Antec ISK 310-150 Black Mini-ITX Desktop Computer Case 150 Watt Power Supply

There are a few details of the case that I would change, but none of them deal-breakers and I don't think they warrant a lost star.As other people have said, the power-supply is *internal*, and the "door" to the optical drive is kind of flimsy (I broke it within the 1st 15 minutes of unpacking, but I probably would have removed it permanently anyway, for personal reasons)Probably the main thing people worry about with this case is the power-supply. It is only 150W and most hardware recommends more power. Some reasons why this power supply is sufficient (or can be made so):(1) Some processors have integrated graphics and this contributes to their higher power recommendation (for example, I am using an i5-2400 processor and intel says its max power usage is 95 W). If you intend to use a dedicated video card, adding the estimated power usage of the CPU to the estimated power usage of the video card is not accurate: something like 1/3 of the CPU estimate comes from integrated graphics, and this is disabled when a separate video card is in use.(2) A solid-state drive is expensive, but also awesome, and helps a lot with the power consumption. I think various traditional hard-drives use something like 5-40 watts depending on what the drive is doing. This is significant for a 150W power supply. On the other hand, the power use of a solid-state drive is trivial (for example, intel says that my 80GB SSD uses 150 mW while active)All told, my system has an i5-2400 processor, the motherboard and storage/optical drives listed below, and a Gigabyte HD4350 video card that I didn't really plan for. The system's idle power usage is about 65W and occassionally spikes to at most 110W while it's booting up.There are a few small design flaws, and also some simple ways to work around them:(1) As many other people on the internet have said, the "placeholder" for the 2nd case fan actually blocks the motherboard. It has these pins that hold it in place, and it is likely that your motherboard will not be able to move into its proper position because some part of it will bump up against one of these pins. There are two solutions: remove the placeholder, or saw off the offending pin with a razor blade or something. If you want to remove it, it seems like all you need to do is squeeze those pins, but actually you will have to remove the power supply and the frame that holds the case fans first. It's not hard, you only need a screwdriver, but you must do this FIRST, before anything is installed.(2) This case allows a single "slim" optical drive (for example, the Sony Optiarc 7700S slim DVD-RW). This drive receives all of its data and power via a "slim SATA" connector. You will need some kind of adapter to use it with this case. There are two kinds of adapters: search Amazon for product B001MYPI8M, or for B002O1W6ZK. The 1st one can be done, but I don't like it. The reason is because this case has only one 4-pin power connector and a lot of things must share it: the case fans, the light for the power button, and possibly the optical drive. To make it all fit at once, you must remove the power pins (red/black for the optical drive, blue/white for the power light) from their plastic enclosure and plug in all 4 pins manually. Also, you have a bunch of extra cable taking up precious space, and the SATA power supply that this case has is unused. I like the 2nd adapter much better. But it also has a problem. This adapter is just a little bit too wide for some drives (for example the above Optiarc), because the connector on the drive is too close to the edge, and the frame in which the drive sits cannot accomodate the width of the adapter. The solution is to slice of a tiny bit of plastic from the appropriate side of the adapter (again, with a razor blade). You will also have to secure the SATA cable with some kind of tie, since the frame in which the drive sits will normally push the SATA cable slightly out of its socket.(3) The stock case fan does not have a motherboard controller, only a manual switch to control the speed.(4) There is a stupid curly metal thingy whose purpose is to secure the PCIe card. The existence of it is fine, but the "curly" part has no point whatsoever and with my board/video-card combination, this "curly" part partially blocks the HDMI port. You can snap it off pretty easily by bending it back and forth, but it would be better if the metal just didn't curl around. Search for photos of the back of this case to see what I'm talking about.It takes a long time of fiddling with the wires to get them in a good position, but I think there is no way around this with such a compact case.The cooling of this case (unlike some others) is very well organized. The case fans and the air intake vents are placed on either side of the probable position of the CPU. I used the i5-2400 with its stock heatsink/fan and some Diamond thermal paste, and my CPU temperatures (there are 4) idle at around 35 C and go up to 50-60 C when stressed. It's possible that I did a bad job applying the thermal paste, but this is ok for now. The PCI-express slot is placed so that the possible video card heatsink/fan is next to an air vent.I think a very nice motherboard for this case is the ASUS P8H67-I Deluxe.You will probably also need one of those super tiny screwdrivers to secure the optical drive in place. I didn't have one, so I had to use... a razor blade.

This case has a purpose and it may not be what you are looking for. This includes a 1U power supply which is designed to run at full fan speed. 1U PSU's are generally used in enterprise environments where performance is more important than things like noise. This is a LOUD power supply. The fan is high pitched and will run loud and fast no matter what you do. As a professional I highly advise against replacing the fan with a Noctua like some folks do, they don't have the same cooling power these 1U stock fans have. They will become a hot fire hazard. Depending on your use case, you may be better off with a smaller case and a Pico power supply than using a 1U. That being said, the case is mostly good quality except the front panel. The case I ordered happened to be defective unfortunately, the LP PCIE slot was not cut properly and is about 4mm too small. This makes it unsuitable for my 4 port PCIE network card.

This is a great case for an HTPC or music server, but there are a couple of things you should know. The integral PSU has a thick wad of wires coming out that are difficult to route (this case is tight), I tried to replace it with a modular ITX PSU, but it did not fit this ITX case and it was not really modular (two separate cables and both were required). I removed the single Antec 80mm case fan and replaced it with two after market fans (room for two but only one provided). I used two of the ultra quiet 80mm nocturnal PWM fans and kept the anti-vibration rubber pads on. It is a tight fit but with patience and persistence you can make them work. I also used a low profile CPU cooler from the same manufacturer, and a high end thermal compound. It is silent and cool under a medium load. The case has a room for a single expansion PCIe 16x video board, but I wouldn't recommend it and realistically that's only for gamers. I can't imagine a gamer selecting this ITX case.You are going to want some very short (~6") SATA cables because the distance from an ITX mobo's SATA connectors to your devices' SATA connections is very short and long SATA cables are difficult to manage in this tight case. (Did I mention this case is tight?) Although Antec claims here's a space for a 3.5" HDD I can't imagine getting one to actually fit in there with everything else. Use one or two 2.5" SDDs, there's a nice place to mount them. There's even a nice place to mount a 12.7mm optical drive, but check its positioning and get it right BEFORE you mount it with those micro-screws (and work over a towel because you will drop one at least once). I recommend using an M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen3 4x SSD as a boot device and system disk, saving the SATA SSDs for file storage.