Project OCCC: AOpen HX-08 Case Review

Introduction

As I launched into what would ultimately become known as Project OCCC, I was looking for a roomy case with lots of flexibility. The finished project is to be used in reviewing hardware and so will see lots of parts swapping in and out. In addition, it has to have enough room to accomodate a fairly serious DangerDen water cooling setup. After much looking around, I eventually picked the AOpen HX-08 server tower. Today I'll show you what it is, what I liked, and what could use improvement in their design.

Courtesy AOpen's website

Let's get to work

The case is a 23.25" tall (24.5" with feet) server tower, compatible with ATX, micro ATX and full AT form factor motherboards. The HX-08 measures 16.5" from front to back, the internal measurement is 15". Side to side it's 7.75" - not as wide as, for example, a LianLi - I would have preferred it was about 1" wider by the time I was done.

And finally, it weighs in at 28.5 lbs/13 kg. This is no lightweight case, being constructed of heavy duty 1mm steel. It's a bit of a chore to lug around, especially when fully configured with the water cooling kit, but weight was absolutely no consideration in my choice. If you mod this case, expect to stock up on reinforced dremel wheels, I went through about 10 in the course of the project. There's very little chance you will accidentally dent or bend any piece of the case, it's very solid construction indeed. And the edges are all bent in, I spent literally hundreds of hours handling the case and never caught a finger on a sharp edge.

Design flaw

Stripped

Measuring

Disassembling the case is standard fare, with one exception - the top has to be completely removed in order to open up the sides of the case. There is a small 'flap' of steel that extends down from the top at the rear of the case and prevents the sides from sliding out towards the back of the case. As the sides are on a track or rail and have to be slid the full length of the case to be removed, there is no getting around removing the top first. Well, 5-10 minutes with a dremel and this was fixed but I view this as a serious design flaw - why should users have to remove the top in order to access 90% of the internals?

Upper section

There are slots for 7 - 3.5" drives plus 1 3.5" floppy, and 5 - 5.25" external drives - more than ample for just about any setup. If you actually use a floppy in its designed location at the very top front of the case, you will have a chore finding a floppy cable long enough to reach the motherboard. Yes, 24" floppy cables are out there, but not easy to find. It would have been nice if AOpen would have included a floppy cable with the case, given this somewhat unique configuration. Also unique in my experience is the removable drive cage above the power supply. It is a removable cage, suspended from the top of the case frame and held in place by 2 standard case screws. It has capacity for 4 - 3.5" drives, with the other 3 going in the more conventional drive cage in the lower front portion of the case.

The power supply that came with the case is actually pretty decent. I'm not sure if AOpen manufacture them or contract them out but they are much superior to the 'typical' generic power supply you would find included with a case. According to their website, there are options for 300W, 350W and 400W ATX P4 ready switching power supplies with the HX-08. This case came with the 300W model, which is happily cruising along in (my wife's) AMD Thunderbird 1400 system providing the following voltages: 3.3v rail = 3.33v, 5v rail = 4.95v, 12v rail = 12.22v. The power supply has significant weight to it, which you can take as a *very general* sign of quality in a power supply. No, it's not up there with the Enermax's and Antec's but for a general purpose/stock power supply it's more than adequate.

Slide-out motherboard tray

One prime consideration in my purchase was the slide-out motherboard tray, given that components are likely to be switched frequently. It secures to the frame of the case with up to 6 standard case screws. It slides out along both upper and lower rails which are a very tight fit, I don't even bother to use screws to secure it to the frame it's so tight. As mentioned above, there are plenty of motherboard mounting options/form factors supported and a good supply of brass mounting spacers come with the case.

You can also see in the picture above that there are mounting and ventilation holes for 2 - 80mm fans above the power supply. Looking back up at the picture of the upper section, you can see that AOpen have left space between the upper rear drive cage and the frame of the case so that you could use fans mounted here to either cool drives or exhaust from the case, or both.

Lower section