Installing the rest of your goodies into the case is easy and doesn’t take much effort. Once you’ve got everything installed, you can hook up the front USB ports and front headphone/microphone jacks. The USB cables attach right to your motherboard’s USB headers but the audio cables will have to be routed through the back of the case to your audio ports. It’s not an elegant solution but it gets the job done. Aspire makes this look a nicer by having one of the slot covers cut to help hold the cable in place. Since you can remove both sides of the case, you can do some really creative things with your cabling.
The
X-Dreamer II comes with a decent 350W power supply but the power only provides two sets of power connectors outside of the floppy and Pentium 4 connectors. Remember those six 80mm fans? Well, they’re not going to power themselves are they? If you’ve got more than two devices, then you’re going to want to think about getting another power supply with more leads (or a bunch of Y-connectors). If you don’t have a lot of devices, then you should be in good shape with the one that comes with the case.
After getting everything hooked up and running, you will see how bright the LED’s on the front of the case are. They are almost too bright and I ended up having to put electrical tape over the ones on the top of the case so that I didn’t burn my eyes out. I also had some initial troubles with my DVD drive getting caught up on the drive cover but it seemed to get broken in after a few days of use.
I have been kvetching about the six fans a bit in this review but they do their job well. My average case temperature dropped from around 43 degrees Celsius in my old Antec Lanboy to around 32 degrees Celsius with the X-Dreamer II. Cooler is better and this case really delivers. The fans included with the case are on the loud side, though and while they aren’t Delta fan loud, they are certainly noticeable. They do a great job of pushing air through the case so it’s hard to complain too much.
Overall, it’s a decent case but while the price is fairly inexpensive you’re going to have to add four more fans on to the cost of the case (less if you want to cheap out) plus add on another PSU if you have more than two devices (or you could use a lot of Y splitters).
B
A solid, sharp-looking case for the money but buyers will need to purchase a few extra fans and possibly a new power supply.
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