Being a small town outfit, we don't normally have more than one work project at a time. Occasionally, this does occur, as with this project and the project on the previous page. As a result, there are two projects and web pages in the process of assembly at this time. Not to mention the occasional attempt to improve the performance of the first Vista/SLI machine, a few pages previous, that has become our "tech" computer.
Usually we use pictures on these pages that we have taken ourselves to avoid copyright infringement. This picture was removed from the carton in which the Thermaltake Lanbox was shipped and received then scanned and included here to show the versatility of this enclosure. This box was designed for microATX form factor mother boards and standard sized power supply units. It features a top handle, a window on each side and totally modular construction. Really, we are not a Thermaltake subsidiary. Our last two customers just happened to choose Thermaltake boxes.
Here is the Lanbox in a P&MC original photo without the mini-monitor. As there are only two 5.5 inch drive bays, the mini-monitor limits you to just one optical drive. Since this computer is being built for a music lover, at least one bay will have an optical drive the other to be used for either another drive or a sound card "break out panel" should these ever become available again.
The internal construction appears to be a hybrid version of a tower and an old style desktop case, with a priority on air flow through the case to prevent heat problems. Due to the abundant use of thumbscrews the framework comes apart much easier than the old desktop cases did. The desktop style of enclosure has made a recent comeback, these days its called a Home Theater PC.
The rear panel view of this main board reveals a connection that has been missing on the last couple of projects, the LPT/parallel port. Since this Asus M2NPV-VM comes with Vista support drivers, it hasn't been just sitting around in a warehouse. This suggests that perhaps the LPT/parallel port is not necessarily on the road to extinction. I suppose a bit of research on the web would reveal manufacturers plans for this aging port. Included in the rear panel is an IEEE 1394 connection and a second connector is provided on an expansion slot module. The connection that is missing on this board is the COM/serial port, however, connections are provided for an expansion slot module if this port is required.
The front view of the main board shows another connection that has been missing on the last couple of projects, the secondary IDE/ATA. Since the enclosure was to be rather compact, we opted for an energy efficient CPU that uses 65 watts rather than 80 to 90 watts consumed by other CPU's on these pages. The AMD 64 X2 5000+ is supported with 2 OCZ PC2-6400 1 Gb. memory modules. Vista seems to run quite well with 2 Gb of RAM installed.
Having become accustomed to the quality of Asus mother boards, this slightly askew heat sink on the nVidia support chip caught our eye. Once attention was focused here the clip holding the heat sink in place became noticeable. Curious as this may be, we resisted any attempts to straighten or otherwise tamper with this arrangement. It is much safer to go online to find out what is beneath the heat sink and whether or not they intend to make this chip replaceable.
As anticipated, the internal construction of this case is very similar to some old style desktop enclosures. Furthermore, disassembly is as easy as mentioned earlier. The old style computer cases did not have the dual exhaust fans shown here or the front intake fan that hides behind the bottom grill of the face plate which does not show up well in these photos due to the color.
Shown here is a better view of the video card, a Gigabyte model GVRX13P256DERH, the same model as used in the previous computer with the Radeon X1300 chipset. This card performed quite well in the other computer.
This rear panel view shows how the heat pipe exchanges heat from the video card out the back panel. Once the sound card has been mounted this back panel will be nearly full.
This is a view of the main board with the sound card in place and now ready for front panel connections. Quarters are a bit tight, which can be expected on a micro ATX motherboard. The component leads are a bit long on the trace side of the sound card circuit board, which under other configurations would not be a problem. As a precautionary measure, electrical insulating material was applied to the heat pipe radiator of the video card to reduce the chance of a short between it and the sound card. Hopefully, this will have minimal effect on the heat transfer of the radiator. If necessary, there is provision for mounting an extra 60mm fan just above these expansion cards. The sound card that finally went into this machine was a Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio. Unfortunately this card does not have the "AD link" needed for the break out panel originally planned for this unit. Sound Blaster had been getting blasted in recent reviews. The sound quality produced by this card should change a few minds.
Well, did it again, got so busy hooking up the front panel connections and putting everything together that pictures of the intermediate steps were forgotten. On the other hand, this page has loads of pics already. At any rate, here is the Lanbox happily downloading Windows updates. When the updates are finished and everything is running right, perhaps some shots of the side windows can be included here. At this point the Windows Experience Index base score for this machine is 4.2 and is probably where it will stay unless new drivers come out that improve this score.
Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Windows, Windows XP and Windows Vista are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other names have been included in the above text that are trademarks of the respective companies.
