A computer purchased from a local mass merchant was brought to us because it would no
longer
boot up. Testing revealed a dead power supply unit. Since the small PSUs in these mini
tower computers cost as much if not more than a new mid sized tower with PSU, that was
our recommendation. Double checking, we visited the manufacturers web site and found that
they had replaced the original PSU rated at 150 watts with a PSU rated at 200 watts.
This may have been adequate for this computer in its original state, however, the customer
was planning to add an additional hard drive and a DVD-RW. This further reinforced our
recommendation of a new tower.
The tower this customer chose was the Athenatech A605 shown here in a "stock" photo.
On arrival we were pleasantly surprised with this case. It was much better than was
expected from an enclosure in it's price range. The enclosure appearance did not match
the stock photo very closely. The flat black front bezel had been replaced by glossy
black. The final appearance, of course, will depend on how the original optical drive
looks against the gloss black bezel.
This photo taken during assembly, clearly shows the gloss black of the bezel. The coloration around the large round blue power light is due to the gloss black trying to act like a mirror. The toolless assembly mechanisms on this case are also in blue. The hard drive bay has been pulled out a bit to draw attention to this feature. This arrangement provides extra room for disassembly. Removing a hard drive oriented in the other direction can sometimes be a daunting task.
Another nice feature is the inclusion of these Velcro cable tie straps. A set of 5 comes in the parts box. Only 4 are shown because we started using them before we thought to get a picture.
A rushed photo of the nearly finished job. The floppy drive needs a front bezel but appearance is ok otherwise. At one time there was an abundance of old floppy drives that could be robbed. Now our supply has run dry. The only criticism we have is that with the hard drives mounting sidewise the power cable for these drives needs to be longer. As is these cables do not reach the power connector of the mounted drives and certainly can't be tucked away neatly.
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