what's the word on this Supermicro case?

well_balanced · Post by **well_balanced** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:00 pm

Anyone have experience w/ the Supermicro SC733T variants?
http://www.supermicro.com/products/chas ... 3T-450.cfm

some more photos from Newegg.

Here is the only thing resembling a review I've found so far:
http://www.amazoninternational.com/html ... hassis.asp

Supermicro is not exactly synonymous w/ low noise but then again they generally produced well-engineered gear. My instinct is that, to Supermicro, "low-noise" is a probably a relative term. However, they may have approached this seriously.

It's not a terribly pretty case but, at the moment, it seems that there aren't a whole lot of cases designed w/ low-noise in mind that can also accomodate an E-ATX board. The hot-swap SATA backplane is another really nice feature that isn't very common and eliminates a lot of cable management issues.

I'd love to see a detailed review of this or comments on silencing potential. Perhaps some fan swaps, insulation and fan grill removal?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:02 am

I've used that same Supermicro removable drive rack and the word on it is "noisy but nice". It comes stock with a noisy 92mm fan . I tried swapping it out for an L1A Panaflo, but the Panaflo (at 5-7V) didn't move enough air to cool the couple of Seagate drives that I had in the cage.

Doesn't that Fong Kai 330 (reviewed on the main SPCR site) take E-ATX boards?

Post by **Rusty075** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:57 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:Doesn't that Fong Kai 330 (reviewed on the main SPCR site) take E-ATX boards?

Yes, usually. (or perhaps supposedly)

As listed by Fong-Kai, the 330 does support E-Atx. But there has been a report or two from people who have bought the case, only to find that it has an ATX-only mounting plate.

Apparantly this case in manufacturered in a variety of configurations based on the retailers request. (as are lots of cases, especially from companies like Fong-Kai that do lots of semi-custom jobs for OEM's).

Before you buy one, you'd do well to confirm with the seller that it really does have the E-ATX/ATX mounting plate. Some resellers seem to just regurgitate the spec's from Fong-Kai's website, and don't correct them for the actual sub-model that they have in stock. (Although they don't do direct sales, the guys at Fong-Kai do seem to be pretty helpful for getting customers accessories that the retailers didn't include, so even if you do get one that doesn't have the right plate, all is not necessarily lost.)

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 7:30 pm

The mounting plate is irrelevent for mounting EATX boards in the Fong Kai 3xx cases; it is the drive configuration that matters. If the case has three 5.25" drive bays, then an EATX board will NOT fit. OTOH, if it has 2 5.25" drive bays and 4 internal HDD bays, then an EATX board WILL fit. The latter I know only from FKUSA, and I have no reason not to believe them.

I have one of the 3XX cases with 3 FDD bays, and I had to resort to dremel surgery for an EATX board to fit.

DrJ