Installation

Installing the mainboard is quite straight forward. There is plenty of space and thanks to the desktop format, working inside the case is rather easy. Once the graphic card is installed, the back VGA port can be plugged in. You may have problems here, as the cable is just long enough to plug into the VGA port. A graphic card with two DVI connectors will mean that an adapter needs to be used. This may be a tight fit in and with many new mainstream cards using DVI exclusively as the method of connection, it would be nice to have one or two inches of additional cabling. This would also make the use of PCI cards with external connections like sound cards or TV tuners easier, as the VGA cable would not be in the way.


Installing the hard drive and optical drive does not pose any problems either. Both units are secured by traditional screws and the cages placed back into the case in the right order.


To keep the overall look of the case, Moneual LAB has included a solid aluminum drive cover. It has little stops on three sides, which prohibit sticking the cover on any way you like - or in this case - need. A Pioneer 16x DVD drive was used, as it was just under 17 cm long. This was the maximum length a drive is allowed to have due to the design of the case. Once the drive was placed into the case and the front installed, it became apparent that the supplied cover kept the DVD drive from closing all the way. In a bid to make installation as comfortable as possible, as the little stops are meant to help you center and align the cover horizontally, Moneual LAB has created a compatibility problem. I have let them know about this issue and was told they are working on a fix. The second problem is a complete incompatibility with drives with built-in volume dials. These do not come close enough to the eject button, as the dial usual reaches out of the front a few millimeters and thus cannot be used.


After installing all the drives into the enclosure the case still had a lot of space to work with. This is also due to the very convenient placement of the hard drives.


Installing the power supply is only possible in a single manner, thus there were no problems at all. The last step consisted of connecting all the various cables and closing the case up.

Finished Look

The MonCaso T932 was placed on the table and turned on. The big blue LED ring around the power button looks great and certainly adds a nice touch to the overall look. The screen does not work right away. It takes a few seconds for it to initialize and turn on. Booting the PC will be the first visible screen using the internal display. The LCD can handle 800x600 and 1024x768 pixels, which means going into the BIOS using the screen is not possible as it will go black and display an "out of range" message.


To give you an idea as to how the case will look running Windows XP Media Center Edition, here a screen shot once everything was installed and configured. Even though I was not able to use the front drive cover, it certainly does not look bad at all.