Installation

For a small case like this, its fully modular design certainly helps when it comes down to installing your components.  The small case supports MicroATX motherboards that can easily be mounted on its slide out tray.  For testing, I decided to use the AMD heatpipe cooler bundled with a select few of their dual core processors.  This cooler actually performs pretty good and is quiet.  A perfect choice for this kind of setup.  The excellent BIOSTAR TForce6100-939 microATX motherboard was also used.

The PSU and optical drive cage can be removed for easy install.  However, you will need to remove a total of six screws using a screwdriver to remove the PSU cage.  While there are plenty of thumb screws on this case, this is one that doesn't sport them because it would interfere with the top panel.  Now, note the vertical 3.5" cover on the left of the optical drive bays.  You can install a floppy drive here or as their website states, a RaptorX drive.  When they say "support for Raptor X drive", they mean that you can install one of these window drives on the vertical mount and can be seen from its side window.  Basically, just a small touch to make an impression on your LAN buddies.

**click to enlarge**

If you do install a hot running drive, I would recommend you install it on the inner drive cage though.  It is right in front of the 90mm intake fan and will provide adequate cooling.  Now, I personally like to install drives securely on a case.  With the LanBox Deluxe, this wasn't possible.  A design flaw is certainly the drive cage, as it would only allow you to mount the drive with only two screws instead of four.  You do have four screw mounts, but your drive will not lineup properly, forcing you to only use two of them.  Not exactly sure why they designed the cage this way, but I guess no product is perfect.

Some final shots with all components installed.  Now, I decided to use the Ultra X-Connect Modular PSU for this setup.  The fan grill was a very minor issue and I had to somewhat force it into place.  Second, was the super large connectors on this unit, which forced me to mount the optical drive cage before I could connect the main power cable to the PSU.   My point here is that despite how small this chassis is, there is indeed plenty of room to accommodate just about all your components quite well.

Performance

Cooling Performance

Before we get to it, let's have a brief look at the test system specs...

All temps were captured using SpeedFan at both stock and max OC.  The results are shown in the graph below...

Noise levels

The fans on the LanBox are not that loud at all, as they don't spin at incredibly high speeds.  In fact, the model without the handle will make a suitable case to use in a new HTPC build as long as you choose your components wisely and opt for a low noise cooling solution.  I say this because there are many vents on this case and it does not isolate sound as well as most standard cases. 

Drive Bays

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Finally, I was quite pleased that the stealth drive bays actually worked very well.  I've found that a majority of these are completely useless and some have forced me to remove the tray bezel on the optical drive in order to make them work.  That's not the case here.  Install your drive as is, and the covers will not jam when opening or closing the drive tray.  They are slightly flimsy though so you do want to be careful not to pick up the case by the covers or apply any kind of pressure on them.

Next: Conclusions