HTPC ATX Case No PS

Comment:
Great price. Perfect for HTPC in a room w/ 1 & two year old running around. I have a P5B (ATX) board, Q6600, Arctic Cooler 7, NVIDIA 9500GT (HDMI), ATI Tv Wonder, PC Energy & Cooling 500, Seagate HDD, three GB Corsair DDR800, linked to a Samsung 40" LCD via HDMI. Everything fit and still has room to breathe. None. "Magnificent" front panel style? Who the heck came up with that spec description?

Comment:
It is produced of solid materials, little if no plastic, quite sturdy and has a lot of room for hard drives and most video cards. Even all but the largest aftermarket CPU coolers could fit in this case. The brushed metal is of suprisingly high quality. Supplies a cool environment for your PC parts with two extra fan placements. Looks stunning. Somewhat heavier than I imagined(duh), mainly because it is steel. Also it is just as large or larger than most horizontal laying situations, so it's not smaller. If you plan to use it in a media center, make sure you absolutely have the space for it. Wasn't much of a Silverstone fan, generally thought they were overrated..until I recieved this case. It's the ideal seeking case I've had (considering I own an Antec p182) and the brushed metal is sleek, sytlish. I'm at present working with the case for a property server instead of a media case, but I would even consider this for gaming.

Comment:
After fiddling with a lame NAS enclosure, i decided to upgrade my desktop, and put my current desktop parts into this case. The installed parts are as follows:DFI P35-T2Rl ATX moboIntel q9550 CPU4x1gb DDR2XFX 5870 1gb 1x 1tb Western Digital Green HDDSamsung Blu-Ray reader/DVD burnerNmedia LCD display - 5.25"Scythe KAze Q Fan Controller - 3.5"Misc card reader/USB - 3.5"Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU coolerKinda overkill for an HTPC, but if anyone comes over and want to game, it'll be more than adequateThe good:I was a bit tough to find a quality case with the space to fit my long (11.5") video card, but after removing the center HDD cage, there's plenty of space. I was also worried about my 5.5" tall CPU cooler fitting, but it JUST fits, with about 1/4" to spare. Since the center drive cage also had the 120mm fan bracket, i had to sue a zip-tie to secure it to the case, which worked fine. There is a large enough gap for the tie fit fit beside the entrance to the 5.25" drive opening. I may end up taking a grinding wheel to the center cage to chop out a space for the GPU, but the zip-tie will do for now.After reading many reviews on this case, i was a little concerned that I'd had to perform some acrobatics to put the mobo in once the cages were installed, or vise-versa. This was not the case (pun intended). Once all drives were installed, there was still plenty of room to place the motherboard inside.Th cages are well-built and slide in quite easily.The bad: eSATA would've been nice.The 80mm fan cords are quite short, and I'll have to use en extension to route it to my fan controller, which is on the opposite corner of the case.The screws that fasten the drive cages to the case are tucked under teh front lip of the inside - even my little girl-y fingers were to large to fit, so i had to use needle-nose pliers to get the screws in and give a quarter-turn to let them sit long enough for me to shove a screwdriver in there.Since i took the center cage out, and Am occupying two of the three remaining 3.5" bays with the fan controller and card reader, i am only able to fit one HDD, which is okay, but From the orientation of the holes, I was forced to mount it up-side down, and with only one set of screws. The aforementioned 3.5" components are of regular fit, so I'm not sure why I wouldn't mount the HDD properly. Though luckily, i was able to mount the fan controller back a bit so the knobs didn't protrude out the front, still allowing my access and to close the front lid.The lid itself is nice enough; when dropped, it glides down smoothly, and doesn't slam, which is nice. Removing the solid steel (weird) plates at the front corners allows one to remove th door, if desired. Since I'm still waiting on a PSU, I'm not sure sure how cool it will stay. But with a 120mm fan in the center and the two 80mm fans in the rear, i expect airflow to be sufficient. Though i did order two higher-quality, silent fans for the rear 80mm's. I also ordered a second 120mm silent fan for the right side, but I think my CPU cooler will be in the way. But once again, that cooler is pretty big, and I'm surprised it fit at all. I assume the airflow will be lessened by keeping the door up. I will update  this once i get it running.Ya, I'd recommend it. Unless you want a long video card AND more than three 3.5" components. It still gets 5 stars.

Comment:
Overall, i love this case-it looks great in a component rack and isn't as distracting as many of the fancier cases out there. Drive installation can be tricky when trying to align the blanks with each other and depending on your mobo layout, wiring and cables could get a little tight.

Comment:
Overall, this is a great HTPC case. I've had for a little over a month and I love it. The install was a bit tricky because the mobo barely fits in there. Also, the RAM slots are right next to the DVD driv, so it can be a little tricky to get the drive in and out (or even the RAM modules, you have to unplug the SATA cable). However, everything fits and it looks great; doesn't sound too loud. The included fans seem fairly effective, although that probably depends on what you have in it. I like the front fold-out cover.

Comment:
Excellent case. Solid look with nice fit/finish.

Comment:
I've had this case for about 5 days now running the follow components.Gigabyte EP45-UD3LE7400 Core 2 DuoSapphire HD4870 512 GDDR54 gigs (2x2GB) G Skill PC2-6400OZC Modstream 520WD Caviar Black 1 Terbyte hDDThe case is stunning to look at, and completely blends in with my home theater system (looks like a 7 channel power amp). The entire front is solid brushed aluminum and the door is weighted, and drops nicely (doesn't slam). All the drive bays are removable and easy to install, but are not tool less in their design. The PSU mounts on the left (bottom if standing upright like a normal case) so cable length will be very important. My modstream 4 pin Mobo connector just barely reaches, and there isn't much room in the case to bundle the leftover wires for the non modular powr supply users. Silverstone PSU's have longer wires so they work well in their cases. I would Recommend a Strider 600 or 850 for this case. The PSU has it's own grill on the left side of the case to pull air in (if it's a bottom mounted fan, with rear exhaust). Otherwise it will pull from behind the 3.5inch cage.The Graphics card mounts right inline with the HDD cage on my Mobo. There is less then an inch (probably less then a CM) of room between it and the cage, and there is 0 room for the HDD. I had to mount the HDD in the 3.5inch floppy cage. Minor issue, but this is right across from the PSU, and the wires start to really built up down there.Over all a great case, and silent with the stock fans, even at maximum speeds. There is a Fan mount in the HDD cage, and one on the right side by the CPU. It's a tight fit, but should provide great airflow around the CPU. I recommend having a fairly powerful fan in the HDD cage so it can feed the Gcard cool air.