Aspire X-Cruiser - Behind the Case Front

One of my biggest pet peeves with cases is the top-to-bottom style drive cage, and wouldn't you know, it turned out not to be a big deal.

Removable drive cages or the kind where the 3.5" drives are positioned sideways are still a bit handier. You can also see in this picture the two 80mm fan ports for the front of the case. As seen on the next page, it seems like Aspire might have been considering a 120mm fan but then chose to go with two 80s at the last minute without wanting to change the cool looking design they had going on with the front bezel.

Again, a hole saw could solve this problem very quickly. Also shown below is the beginning of a whole lot o' wires. Naturally you have wires for the power and reset switches, as well as the power and hdd LED wires. But on top of that, you have the wires for the Firewire port, USB ports, audio jacks, temp sensor, fan controller, and Front LEDs.

Though I'm grateful for all the useful features, these wires were a bit of a PITA to get situated while installing all my hardware. A positive thing to note about the wires are the USB and Firewire connectors.

Aspire wisely chose the pre-configured connectors, rather than the kind where you have to connect each wire individually to the motherboard. It might seem like something small, but this is fantastic. On normal cases, connecting those wires to the corresponding pins on the motherboard invariably forces you to pull out your mobotherboard manual to figure out what goes where, plus working with little wires can be a headache and a half if you have sausage fingers like me. So although it may not look like much, Aspire has done us a favor here.

Next: Fan Controller and VU Meter >>
 

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