AOpen H340H Case
2500+ Sempron 64 CPU
2 x 256mb Geil PC4400
Seagate 7200.7 SATA HDD
54g Wireless NIC
16x DVD-ROM Drive
I've had this case for several years, and it has an older, smallish 220w power supply. I had to use a 20-to-24 pin adapter for the main ATX connector, as well as a SATA power adapter, as this power supply did not come with these. Most power supplies made today will have these connectors however. I'm using the stock HSF that came with the Sempron for cooling, which should be fine as these chips don't normally get very hot. It was a tight squeeze plugging the fan connector in with the memory already installed.
As I mentioned before, connecting the front panel wiring was a snap with the color-coded and clearly labeled headers. The only add-in card I'll be using is the wireless NIC, everything else is onboard, which is good because this case can only accept low profile cards. I'm not using a floppy drive and I didn't connect the front panel audio jumpers, otherwise it might have been somewhat of a stretch to reach from the front.
I used the included 80-pin IDE ribbon cable on the DVD-ROM drive, and one of the SATA cables on the hard drive. No problems with the lengths of either of these included cables, in fact with this case they could stand to be a bit shorter. The addition of the adapters for ATX and SATA power add a bit more bulk to the front corner of the case, but my only other option would be to upgrade the power supply.
For additional cooling I had previously cut an opening in the top of the case, which allowed the CPU fan to draw cool air in from outside. Unfortunately socket placement is not universal among boards, so as you can see the new HSF didn't line up directly under where the old one was. It should still be close enough to take advantage of the ventilation hole though, and the power supply fan can also draw from here as well.
Here is everything assembled and ready to go. This case has removable feet that allow placement for either tower or desktop orientation. We'll be using it on it's side.
Now let's power it up and take a look at some of the BIOS options.
