Silverstone 0.8mm Steel Body Tek Acrylic Front Panel for Mini-ITX Media Center/HTPC Case Cases ML05B

I got the case because I had some PC parts I wanted to re-purpose into an HTPC upgrade and was tired of the chunky/desktop sized HTPC cases out there. I also didn't want anything tiny. Since I wanted to re-purpose my parts, I had very specific requirements. I needed a case that was Slim form factor, able to fit micro atx boards and able to fit larger PSUs. I also wanted something that looked really nice. I don't like them looking too plain and I don't like them looking gaudy. This case was perfect for my needs in every way.It's just an all-around great case. It's one of the nicest ones to look at that I've dealt with in a while. It's solid and nothing feels overly flimsy or wobbly. Since you get so much frame space, there's a bar to hold the frame so it doesn't become warped or bent when you load it up with your parts.The case is 105mm from top to bottom and 140mm of comfortable PSU room so you really must plan accordingly. Things get cramped fast.Here are a few tidbits of advice for your build experience.- You want to remove the frame bar and the nylon/rubber drive cage before you do any work in the case. This is in the instructions, which I recommend reading.- You have 140mm of PSU room before you cut off some of the 2.5" drive bay on the floor beside the PSU bay. Any longer and you'll also likely hinder your ability to install anything but 2.5" drives in the 5.25" bay (maybe you won't be able to install anything at all).- At 105mm top to bottom, make sure you get the right CPU fan. Depending on your build you may not need anything too big or powerful. I did, as my build is a re-purposing of my recently redundant system (Q6600, 8GB RAM, 750w Modular PSU, 3 1TB HD). I got a Cooler Master M4 GeminII Slim which worked perfectly for me. This fan is both powerful and very quiet. It keeps my Q6600 at 45c idle and 50c load while running at its minimum speed.- If you're placing a 3.5" under the 5.25" bay, install the cables to the drive before you place it. It will be very difficult to do it afterwards. Keep in mind that installation of this drive will involve turning the case upside down to secure the drive to the case.- If you're placing a 3.5" onto the Nylon drive case, be wary of whatever on your microatx board is close to it. If there's a mobo power connector or ram slots there, connect / install whatever needs to be before you put the drive in, as it will block whatever is under it. Not sure if these issues would be present with itx boards.- I highly recommend sourcing a PSU with the right dimensions. The case is pretty tight on space. Failing that, do yourself a favor and buy a modular PSU. For reference, my Ultra X4 750 is ~160mm and at that size, took up 1/2 of the 2.5" drive installation space on the base of the case as well as rendered the 5.25 useless for me, unless I install a 2.5" there (which I likely will when I decide to add an SSD to the system. The good news is that you're flexible IF you don't need anything installed to the 5.25" bay. My plan was to buy an external BR drive anyway so I didn't need the space.- My system is somewhat of a legacy system, so I don't expect others to have this issue but just in case, heads up - if you buy a USB 3/SATA add in card and it has a power connector of any kind, make sure the connector doesn't face the roof. I made the mistake and now the card is useless for me. There's almost no space between the edge of any cards installed to a board and the roof of the case.- There's no going around it, the case is cramped. It'll be really hard to route cables after the fact so if it's your thing to make it nice and need, pre-route as many cables as you can.- Ultimately, my recommendation would be to pre-build your system (put the mobo, cpu, fan, ram together) outside of the case and just drop that in when ready.- If this were a new build for me, I'd have skipped on using 3.5" drives and stuck to 2.5"s for ease of installation. I am using 3.5"s because I had them readily available and this is more of a revamp/retrofit than a brand new build.That's about all I can come up with. In terms of some nice features you may have missed:- Light has a dimmer, REALLY great feature- Front panel can be locked- Power button can be locked / Reset button is behind door so no accidental resets if you lock the power button and the door- Comes with a filter for the roof. The filter has magnets so you can just leave it on the top above the fan ventIt's an amazing case. I have no regrets. Building wasn't too challenging but it definitely does take some work and planning if you want to get it right. It looks really nice among my entertainment center equipment. I will likely use this for many years. My next HTPC upgrade will probably be housed in this same chassis, that's how much I love it.I recommend it with flying colors for anyone who is looking for a SFF case that isn't tiny or an HTPC case that isn't big and chunky.

I selected this case after reading a number of different reviews of it and similar cases. It's reasonably sturdy, had enough room for me to shoehorn in all of the components I wanted, and looks good in the stack of home theatre components where it lives now. The thin manual that came with it covered everything I needed to know, although the arrangement of some of the material seemed a little unintuitive.Many people have commented on the brightness of the blue power LED, but I found it was easy to adjust with the slider. Ironically, the glow of the red HDD activity light is probably more visible (even when the door is closed) as it shines down onto the component below, but I found it nice to see what the drive was doing and personally, it doesn't annoy me.Unsurprisingly, the case was pretty cramped. I took Silverstone's advice and used their modular SFX power supply, which helped a lot with space, and I didn't need to install any expansion or display cards. I managed to mount a dual 2.5" SATA hotswap component (3.5" form factor, in a 5.25" adapter) into the optical media space without any problems.One other head-scratcher was mounting of the case fans along the side of the case -- there's allegedly room for 4, although I only used 2. There are no purposed mounting holes at all, just a continuous honeycomb pattern that extends the entire side of the case, and there was no way to align the fans so they matched holes at all four corners simultaneously. Fortunately, mine came with rubber mounting grommets (instead of screws) that flexed sufficiently to accommodate the offsets. This was very nearly a "chicken and egg" situation, as there wasn't enough clearance to install the fans with the motherboard in place, and just barely enough clearance to get the motherboard in after installing the case fans first.In the way of an observation, and not a complaint, I wish the feet on the case -- which are nice -- were pushed in a little further from the edges of the case. They just barely catch the corners of my TiVo Series 3 (which happens to be the component below my HTPC).All in all, the result looks and feels good - I'd still buy this case if I had it to do over again.