Mom's Computer, Part 2

I haven't posted in a long while even though a lot has transpired. I'm won't try to cover it all -- most of it isn't that interesting anyway.

I was pondering options for all the various components when I saw that the local WorstBuy had the Antec 900 case for $120. That right quick immediately settled my case choice! Here's a picture of it right after I brought it home. I stuck an old PSU in it to power the fans and LEDs just to make sure everything worked.

This case is just beautiful! It seems to be highly regarded for its thermal properties. It comes stock with the two 120mm fans in front, another 120 in the back (partially visible in the picture), and best of all, a honking 200mm fan on top. The thing needs landing clearance to come to rest on your desktop. And, if you think all those fans would be a noise problem, think again. At medium speed, you barely hear a whisper from the case at 3 feet. Besides, Mom doesn't care!

I have to tell this one story: While researching cases, I read many of the comments about this particular model posted on the NewEgg internet sales site (Great place to buy computers and components, BTW). At the time, there were over 800 reviews (now over 1100) with an average 5 golden eggs rating. I found it most helpful to sort the reviews by lowest to highest rating. That way, I can see right up front the problems people faced, rather than loosing track of them amongst all the glowing -- but ultimately uninformative -- raves (In this case ;-) 11 ratings of poor or very poor, 975 excellent, about 180 good, and the rest average).

In looking at the disses, I try to make an assessment of the validity of the complaint. For example, the very earliest Antec 900 disses stated that the back-plane for expansion cards didn't have room for a DVI connector in the first position. Some MOBO manufacturers, however, require the graphics card to be in the first slot. Now, it's pretty obvious that's a very serious complaint. As I said, however, those complaints were all in 2006; by early January, 2007, those problems disappeared. On the other hand, some of the complaints looked like PICNIC errors (Problem In Chair, Not In Computer). One in particular was a classic. Look again at the photo. A reviewer complained that the control panel (you can't see it in the picture -- it's on top), didn't have a power-on LED! If you can't see eight, out of the nine, "power-on" LEDs in the photo, put on one of those tall conical hats and go sit in the corner!

That's all for now. I'll discuss components and theme on the next rock.