The Insides

The side panel is made of 0.7 mm SECC, just like the rest of the case, excluding the front. The steel mesh is secured by screws, so you will not have to worry about it giving way or reducing the overal structural integrity of the side panel. Once the panel is removed, the case inside can be inspected. The general layout is nothing out of the ordinary and can be found in many other mainstream cases. The notable addition is the clean routing of the fan power cable. It runs along the top of the mainboard area towards the lower front of the case.


Opening the other side yields no real surprises, but upon closer inspection an additional connector for the front 120 mm fan can be seen. Gigabyte is routing this cable towards the lower mainboard area as well.


All external drive bays feature a plastic locking mechanism. This is the same type of "semi" screw-less system used by a lot of other manufacturers. Even though you should be fine with these clips, inserted drives should still be secured by screws on the other side, as Gigabyte has not included these there.


Turns out that the rear fan has the same connector as the front fan. Following the routed cables yields another surprise. Gigabyte has combined both cables at the end, which means that you will only need to use a single mainboard header to power both of them. The PCI brackets also feature a screw-less system which uses the same principle as the Cooler Master RC-690. It utilizes the case structure to excert pressure on the inserted cards, but also allows the user to install a screw instead. This is something not possible with the RC-690.


You will need to take the front of the iSOLO 210 to install any external drives or devices. The covers cannot be removed otherwise. Gigabyte has also placed two stickers on the open 5.25 and 3.25 inch bays, which need to be removed. These have one simple purpose - to keep the user from trying to push out the drive bay covers without removing the entire front. These stickers can only be removed, once the front has been seperated from the rest of the case.


The I/O mainboard connectors are nothing special - except the Firewire connector. Gigabyte included two headers, one is the usual kind, found on other cases, while the second one is something I have never seen before. There are only two mainboard connectors, one for the power switch, the other for the speaker. There is no connector for a reset button or for any LEDs. Turns out that the Molex connector powers the blue front LEDs which also double as the power lights.