Skeleton Open Air Case from Antec

Author: Toni 'HaoKi' Siik Published: 30.10.2008 Manufacturer: Antec Product Group: Computer Case In English Suomeksi

Installation

Now that we've gotten to know the chassis in general, its time to get to the fun part. Antec really hasn't made things too easy with this chassis, as they haven't included any other instructions than how to pull the tray out of the frame. You really have to figure out where everything goes and how the thing is going to work. I do hope that Antec would include atleast some kind of short installation guide with this chassis, as it differs from just about every other case we have on the market at the moment.

To begin the installation, I chose to attach the motherboard to the tray. Antec has wisely made the motherboard tray removable from the lower tray. Just unscrew three screws and the motherboard tray will just slide out. This way we can attach the motherboard and heatsinks without having to work in confined spaces. The tray has also been thought out fairly well as they have included holes on it so that changing CPU heatsinks is possible without unscrewing the motherboard, even if the heatsink has some backplate. Both the removable motherboard tray and the holes really make this chassis easier for people that update their hardware and just fiddle around with their setup constantly. I myself use quite a lot of time benchmarking new products and I really have to swap around parts constantly so I can appreciate this feature a lot.

Now that we've gotten the motherboard onto the tray, we can continue installing the components to the chassis. Here we get a closer look at the power supply tray that slides out of its place, on the bottom compartment. In the second picture we can see the Xigmatek powersupply mounted onto the tray. Notice that the power supple is a little bit longer than the tray, so it sticks out around an inch over the tray.

Using the Skeletons drive bays really was a joy, as soon as I figured out how they worked. The internal bays feature a quick-release system that allows the drives to be swapped fast, without having to screw all of the four screws that normally hold the harddisk in place. The Skeleton does however only include two internal 3.5" bays and if the user wants to use more drives, they will have to resort to the external places. The four external harddisk places are located on the sides, where the disks can be mounted with the brackets that were included in the package.

I really don't find the secondary bays that useful, as if not testing drives that would have to be swapped around, I really would like for the drives to be inside the chassis or at least secured a little better. With the brackets the drives just hang from two tabs. With the external bays, routing the wires to the drives is also problematic, as the drives will stay in their places even if the tray is slid out. This means that drives that are housed in the external bays will have to be detached when moving the tray out and reattached when its slid back in.

Antec has included a 92 mm fan that is supposed to be used to cool the hard disks that are in the internal bays. It simply clips infront of the disks and gives them some airflow.

Now that we have most components ready, we can start putting the chassis together. I found that a modular power supply really makes your life easier with this chassis as it gives you the possibility to route some of the wires before the power supply is put in place. Especially in my case, as my power supply of choice, is longer than ordinary power supplies, there is no such thing as extra space in the lower compartment. Another problem that I found with this power supply, is the fact that it uses a 140 mm fan that is on the top of the supply. When the power supply is inserted into its place, there really isn't that much space for it to breathe as the motherboard tray is within millimeters of the fan.

After fighting around for some time I got all of the wires crammed into the lower compartment. I'm actually really glad that I didn't have to install any more drives into the chassis, as this way I could arrange the wires a bit looser. The wires that are going to be connected with the motherboard, could be routed through the holes that are found on the motherboard tray. Its a shame that Antec has decided to leave the holes on the motherboard tray closed. This way you wouldn't have to pass the wires first through the compartment divider and the motherboard tray after that.

After getting everything else ready, its time to reattach the motherboard tray back onto the chassis. Not a hard task when the whole tray is slid out from the frame. After the tray is attached, just plug in the wires, add your graphics cards etc. However for example installing CPU-heatsinks on the motherboard and adding the memory modules really should be done before attaching the tray back onto the chassis.

Now that everything is on their place its time to attach the needed wires from the front of the case. To be honest I think someone on the design team screwed up here. Even if I wanted to plug in all of the ports and wires, at least in my case its not possible, as the wires are way too short. They just won't reach the back of the motherboard even if the tray is pushed all the way back into the chassis, not even mentioning if the tray is pulled out. Not only does this mean that the wires have to be fiddled into place when the tray is pushed halfway into the frame, all of the port wires and switches like the power switch have to be removed when sliding the tray out. Really makes changing components a pain in the neck. It also would've been a great feature, if the extra port-wires etc could be taken off the front panel to reduce wire-clutter.

Now that we have everything in place in the chassis and the tray has been pushed back in and secured, just add the card-bracket to hold your expansion cards nice and upright. Now you should be done...

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