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Zalman HD135 HTPC Case Review

Cases & PSU/Cases by geoffrey @ 2006-09-03

Zalman has been on the pc components market since past century. Through all those years they?ve evolved into one of the biggest silent computing companies in the world not only having silent CPU coolers, but also offering chipset/video card cooling, water-cooling, fanless cases, power supply?s, audio products,... And still, they continue to develop even more products. We take a closer look at their latest HTPC case, the HD135.

Features & Installation

Features and Specifications

Enclosure Type:	Desktop
Dimensions (LxWxH):	435mm x 425mm x 135mm
	17.1inch x 16.7inch x 5.31inch
Weight:	5.2kg (11.5lb)
Material:	Aluminium
Motherboard Compatibility:	ATX / microATX
Power Supply Support:	ATX / ATX 12V
PCI / AGP Card Support:	Full Size
Drive Bays:	5 x 3.5' Internal Drive Bays
	1 x 3.5' External Drive Bays
	5 x 5.25' External Drive Bays
Cooling Components:	1 x 80mm Exhaust Fan
	1 x 80mm Inflow Fan & Air Duct
Expansion Slots:	7 Slots
Front I/O Ports:	2 x USB Ports
	1 x IEEE1394 (Firewire) Port
	1 x MIC
	1 x Headphone
Available Colors:	Silver / Black
Display Type:	VFD (Vacuum Fluorescent Display)

Inside the box

Madshrimps (c)

User's Manuel & M.Play Quick Guide

Software CD

Aluminium ODD Bezel

Remote Controller + 2 AA Batteries

Bolts + Clamp

Installation

When you remove the screws on the back of the case like we showed on previous page, you get to see the inside. On first sight it's a real mess of wires. Luckily Zalman made a very good installation manual, so it shouldn't be that much of a challenge to get everything properly installed.

Madshrimps (c)

HD bays are easy removable, only one screw per bay:

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Underneath the bays we locate two soldered PCB's. The first one looks like this:

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The PCB located in the center of the case is not only made for the front LCD. Zalman has added 2 temperature sensors and 2 fan connectors which would make perfect sense since we have 2 standard case fans. The fans get their power via the power connector from the PCB. The LCD screen gets power and data via an internal motherboard USB header.

The second PCB is a bit smaller but looks a lot more familiar then the precious one:

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This PCB is used for the front panel connectors. The smaller PCB above is made for the Power Up Led and the Power Up Button.

Installing PCI AGP card goes very fast and easy in this case. Lift up the bar, install you PCI/AGP card and close the bar again. Plug and Play:

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As the installation continues we have reached the point where want to install the power supply. This is where we ran into trouble, our first power supply didn't fit inside the case:

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There was no way we could fit a Spire RockeTeer IISP-ATX-400W power supply. Zalman claimed that standard ATX PSU's (150mm) should fit in there (look at the specifications above), however the maximum length your PSU should be is a little bit less then 150mm. Luckily we had a spare Octek 235W PSU that got us out of the mess:

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Zalman is aware of the problem; they told us the second lot of HD135 cases (those who will be available on the market) will be able to fit a PSU up to 168mm, and thus accommodate a wider range of different power supplies.

With everything installed it looks like this:

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