A Closer Look - Inside

The entire layout suddenly makes a lot of sense after you open the Nox Xtreme lanbx. Try to flex the top panel at this point and you will notice that it is quite sturdy considering it is made of plastic. Looking into the unit, the interior metal frame can be seen, and there is a cover that allows for a 120 mm or 140 mm fan to be placed right above the CPU area. You may also remove the cover for a clear path to the interior of the metal box.


You should take out the metal frame before installing anything, which is done by first unscrewing the four screws in the back and bottom; these hold the interior in place. Now, flip open one side of the chassis. Once out, the inner shell actually looks a lot more like that of a traditional Mini-ITX chassis.


The shell's larger sides feature openings and holes, which is a tell-tale sign of the shell initially having served a different purpose as there are latches for exterior panels. Look closely and you will also notice mounting holes for a 3.5" and two 2.5" hard drives.


The chassis comes equipped with two 120 mm fans to funnel air through the lanbx. You will find a fully size ATX opening with two sets of mounting holes on one end. The mechanism to secure expansion cards has been placed onto the exterior of the shell, but considering that it won't be visible once you close the lanbx, its placement is just fine.


Looking at both of these sides through the interior does not reveal anything unusual. Nox Xtreme placed plastic fan grills on both cooling units, which is a nice touch.


There are two easily removable 2.5" hard drive bays inside the shell. These utilize individual plastic trays and are hot-swappable, which is quite cool as you could switch drives on the fly by simply opening the lanbx and throwing a different drive into the tray. I wonder if Nox Xtreme sells these trays individually as well since they would be pretty handy in some situations. The PCB's connectors are on the shell's underside, which has you take it out of the plastic enclosure during assembly. An interesting feature here are the two 3-pin fan headers: These allow you to connect the two units directly to the same power source. While the fans would then spin at full speed, many Mini-ITX boards lack a large number of headers.


All the cables within the Nox Xtreme lanbx are of the default variety, and you should have no issues connecting these to a modern motherboard. The cable not shown here is the PSU plug: It is an angled unit, which allows you to route your PSU's ATX connector to the lanbx's exterior frame.