GMC AVC-S7 Slim HTPC case

Author: Jouni 'Jipa' Vasama Published: 18.12.2007 Manufacturer: GMC Product Group: Computer Case In English Suomeksi

Installation

Other than in installing the HDD there's nothing special. First you need to unscrew four tiny screws, then mount the HDD to the cage and put it back to the case. There's no vibration absorbing whatsoever, so the HDD noises will not be dampened at all. Again the amount of tiny screws seems more annoying than necessary. The cage of the optical drive is held in place with only two screws, but it doesn't have to be removed during the installation.

The motherboard we used is actually smaller than most micro-ATX boards (one can see an unused spacer on the bottom-right corner of the mainboard), and was very easy to slot in place. Connecting all the cables however was another story. There's again the clumsy adapter cable that takes +5 VSB for the front panel VFD from the 24-pin ATX-connector. In such a small case the adapter feels even more ridiculous than in the Zalman HD-160 where it first appeared. The designers at Antec had really got this right with the Fusion V2 where the power supply was modified to have a dedicated connector for the front panel display.

Managing the cables seemed kinda futile as there's really no airflow for the loose cables to ruin, but it had to be done, because the editor would have been unable to sleep knowing there's loose cables in a computer he built, so after some zip-ties and cable-hiding action the system was ready to be fired up.

Using

First thing to notice is the immense noise the fans of the PSU make. It's hard to believe there's any temperature controller, or then it's not working properly. The setup only draws about 80 Watts of power from the grid, so the load on the PSU is really nothing special. Besides the noise I also noticed a blue ring of light around the power button. This time there's no super bright leds shining anywhere, which is good news in HTPC use. Nobody wants to have bright lights around when watching movies.

The slot loading drive GMC used is made by Panasonic and it's a combo drive that reads DVDs at 8x speed and reads and burns CDs at 24x speed. It is possible to remove the disc from the drive without touching the data surface, but maybe this could be made even a bit easier. The drive is located right behind the front bezel, but maybe removing the disc could be made even a bit easier. (Drive is optional)

A problem larger than removing the disk is the VFD screen. It's mounted behind the thick front panel and the translucent piece on the hatch is pretty small, which causes the VFD to be readable only from straight ahead. I found this problem to be worst when looking at the screen from above, which is pretty normal angle for a HTPC-case. This is a major drawback, because unless the case is located at eye-height, the VFD isn't visible and thus somewhat useless.

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