3R System M-Station HT-4000 Review 4

3R System M-Station HT-4000 Review

Software & Finished look »

Installation


As mentioned before, the internal layout is quite traditional. Installing the mainboard and expansion cards is quite straight forward. Even though the case is a tad bit shorter than some, there is plenty of space. This will only become a problem when inserting a large graphic card like the GeForce 8800GTX or the upcoming Radeon X2900XTX. Even though 3R System has included drive rails, which can be placed on the drive without the use of screws, these mounting material become nessecary as soon as the drive is inserted. This means that the rails are just rails and nothing more. The number of screws required for each optical drive drops from a maximum of 8 to 4 with the use of these rails.


There is a very thick secondary cover inside the bottom optical drive bay. This can only be removed by pushing with a lot of force from the outside into the case. As you can see, the entire aluminum block is covered in glue to keep the dummy front in place. The front of the optical drives do not need to be removed. Only the drawer cover needs to be replaced with the supplied aluminum covers. These feature double sided tape, which should hold enough for a few drive changes.


There are a few very interesting connectors inside the case. You may have seen some of these during our review of the Soundgraph iMON VFD or Ultra bay. The first is the ATX connector. This goes inbetween the mainboard and the power supply and powers the iMON display. There are also the defaul connectors for USB, Audio and FireWire. The third type of connector connects the fan to the iMON display. There are three of these inside the case.


The Display can also show the temperature of a single diode which is connected to the device. It is rather thick so placing it between the CPU and cooler is not possible. It should fit perfectly between fins of any CPU or graphic card heat sink. The USB plug of the LCD is of the external type, but 3R System ships an converter so that it may be plugged into the mainboard as well.


Once the hard drive were inserted and everything connected, the case was already quite full. it would be even worse if all the hard drive bays were to be filled. This may only be a concern during initial installation, considering this case is not meant to be opened a lot and the lack of dept is a positive aspect, when placed next to an A/V rack in the living room.
Next Page »Software & Finished look
View as single page
Nov 5th, 2024 02:54 EST change timezone

New Forum Posts

Popular Reviews

Controversial News Posts