Cases come in all kinds of sizes and shapes. There’s a case for just about every use of a computer. Today we are going to take a look at an InWin case meant for small areas, such as a home theater PC, for which I will be using the case.
Never hear of InWin before? Neither had I. InWin was founded in 1986 and started coming to the US market in 1999. It's still a really new company, but is rapidly expanding. Today we are going to look at the InWin BL631 mATX case with a 300 watt PSU. HTPC cases are usually expensive, but this one works for those on a budget. Is it worth it compared to your typical HTPC case that costs twice as much?
A look around
After unpacking the case I found something odd -- or didn't find something, more like it. There were no instructions. I know it may be simple to put a computer in a case, but I expected the company to at least provide some kind of documentation. There are some plastic parts inside which look like they might be used for funneling cool air to the CPU, but I'm not really sure with no instructions.
The front of the case is really simple-looking. It has a 5.25" bay into which I put my DVD burner, and an external 3.5" bay. The front also has the power/restart buttons, and some front panel USB and audio ports.
I like the black color of the case and the blue strip running across the front of it. It fits nicely into a home entertainment center. My only gripe is that the light that tells you the hard drive is spinning is orange. Why orange? It sticks out like a sore thumb; why not blue?
Once we open it up, things look like a mess. Where is the computer supposed to go?
After removing everything we can finally get into putting the PC together and in there.
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