Silverstone Lascala LC20M HTPC case

Assembly

The case, for the most part, assembles like a dream. The drives went in effortlessly, the motherboard went in with no problem, and the motherboard's backplate even fit comfortably. As you can see by the pictures, I assembled this unit with a micro ATX board with plenty of room to spare. I also test-fitted it with a full ATX board and found it to be more than adequate. The only unusual thing about the build process itself is the VFD power, which comes off of a 24-pin power extension (which also breaks down to 20+4 for older systems). This is largely unnecessary, as most PSUs come with a 24 to 20 pin converter, and a floppy drive molex connector could have been used for the VFD. That would have cut down on unnecessary cabling.

I built the system to have enough power for my multitasking needs, but also of sufficient silence for living room use. The only running fan in the unit was my Zalman Cu7000 on the CPU, all other equipment was passive. Aside from just being chosen for silence, this allowed me to test the natural airflow of the case and its ability to combat heat. The specs are:

• Motherboard - DFI Infinity RS482
  
• CPU - AMD A64 3500+ Venice Core
  
• PSU - Antec Phantom 350 Passive
  
• GPU - XFX 6600LE 256mb Passive
  
• DVD - Samsung 16x DVD-RW
  
• HDD - Seagate 200GB SATA and Seagate 400GB Sata-II with NCQ

It is worth noting two things about my assembly experience. First, this case is going to be used in an area where noise should be of great concern. Therefore, I would have really liked to see some more detail go into silencing straight from the manufacturer. The HDD bays and all fan screw holes could (and in this writer's humble opinion, should) have contained rubber or silicone grommets for noise silencing. Also, the steel under the PSU should have a small silicone pad to reduce vibrations. These additions would cost little to Silverstone, and would mean a great deal to the consumer.

My second point of contention is the VFD hookup. The unit comes with four USB ports on the front, which takes up the two internal headers that most motherboard providers have on-board. Therefore, most people will run the USB cord out the back to connect to the motherboard externally. However, there is no hole provided to do this, so you must instead pull out another expansion slot cover. This unfortunately provides just one more place for dust to get into the system. It would have been nice to see them at least provide one cover modified for the purpose of running this cord through.

With that said, neither of these problems are things that a resourceful modder cannot solve themselves. In fact, the case is full of potential for modding. With all of the room, it would be no problem to sacrifice the use of one of the HDD bays and install the necessary components for quite a nice watercooling setup, for example. A small-bore setup with an intelligently placed radiator would function well....