Date: October 9th, 2007
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Moneual Labs
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PRODUCT PICTORIAL AND WALKTHROUGH
The sides have a unique, louvered appearance that hides some air vents/fan placements. We'll take a closer look a bit later. This photo also shows off the very nice brushed finish in evidence throughout the MonCaso 932B chassis.
Aluminum feet with rubber pads serve to isolate vibration and protect the finish of your entertainment center. Here, you can also see the use of steel inserts to provide strong, strip-resistant anchor points for most of the fasteners.
The rear of the chassis has a rather conventional design, although laid on its side, with PSU and I/O shield space, two 80mm exhaust fans and…
…a nickel-plated expansion slot panel providing six useable slots. The last slot provides egress for the video cable from the front screen. Sadly, this fixture isn't easily moved to another location and may interfere with PCI slots on some motherboards, a precious commodity in HTPCland. Removing two chrome thumbscrews allow us to slide the top off and get a look inside.
Room and cooling are always issues which chassis designers struggle with, and this is especially true with a HTPC case. The 932 has room for four HDDs and an ODD, card reader and 7-inch monitor while still leaving ample room for a full size ATX mobo and PSU. The two hard drive cages are removable and each is cooled with an 80mm intake fan. We'll take a closer look at the cooling scheme, as well as the electrical connections, during the installation phase of this review.
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