| Acousti Products AcoustiCase 340 Quiet Computer Case
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Installation (continued):
The next step was to install the power supply. While it isn't uncommon to need screws for this step, the installation was a bit tricky for another reason. The steel lip shown against the PSU in the below left image really made it an effort to get the unit installed. While this power supply is standard ATX size, the lip made the available space a couple millimeters smaller than I needed. I had to squeeze the PSU into place, and really push hard to one side in order to flex it into a position where I could thread the four screws to hold it in place.
 
Once the power supply was in place, I installed some case fans. I decided to use a pair of 1200RPM Noctua 120mm fans (reviewed here and available from Quiet PC USA here) as the intake and exhaust fans, and to save the provided AcoustiFan for use on the CPU cooler. The Acousti Fan Mounts popped into the holes in the case with ease, and with a bit of a tug on each one, the fans were popped on securely in no time and without tools. The images above show the exhaust fan, while the image below shows the intake fan.
The next step was to drop the motherboard into place. While the case is designed for up to an ATX form factor motherboard, it might get a little tight. The bottom edge of the motherboard would be up against the bottom of the case, and no matter what form factor you use, the front edge is right up against the drive cages. Not much room to work with while doing things like making drive connections, and you have to push the foam blocks out of the way for any clearance. Along the top edge of the board there is a nice gap, leaving plenty of room to work between the power supply and CPU heatsink, and some of the bigger / broader heatpipe coolers should fit just fine.
The images below show the system completed with a Cooler Master Hyper TX CPU cooler, which is an excellent choice for low noise operation. I initially planned to use a Thermalright cooler and the AcoustiFan provided by Quiet PC, but I couldn't find the LGA 775 motherboard mounts, and the Hyper TX has proven itself to be a strong performer that would fit in well in a quiet system build. Other quiet features used in this build include the Zalman VF900-Cu Dual Heatpipe VGA Cooler mounted to the PowerColor 128MB Radeon X800 GTO Graphics Card, and the Enermax Liberty power supply is quite quiet, as well.
 
The images above also show one suggestion for positioning the acoustic foam blocks when using just one hard drive and one optical drive. This setup will allow noise to be dampened, while still allowing proper air flow around the drives.
In the end everything fit well, but a few steps weren't as smooth as I have come to expect with most cases. One more feature that I pretty much expect to be tool-less these days is the expansion slots. In the AcoustiCase 340 you need to use screws to secure your video card and other items, and it just adds one more non-tool-less item to the mix.
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