Antec 900 for newbies?

JohnJSal

JohnJSal

Active Member
Ok, I'm finally getting to the point where I'm about to start ordering components and I want to decide on everything first. I've heard that the Antec 900 isn't very easy for the inexperienced to work with, and I just want to know exactly why. Is it something that I will have a lot of trouble with, or just little quirks that won't be so bad? I like the case and don't want trouble with my first built, but also don't want to be scared away from it unnecessarily.

Two things in particular I've read are:

1. The mobos sometimes don't line up flush with the back I/O panel. This seems weird to me. Not sure if it depends on the mobo, or if the case just isn't designed properly.

2. Cables from the PSU sometimes don't reach the mobo. Again, this is something that seems fairly significant. I at least want to know what types of extensions I need and order those with everything else as well.

Thanks.
 
I run the 900 here and find only a few things that have to be mentioned. The back panels do line up. It's matter of getting used to how the case is there.

Your supply should have the extra 4wire molex connectors used on ide type drivers for power. The case fans used those rather then plugging into the board itself.

The case includes a black plastic 3 1/2" to 5 1/4" drive bay adapter for seeing a floppy drive go in since there is no external 3 1/2" drive bay typical of a standard case since this is a flexible gaming style model. For a good full size atx board it could have used a little more space between the top drive bays and the board while the top harness of wires for the power, reset, additional usb ports can be fed down and secured with the plastic ties seen.

The bays for hard drives pull forward once you unscrew the large headed thumb screws for ease there. That's how to get the one or more hard drives in. The design of the case also allows for seeing six 5 1/4" bays and one for hard drives or the default twin bays seeing the pair of 120mm blue led fans.

Get a board with a lot of sata ports for both hard drives and new sata type optical drives and you will see more space available inside. Other then that it's been a good case here for the last several months.
 
JohnJSal said:
1. The mobos sometimes don't line up flush with the back I/O panel. This seems weird to me. Not sure if it depends on the mobo, or if the case just isn't designed properly.

2. Cables from the PSU sometimes don't reach the mobo. Again, this is something that seems fairly significant. I at least want to know what types of extensions I need and order those with everything else as well.
Click to expand...

I've never had those problems. :)
 
mep916 said:
I've never had those problems. :)
Click to expand...

Well, that's good to know! At least it isn't a guaranteed issue then. Would you say there are any other tricky things when building with this case?

It's just that I like the look of this case, and I hear the air flow is great, and I really haven't found any other case that I want to use, especially since I don't like having a front door, which other Antec models have.
 
There's no major problems with the design once you are familiar with how it is setup. The supply installs at the bottom not at the top like most case there to note.

I simply put a 700w model in upside down to allow for the cooler air coming in from the front to pass right over the bottom inverted upward to help cooling there rather then the small space seen when facing the bottom of the supply down. No heat from a supply gets trapped at the top of the case there.

In addition to large gap of space between board and supply you also see the 200mm top fan take care of any warm air while other cases see heat trapped around the upper drive bays unless seeing vented drive bay plates. It sees dynamic air flow when compared to a good number of other case styles and types.
 
You have to have a PSU with long leads for certain motherboards. Otherwise you can get an extension. To build, the case is a pain in the butt (and certainly colleagues of mine have mentioned the same). Once it's built, though, and you're not screwing around in it every week like I am, it's fine.
 
JohnJSal said:
Well, that's good to know! At least it isn't a guaranteed issue then. Would you say there are any other tricky things when building with this case?
Click to expand...

The Antec 900 was the case I used for my first build. Here's a couple problems I experienced.

-Installing the 3.5 external drive bay adapter was a little difficult. If you don't plan on installing a floppy drive or media card reader you probably don't need to worry about it.

-There's not a lot of room to work with. This is probably true with most mid-tower cases, however.

-There's tons of screws. This case is not, by any means, screwless.

-The fans are loud when set on high or medium, IMO. I've set everything on low and haven't witnessed a significant increase in temps.

Antec has revised the 900 since I purchased mine. They've added a few holes inside the case that allow you to route the cables behind the motherboard. I'd recommend using a modular PSU so that you don't have any unused cables sitting on the bottom of your case.

JohnJSal said:
It's just that I like the look of this case, and I hear the air flow is great, and I really haven't found any other case that I want to use, especially since I don't like having a front door, which other Antec models have.
Click to expand...

Yeah, those are all the features I like about the 900, too. :)
 
I disappointed to hear about the fans on your case there mep916 since the ones here are actually quiter on the 900 then on the previous AeroCool model. That was mainly the fans it came with and not the two Antec blue led 120s I added with one of those still in use on the 900's side cover.

Lack of room is certain for water cooling resavoirs from what I've been hearing at times. With the make and model board here I found it could be slightly deeper in length to allow for not cramming any round ide cables while the OCZ supply in seems to have slack to a degree for it's rails ebough to reach the front fans as well as the top of the case for the 200mm fan there.
 
It still an annoyance regardless unless you are running a media player or have something going other then the system like a tv or stereo where that is drowned out fast. Late at night when everything quiets... :mad: "noisey fans!" :P
 
On low they are quiet. On medium or high they are indeed very loud, much louder than other Antec cases and fans I've used (the SOHO file server case quickly comes to mind). However, if you have lots of junk crammed in your case or you like to tweak, you'll not mind sacrificing the noise level for performance.
 
If both front fans are installed, how many drive bays do you have access to in the front? It looks like the top three are still available, but I can't quite tell if the top fan cuts into the space of the third drive bay.

And I guess if you install both fans, you can't use those bottom six bays?
 
With both fans installed in the front, you have access to the top three bays externally, the bottom six bays internally.
 
Kornowski said:
Well, it depends how you have them arranged I guess...
Click to expand...

Well, what I will have is a CD drive (at the top) and a hard drive, internal, probably more toward the bottom. So that's pretty much it, I just wanted to see how exactly it worked and if the fans got in the way. As long as the fans don't prevent you from using the internal bays, then it should be ok for me.
 
JohnJSal said:
Well, what I will have is a CD drive (at the top) and a hard drive, internal, probably more toward the bottom. So that's pretty much it, I just wanted to see how exactly it worked and if the fans got in the way. As long as the fans don't prevent you from using the internal bays, then it should be ok for me.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that will work fine. One of the primary reasons for having intake fans in the front is to help cool the internal hard drives.
 
mep916 said:
Yeah, that will work fine. One of the primary reasons for having intake fans in the front is to help cool the internal hard drives.
Click to expand...

Do those front fans help cool the whole computer, or are they just for the HDs? Because two fans for my single HD seems like overkill. :)
 
With the capabilities of seeing 6 HDs or 6 5 1/4" drive bays since the case is flexible the 120s are simply mounted on the two 3 HD bays that are removable. But regardless of not only seeing hard drive temps lowered having that cooler air brought in does cool other things as well.

Simply take a look at cases without front or side intake fans. One case was that way when a new board suddenly saw higher temps like 48C. Once everything went into the case seen here...



namely the AeroCool AeroEngine II model with a 140mm front fan the board was then seeing only 31C. The cpu temp despite a Zalman 9500 siting on top of it dropped from 46C down to 33C. The 140 sits right in front of the drive bays there yet the board and other things saw lower temps simply by seeing that there.

Their other model looks even better still seeing the front 140 but also a 250mm on the side at http://www.xoxide.com/aerocool-extremengine-3t-black.html

 
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