Assembly

Now let's get back to the chassis and start assembling everything. Installing the mainboard can be done right away, as the stand-offs are already in place. Simply screw the board down - that is it. There is still plenty of space, so you may even use a larger CPU cooler and graphics card if you wish. For our review we will use the OEM heatsink and onboard VGA.


Installing the hard drive can be done without a screw driver. Chieftec has designed a simple but incredibly effective system. First, you screw the appropriate extensions to the hard drive. These are covered in black rubber, to absorb any vibrations of the drive. Next, open up the cage, place the drive into it and close the cage. The two plastic locks will snap into place, holding the hard drive perfectly.


The same system is applied to the optical drive. For this unit, the screws are covered in white rubber and are slightly larger. The insertion is done the same way as the hard drives: slide it into place and lock it down.


Installing the power supply has to be done with the four supplied screws. There is plenty of space left, making larger PSUs a definite possibility.


After installing everything and connecting all the cables, the interior still looks quite clean. Hiding the extra cabling can easily be done under the mainboard, which results in what you see above. This is very tidy, considering the restrictive dimensions of the HTPC case. Nonetheless, having four hard drives and possibly a high end graphic card, will add considerably to the needed amount of cables.