Assembly

While we usually start with mainboard installation as a first step, it is wise to go for the hard drives first with the ISK-100. As you can see, I only applied one of the two insulating tapes, while you should go for both of course. Nonetheless, installation is a painless procedure. Just remove the sled which holds the drives, place the HDDs on this metal frame and secure it them with the included screws. Then place the entire contraption back where it belongs.


Placing the ITX mainboard is actually not as easy as you may think. Due to the compact size, Antec is not giving you much room to work with. I actually was rather worried that I would end up chipping something off the board during the process. Turns out, I almost did, as I noticed that one of the plastic clips were about to destroy one of the capacitors on the board. This also resulted in the fact that I was unable to secure the board with all four screws. If Antec would have gone for a simple screw to hold the plastic panel in place, this issue could be avoided completely.


Well, once everything was installed, I have tried to keep the cables as clean as possible, but as you can imagine there is not a lot of space to hide or route them. Nevertheless, in the end all of them had their place and I did not have to worry about any of them interfering with the 100 mm fan.

Finished Looks

Once everything was assembled and the cover placed back on the case, you can see why Antec has placed the fan in this area of the side. It resides exactly above the CPU/chipset area of the ITX board. Even though I have used a passively cooled Foxconn Celeron ITX board, you should be able to cool more powerful solutions, which usually recommend a fan for general use with the one built into the ISK-100.


Once the stand was screwed unto the chassis, you can clearly see, that it is tilted back a bit. This gives you easier access to the connectors in the front, while also pushing down cables coming out the back - helping with hiding them. The blue LEDs of the power and HDD activity do bleed into the interior and thus also out the side of the unit. This may be rather distracting when using the ISK-100 in a dark environment to watch a movie for example.


Overall the ISK-100 makes a good impression when powered up. The fan is by no means the quietest out there, but it is definitely better than any of the small 40 or 50 mm ones usually supplied with the mainboards or similar ITX cases.