APEX 2T35523 MI-008 Chassis

Hi there!Great little case if you had the right cooling. I'm using a 120mm fan on the side where the hard drive goes for an exhaust, just like a lot of people are saying. It pops right in and fits perfect! 120mm Coolermaster fans here at amazon do the job.I also put an 80mm fan UNDER the case beneath where the internal hard drive area is. I used a tool called a Nickel Plated Nibbling Tool that's actually sold here on amazon to cut out a 80mm hole. I don't know how to link the part numbers so I'm sorry about that.First you take an 80mm fan and mark the holes on the bottom of the case for the screw holes for the fan, then mount the fan and trace the INSIDE circle of the fan on the bottom of the case. Then take off the fan and drill a hole on the inside of the are you traced big enough to get the head of the nibbler in and nibble out the inside of the circle you traced. It does take a few minutes, but its worth it. Then just remount the fan on the inside of your case with the airflow going up inside.I have a "All in One Card Reader 3502B" bought here also. (all my stuff was bought here because I love the free shipping) It sits just above the 80mm fan and the airflow bounces off that and goes directly over the memory to CPU fan and power supply and is sucked out by the power supply and the 120mm exhaust.Once you install the rubber feet you have plenty of clearance for the fan underneath with a 80mm fan grill (make sure to pick one up) and nothing gets in the way. This would probably work if you had the case on its side too, as long as you don't block the fan.I also changed the fan inside the power supply with a ball bearing type. Coolerguys 80x80x15mm 12v sell them here on amazon. I had to cut the wires on them and I wired them to where the old fan was in the power supply and its the exact same size and works great.You probably don't have to do that, but with everyone talking about the sleeve bearing type being a bad investment so I went ahead and did it. The power supply was quiet before I did it and after so I can't tell you about the noise because really there was none before or after the the fan change. Just my peace of mind.I'm using a i3 2120 1155 on a Foxconn H61S Intel H61 motherboard also from amazon and it all works perfect! The power plug is in the perfect place for the 24 pin power plug on the motherboard where its below the DVD drive area. That way the 120mm fan on the side isn't hitting wires and the airflow exhaust isn't blocked.You can definitely only use single slot video card here if you need one. I'm using Sapphire 100357LP Radeon HD 7750 1GB Low Profile also bought here.Other single slot cards might fit, but I KNOW this one does and is is super quiet and requires no extra power. Works great on the provided 250 watt power supply. Also with the bottom fan mod it was kept cool. I game a little bit , just World of Warcraft and SWTOR kind of stuff. I'm on average at 95-100 frames per second and the lowest was 30 in a 25 man raid, but it never dropped below 30 and everyone was casting everything, so its good to go because I game for hours on end..not just 20 minutes.The Asus 24xDVD-RW Serial ATA Internal OEM Drive DRW-24B1ST (Black) fits just fine in this case. The power supply only has two SATA adapters, so if you have more then 1 HDD and the DVD drive you might want to buy and adapter for the four pin molex. I'm only using one HDD and the DVD so I'm good.I'm using a Western Digital WD Scorpio Black 750 GB SATA 2.5-Inch (from Amazon again) and I mounted it inside the case on the right side using a 2.5-inch SSD / HDD to 3.5-inch Bracket Mount Adapter. I took over the cover of the case and lined up the Bracket Mount Adapter and marked the two end holes and then drilled them out on the aluminum rail of the case.I then used normal hard drive screws to mount the laptop hard drive to the bracket, then mounted the bracket underneath with two regular hard driver screw from the top of the aluminum rail. Wish I had a way to take picture because it works perfect. The cover doesn't even hit the screws when it is installed because the screw heads are lower then the aluminum raised bumps for the cover.All in all here's what I bought here from Amazon or their sellers.MI-008 Tower Black P4 Chassis with 250W ItxFoxconn H61S Intel H61 Mini ITX DDR3 LGA 1155 Motherboard.Intel Core i3-2120 Dual-Core Processor 3.3 GHz 3 MB Cache LGA 1155 - BX80623I32120Western Digital WD Scorpio Black 750 GB SATA 3 GB/s 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Internal Bulk/OEM3.5" Floppy-bit Multi-function Panel All in One Card Reader 3502B2.5-inch SSD / HDD to 3.5-inch Bracket Mount Adapter (Nextronicus..its two pieces so you can do it twice!)Cooler Master 120mm Silent Case Fan 4-in-1 Value Pack - (R4-S2S-124K-GP) (good deal in case you want extras)Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory (CML8GX3M2A1600C9) Low profile!Sapphire 100357LP Radeon HD 7750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Video Card2 x Coolerguys 80x80x15mm 12v Fan 3 pin CG08015L12B2-3Y. One for underneath the case mod and the power supply.Masscool FG-2P-80MM 80mm Fan Guard/Grill - 2-Pack by MassCool (for the bottom fan. Use one on both sides.)Amico 100 Pcs 13mm x 13mm x 4mm Self Adhesive Cable Tie Mount Base Holder ( great to zip tie wires up)TEKTON 6233 Cable Ties, 500-Piece. (way to many but wow, perfect size..you NEED THESE)Nickel Plated Nibbling Tool (search that and it comes up)Windows 7 64 that I had already.I also had my own cordless drill and drill bits to start the hole for the nibbler.Now I didn't use the stock fan from the I3, though it would fit perfect. My friend had a stock fan from his 1155 I7 that has a copper core center. I figured better cooling? Might not be needed for an I3.It does fit and with everyone complaining that the power supply touches the CPU fan, well it does sit right on top and doesn't impair operation at all. If fact it seem to add support to the power supply so it doesn't sag down and makes my power supply not have any "give" since its only mounted by the four screws to an aluminum back. I have no idea why someone said an I7 stock cooler doesn't fit because the one for 1155 does.Other coolers I don't know. Looks like AMD people are having issues with coolers. My I3 with the I7 cooler fits just right.I know this was long and most probably wont read it this far, but with the right layout and proper planning this is a PERFECT case for a small gaming system on a 250 watt power supply. This one is very quiet.I have had no problems with cooling the I3 at all, and I might even go up to an I5. Great for this build, probably even better for a HTPC.I'm very happy with how this build turned out and wanted to prove this great little case could be decently built in and gamed with.Idling CPU is 41C, 30 minutes on Prime95 both cores never went above 61CIdling GPU is 33C, 30 minutes on FurMark 1.11.0 never went over 71CDidn't go longer because I was bored.I hope this helps someone.

This case serves my purpose (Home Theater PC), but I don't like the difficulty involved in making hardware adjustments. I've had to do some troubleshooting since putting my HTPC together, and I always dread it because of how crowded it is in this case. Also, I purchased an 80mm fan and because of how the case is designed (no intake in the front), I am losing cooling efficiency. Beyond the little design annoyances, it's not a bad case. It's small and sleek, and it looks nice under my TV. It also provides a lot of control through the BIOS and it runs quiet as a mouse without burning to the ground. All-in-all, I would recommend this if you're looking for something simple and affordable and don't mind dealing with small spaces.

I bought this case to build an HTPC, its small and has the built in power supply. However, the configuration of the power supply as a lot of people have mentioned before is not the greatest. It may not even leave enough space for certain stock CPU fans. I built this with a GIGABYTE GA-F2A88XN board paired with an AMD A4-5300 CPU and the gap between the CPU fan and the power supply fan is miniscule, luckily with this board configuration the CPU socket is offset from the position of the power supply in this case, thus its not directly underneath the power supply's hot fan. I installed an 80mm fan to the side of the case which improved the airflow inside the case quite a bit. Prior to the case fan installation the CPU fan consistently rotated at very high speeds. Despite its flaws its not a bad looking case, and for the price its a good value regardless.

*** UPDATE (2011/12/22) ***After about a year (and some months) of having this case (along with 2 other systems with this case) the first case I got (before I bought more) has started to get PSU problems. The system would only POST some of the time (rather than all), and I excluded all the other attached hardware (not much). If I use a different PSU from another system, the system boots without problems all of the time. If you are looking for a replacement PSU, be sure one is around the size of 5" x 4" x 2.5". The PSU in this case is probably super generic and probably isn't built for quality as much as the case. But most PSUs that come with cases are cheap generics anyway.With normal system load: > ~3.4V on SATA Orange (3.3V) > ~5.1V on IDE Red (5V) > ~12.46V on IDE Yellow (12V)Also spec wise, it is now completely different as everything was upgraded.The single Intel SSD is now in a bracket attached to another bracket attached to the 5.25" bay (for more airflow underneath).*** ORIGINAL REVIEW ***This case is pretty good.Specs: * Intel Desktop Board D510MO with integrated Intel Atom processor D510 - Motherboard - mini ITX - iNM10 - SATA-300 - Gigabit Ethernet - video - High Def * Kingston ValueRAM - Memory - 4 GB ( 2 x 2 GB ) - DIMM 240-pin - DDR2 - 800 MHz / PC2-6400 - CL6 - 1.8 V - unbuffered - non-ECC * 2 SNV425-64GBs, Kingston's cheap SSD thing. In a RAID0.Storage: I just got two SSDs dangling in the case, so hopefully they don't escape SATA cables and SATA power connectors. I also taped the CD drive bay shut so nobody tries sneaking a peek at the system.LEDs: The HDD LED (red) is super bright, bright enough when it flashes to give me nightmares where there are insane electrical storms causing with flashes (in the dark the red flash turns into a bluish white light), so yes LEDs give me nightmares. The HDD light also lights everything infront of it like a beam. Rumor has it that the power light is blue, but I got a green one thankfully. Blue LEDs should be banned as they are super bright and always illuminate half the room, so my green LED is nice. I thought the case had a dead power LED but it turns out that I just attached it wrong, the HDD and Power LEDs can swap + and - to provide multiple colors I think anyway, but I don't know if the case even does that since I never standby.Fans: This case has no fans (excluding the power supply) and no place for any fans but I got one anyway. I placed a 120mm fan in it anyway and made it fit, I won't be able to get it out though. I placed it on the right side at the front of the case and squeeze slided it as much as I could to the back of the case along the right case wall until the blades hit the rim of the fan, once I heard the clicking sound I moved it back a bit. So basically 1 inch of the fan is covered. In short, in a room that averages between 75F and 85F, my board and system temperature stay low. During the last day it remained at 40C (board) and 31C (cpu). Before I put a fan in at all the system went up to 60C and jumped wildly all over the place but a fan smooths out mountains nicely.Power Usage: Irrevelant to the article but if you were wondering, it draws maybe 20-30W?Durability: The case appears pretty durable and resisted my attempts to force technology into it. Somehow when installing the system the board connector plate thing that goes into the rectangular slot wouldn't fit, I then noticed that it was bent out (above), so I just pushed it back in and it fit fine. The primary case frame and the base is very strong though, you can just easily bend the areas full of holes since it's thinner metal.Noise: This case doesn't make any real noise at all even with a jamed in fan.