Installation

The first thing that was installed, is the mATX mainboard. In our first Lanbox review, we used the Thermaltake Blue Orb 2, which fit perfectly. This time we try out another CPU cooler, from a different manufacturer to see if such variants will fit inside the Lanbox Lite. The second step is done by installing the hard drive into the appropriate cage.


The mainboard connectors are all completely standard. The one problem lies with the Power LED connector. The Foxconn mainboard uses a 2 pin design, without any dummy pin in-between the two, which means that I had to snap the connector in half to be able to connect it. Using two single pin connectors for each cable of the power LED would solve such a problem in the future. The first thing installed were the mainboard and the hard drive cage, as these both lie beneath the PSU and front drives respectively. As you can see, the IDE cable has already been installed. You will not be able to reach it once the optical drives are inserted into the case.


As was to be expected by such a small case, installing a larger graphic card is not possible, when the hard drive cage is used. Thermaltake does include instructions on how to fit a GeForce 8800GTX inside the case, but you will have to sacrifice the hard drive cage and thus can only install a single drive where the floppy drive usually goes.


The next step consists of filling the remaining cages before installation. The original Lanbox has a curved aluminum front, which means that the drive installation consisted of some "trial and error" before the alignment was right. The Lanbox Lite features a straight front, so once one drive was lined up correctly the others could just be installed without any further testing. The power supply can be installed traditionally or upside down. I chose upside down, as it would pull fresh air in from the top and blow it out the back.


Once the PSU has been secured inside the case, the IDE cables for the optical drives were connected to the mainboard and hung out of the case. You should install them before placing the front drives into the case, as you will have very little space to work with.

Once the drive cage was installed, the top was replaced. As you can see, the power supply fan is placed right under the air holes.

Finished Look

Once everything was installed, power was connected. As you can see, everything fits fine and the back looks clean with everything installed. The front looks great as well, as Thermaltake has incorporated black drive doors into the front. This means that you will be able to use your beige or silver drives without having to sacrifice the entire look of the case.