THE ANTEC KS282 MID-TOWER COMPUTER
CASE
Last updated: 11/10//99
PLASTIC. The front
panel has a very attractive appearance--very professional--exceptionally
good taste. The nicely sculptured front is complemented by attractive,
oval-blue Power-on and Reset switches. The LEDs are nicely arranged
and labeled. The manufacture's one inch square label insert is well
located at the middle of the panel and well up from the bottom. Gone are
the useless turbo LED and switch and the key lock--good riddance! The
panel is quite securely fastened to the chassis with solid plastic tabs,
but is rather difficult to remove without practice.
The speaker is attached to inside of the center
of front panel just above manufacture's label. It is a small 3/8" diameter
by 5/16" long cylinder
The plastic expansion card edge support/optional
front chassis fan mounting assembly is the best of any I can remember seeing. The
fan snaps in place very securely and the assembly fits snugly against the
front of the chassis to provide a fairly good air seal around the fan. The
fan sucks air into the chassis where the front panel bows out at the bottom. This
assembly is further secured by a single screw. It isn't going to pop
loose during shipping.
The case has plastic fold-out legs which are
attached to the bottom of the chassis. They are quite sturdy, but certainly
breakable.
All of the plastic is very solid stuff with
no edges or corners that are going to break when the side and top covers
are removed.
POWER SUPPLY AND COOLING. This
case not only looks good, it does a superb job of cooling a fully loaded,
top-of-the-line computer. I built a loaded 650 Mhz Athlon computer
(there will be more on that in later articles--stay tuned) with this case
and added two optional Antic chassis fans (# 77038) and a ChipCoolers
HTS421B-SB Athlon CPU Fan to the package. Nothing in it
gets hot; hardly warm; not worth measuring. It's one cool dude, gamers!
 The
diagram to the right came out of AMD's
Athlon Processor Thermal Solution. It looks like a KS282 except
the 282 has more room around the drive bays, ventilation above the power
supply, and vents on the sides and above the expansion boards at the back. I
will note that the power supply in the diagram exhausts air from the chassis
like the 282 and does not direct it in and towards the back of the motherboard
for CPU cooling as preferred in the ATX
specification--it's no big deal and, maybe, in comparison to
this scheme, sucking air in is a bad idea. Now, add two of the optional
fans (most computers I build do not need the optional fans or 300 Watt power
supplies). One goes at the lower left corner and pushes air into the
chassis and the other mounts above and behind the processor and helps the
power supply push it out as it draws air away from the Athlon and AGP board. You
can't get much cooler than this without resorting to refrigerants.
I think it would be a good idea to start
designing cases with a filter at the lower left corner in the above diagram
and between the plastic and metal to trap dirt that will be sucked into
the case from the bottom, especially if the case is put on the floor. Also,
case manufactures, etc. could make some extra money selling filters...
This case comes with an Antec PP303X 300 Watt
ATX power supply (and is available with a 230 Watt power supply). Peering
between the ventilation slots in the supply, one sees some heavy-duty heat
sinks and components (I didn't open it to investigate further--I couldn't
afford to bust the warrantee). Let's say it looks like a very good
supply. It is also a smart power supply. It has a thermal-controlled,
variable-speed fan which, obviously, adjusts its speed to the temperature
of the computer. In the computer I built with the two optional
fans, the power supply fan hardly runs at all. I would guess that the
only thing it needs to cool in a configuration like that is the power supply
itself.
I counted one 3 1/2" and seven 5 1/4" power
connectors. I would prefer at least one more 3 1/2" connector.
There is no power switch on the power supply
itself, as on many ATX power supplies I've seen recently, in addition to
the ATX logic on/off switch on the front panel, which connects to an ATX
motherboard. Such a switch overrides the one on front panel and is
handy for making sure power to the motherboard is off, without having to
pull the power cord, when plugging-in expansion boards, etc. It is of no
great significance during day-to-day operation of the computer.
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