I'd been using an Aspire X-Qpack for years, originally as a server running XP but for the last year or more with WHS.
I had to stick to a similar form factor due to where the case would be placed and came across the Lian Li V300 - Ideal I thought. The 80mm fans didn't appeal though but I'd heard of people modding them to fit 120mm fans. I then stumbled upon the newer V350 and bought that instead.
I wanted to get as much storage in the case as possible so had to get a caddie to convert the 2 5.25" bays into 3 3.5" bays and the Icy Box 453 seemed to fit the bill.
So here is what I had;
This is what I've ended up with (no PSU fitted in the img below)
I had planed to use either an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro or a Thermalright XP120 but I couldn't. The AC was too tall and I couldn't find the bolts for the XP120 mounting bracket.
I had no choice but to stick with the AMD heatpipe cooler. CPU is an Opteron 144 (1.8Ghz) and the AC fan spins fast enough to cool it and slow enough not to be a nuisance. I've placed the fan so it sucks air upwards and I'll keep an eye on it for now. CPU idles around 28°C (measured by Core Temp). I used an in-line resistor (either 5 or 7v, I don't know!) to slow the 120mm fan down. I'm only using the fan nearest to us in the pic.
I'm using an Icy Box multi bay backplane, but had to ditch the supplied fan which I replaced with a Papst I had laying about. Hard drives in the caddy are 20°C, 23° and 24°C with the coolest being a new Samsung F1.
The bios defaulted when removed from the old case and I had a scary moment when it wouldn't boot, but it seems to be running like a dream now.
Good move and a highly recommended small server case (there's room for 5 HDD's).
D.
