Date: November 15th, 2003
Article by: Roger (Hardware Reviewer)
Product was donated by: Aerocool / MyDreamingPC.com
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PRODUCT INSTALLATION (cont'd)

Time to assemble the top. And just like the bottom, make certain to align the bars correctly. It doesn't make mention of this in the manual, assuming I guess that you learned your lesson the first time, and won't make the same mistake twice.

You have to secure your PSU via supplied screws and L brackets. If you are very unsure about this, thinking it will not be held tightly enough, don't sweat it. It hooks up to three sliders on two bars and once installed, it is very stable.

I applied pressure to it once it was in, and there was absolutely no give. If you are anal however, you can install a crossbar that will support the back end of the PSU.

At this point, the manual became pretty much useless. The pictures looked nothing like what I was making, and the futility of it was making me see red at times (and I don't mean the blood here and there).

The CD-ROM/burner/floppy are a little more complex in terms of installation. You definitively have to add a horizontal crossbar to support the front. I wasn't sure if I'd added enough sliders before I'd installed the PSU and nearly had a heart attack thinking that I'd have to unscrew it and insert some. Luckily, I'd added two.

Then you have to install a vertical crossbar to support the back. If you designed the case differently, you could add a horizontal crossbar to support the back. Because of the way that I put this together however, the PSU was in the way. I could have gone under the PSU to support it as well, but at this point, I just wanted this thing done.

The next step is securing the HDD. I decided to jump right over this step, as I had no interest in trying to figure out where I would shove it in my case. I had made several quick decisions in regards to where I would place the PSU and the devices and because of that, there wasn't as much room (or available sliders) for me to pop the HDD in.

The final step was setting up the power switch.

The manual tells you to setup up the plastic standoffs and screw it all into the front base bar. There were no standoffs in my kit. I don't know if they were missing, or if AeroCool expects you to buy your own. Regardless, that meant that the power switch wasn't getting installed.

All done.

At this point, I noticed that there was not a single extra #1 screw. Heaven help you if you lose one. There were, however, 3 long and 3 short bars left over, as well as many other screws (the #2s) and sliders.