Neither side nor top, what is it? Antec Skeleton house presentation!
Skeleton is most similar to a barebone house in terms of proportions. The soles square enclose a base and its height is roughly the same, although slightly smaller than the side of the base square. It is basically a two-level solution, where you can find the drives and the power supply on the lower level, and the motherboard on the upper level, and the hardware and expansion cards that fit into the motherboard.
The material of the housing shows an interesting alloy of plastics and metal. Each of the levels used to install the hardware is made of metal (good to say), while the frame that turns it all into a unit is made of plastic.
The thickness of the metal parts is essentially convincing everywhere, the only exception being perhaps the mounting frame of the power supply, but this is not a problem either, as the power supply will give it adequate stability anyway. Each of the plastics is matt in the quality expected from Antect and is clear in one place. The parts that make up the frame are matt, less scratch-sensitive materials, and their thickness, like the metal parts, provides plenty of stability. This is also true for the part that holds the top fan, so the air blower is guaranteed not to shake the structure. The plastics were slightly browned, slightly platinum, and the metal parts were painted black without exception. Of course, neither piano varnish nor chrome can be found here, but other than that, this simple black paintwork would be an honor for many manufacturers. We find no flow or orangeing in the painting, it is simply impeccable.
Mountability is an important aspect of computer cases, and as our gentle readers may have guessed, this will not be a problem here either. Hard disks and optical drives can be slid into place with a simple rail system, and the power supply can be installed in a similar way. By the way, we can use a total of eight drives. Of this, two 3,5- and two 5,25-inch units are housed inside the housing, and four 3,5-inch storage bins can be hung on the side panels. It is not a mistake, it is not a misspelling, they must be hung together with the mounting frames, and two screws per vino will ensure that they do not fall off.
The motherboard can also be easily screwed in, as by loosening two screws, the entire lower mounting frame slides out from under the fan at the same time. The mounting tray is held in place by two screws, which can be removed to remove the tray and replace it after screwing on the system board. The length of the cables in the housing is enough to plug everything into place with the drawer still slid out, and then return the entire installed structure at once.
However, the cards can only be installed when the motherboard is in place. The waterproof holder that holds the cards is held in place by two screws, so for ease of installation, this can also be easily removed until the hardware is in the slots.
If we are beyond these, we are also ready with the installation. Let's see what else we can find in the house, more precisely in the frame. First, there are two fans, the larger of which is 250 millimeters, and even lights up. This vent can be adjusted in three steps using a tiny switch. At the highest speed, it rotates 800 per minute, in which case, according to the manufacturer, it moves 157 cubic feet of air and produces 32 dBA of noise. In the middle position at 600 rpm, the air delivery is reduced to 118 cubic feet and the noise is reduced to 26 dBA, while in the quietest mode, the rpm is reduced to 400 cubic feet, the air delivery is 78 cubic feet and the noise is just 17 dBA. The second fan is found in the box included with the “housing”. It’s a 92mm air choke and does nothing but cool the hard drives. On the fan we find an eye-catching grille that fits in with the rest of the cottage in design. It rotates at 1100 per minute and moves 12,7 cubic feet of air at 15 dBA. In addition to the fan, there is another switch that you can press to select the color of the vent light. It can be blue, green, red, or a mixture of these colors (red-green, blue-red, etc.), or there is a position where you can turn off the light completely, and one where the electronics automatically switch colors.
On the “front panel” of the frame you will find the power and reset buttons, as well as the various outputs and inputs. At Antec, they didn’t save on these either, we’ll find everything we could need these days. In addition to the two USB ports, there is also IEEE 1394 and an external SATA connector, but of course you can't miss the headphone output or the microphone input.
