Chyang Fun CF-668 Mini-ITX case

There is great change a foot in the world of personal computing, the most common pc found today is usually based around a tower unit. These are bulky great things that are not very easy to move around, they also take up huge amounts of space. More and more people are switching to the Small form factor(SFF) pc. These are all very small in size but can still pack a fearsome punch. The smallest of these SFF pc's is the MiniITX form factor, these cram a lot of components on a tiny little motherboard. This means case size can now be shrunk down to save space. The Chyang Fun CF688 case is just such as case. It however has an ace up its sleeve over many MiniITX cases it supports the new Pentium 4 based MiniITX cases, lets have a look at the case to see what its like.

What are the specs of the case?

• One 5.25" Bay (Exposed)
• One 3.5" Bays (Internal)
• Form Factor: - Mini ITX 
• Material: - Aluminium/Perspex 
• Dimensions 285mm (w) x 115mm (d) x 380mm (h)
 
• One cross-flow Fan attached back panel.
• One 80 mm x 80 mm x 25 mm Fan attached top panel.(out)
• Removable CD/Hard Drive Tray
• 150 watt P4 power supply

What is Mini ITX Form Factor?

I think I should start this review by explain just what MiniITX form factor motherboards are. The form factor was orginally proposed by Via to be an ultra small form factor smaller than the FlexATX and MicroATX form factors that were the smallest at the time. The orginal MiniITX boards were highly feature boards with a CPU soldered onto the board this was cheap to produce as there was no packaging cost on the processors and motherboards which can be complex and expensive to implement. The specifications of the MiniITX form factor are that the board may not be bigger than 170mm x 170mm as you can see this is tiny when compared to the normal ATX standard. Most of the early boards were limited by this size , the most common boards were Via's Epia series which seriously lack in computing power comparable to a Pentium II 400mhz . Now there are several much more powerful boards including Commell's pentium 4 based board. Chyang Fun have reacted to this and have created the Chyang Fun CF688 it provides compatability with these newer boards as well as the existing Epia's

First Impressions

Despite what they say first impressions count for a lot in this world, a case needs to be well built and come in a well packaged and protected box. Recieving the case from the courier the box looked very sturdy, opening it up and there was plenty of protection for the case. Unfortunatly though when I pulled out the case there were two small items missing from the case and loose in the box. The first was a metal stick that goes in the center of the side panels. The second was one of the metal bolts holding the perspex sides onto the case, this was far more serious than the sticker which went straight back on. The bolt had no means of attachment and I had to mask off the area and use a pair of pliers to but the bolt back in. Hardly a good start and not what you want to see in a brand new case.

The Case

Once I'd got the case back to how it should have been I could look at it properly. The case is made of aluminium and perspex, the aluminium means the case is nice and light but still very strong. The perspex is used to make the case look very tasty indeed, this case is aimed at the HTPC (Home theater PC) market. This means its got to be small and fit in with existing Video recorders and DVD players. The CF688 is a sleak silver cooler with nice contrasting black aluminium fins with vent holes to allow heat to exit the case easily. The case has a big advantage in that it can be stood either on its side or its bottom giving you much more flexibilty in just where you can put it. Personally I think it looks better on its side. I was quite surprised by the size of the case somehow I was expecting it to be smaller in size, my Shuttle SS51 system is much smaller in size despite having the same number of bays and a larger motherboard. Its still very small and will fit in small spaces but I just imagined it to be smaller.

The case has one 5.25 bay for a cd or a dvd player/writer and one internal 3.5 inch bay for a hard disc. You will note that there is no floppy bay (I'm one of those wishing the flopy drive would die once and for all) I think its much better to have a thinner case and lose the floppy bay but you may differ, I've not used a floppy in almost a year apart from one BIOS flash. The two bays come on a removeable tray which is attached via two screws, this means fitting them is a breeze the hard disc is side on to the cd drive bay and there is a nice cut out for the power and IDE cable. The external 5.25 bay is covered by a silver aluminium bay plate this looks very nice unfortunatly this means a beige drive will not look as nice. That said its very easy and quick to stealth the drive and have it fit the case perfectly (Guide Here). I didnt have beige drive to hand to show you how it looks but just a pre stealth drive which looks perfect in the system as you can see.

At the front of the case there are Two silver switches the larger for power and the other for resetting the pc. Between the two switches are two LED's , the power LED is blue in colour, the Hard disc LED is orange. I'd prefer two blue LED's but I can see why Chyang did it to provide a quick visible difference to the two led's. The blue LED gives a lovely blue glow to the front perspex panel which looks excellent. Also at the front there are various inputs , (2x USB , 1 firewire and Headphone/Mic inputs) these only work with later versions of the EPIA boards that have jumpers for these. Its a pain if you dont have these but thats not the fault of Chyang, at least those with the later boards can take advantge of these inputs. I find front headphone/mic inputs very usefull as well as the odd usb one for inserting my sony memory stick reader.

The Back of the Case

Turning the case round to look at the back shows some of the differences between this MiniITX case and a normal case. Sacrifices had to be made to create such a small case. First there is the Half- Height pci slot at the rear. This drawback would mean you would have to buy a half height pci version of your desired pci card. There are plenty on the market so it shouldnt be hard to work around , you just need to be aware of it when you make your purchases. Second you can see the main fan of the case is not a normal axial fan that you see on nearly every case. The CF688 features a cross flow fan (Picture here). This fan provides a remarkable amount of air flow for its size. Its not the quietest of fans but more than bearable. I would recommend not using it if you using a Via Epia type motherboard as its not really required and there is plenty of air holes to allow the heat to escape without it. Both of these sacrifices mean that the case is much thinner that it would be so they are worth the cost.

You can also see at the back there is a 40mm size fan exhausting hot air from the Power Supply (PSU) this is quite noisy but can be replaced to cut that noise dramatically, more on that mod later. The PSU itself is a 150watt version, it has the above described 40mm fan, most importantly it has a Pentium 4 connector this means the latest P4 equipped motherboards can be used in this case. Thats a big advantage over most of its rivals in the MiniITX case market. The PSU has 3 molex connectors two of which are low profile so you can use them on the cd and hard drives to save space.

Inside the Case

Opening up the case, is done via two thumbscrews at the rear and sliding the side/top (depending on which way round you have the case) . Opening up the case reveals the the space for the motherboard , the strange main case fan, the removeable drive bay and the PSU. The case is very well laid out the removeable drive bay means that fiting the motherboard is nice and simple. The case doesnt include an atx panel at the back as there are too many different variations of the ports its not worth providing one. Most motherboards of miniITX size provide one which slots into place easily. There is plenty of space to the side of the drives to store the extra cabling so the its nice and tidy inside. At the rear the case fan is powered by a molex connector , there are the exact number of connectors required provided so you dont have to have any extenders or lots spare which is a good to see. If you cannot use the front ports there are long cables that can be stored down the side again keeping the case tidy.

Using the Case/Problems

After using the case for a couple of days I experienced another problem, I noticed condensation between one of the perspex panels and the metal underneath. It was about 10cm's long and about 3cm wide at its thickest point. I should state no liquid had come anywhere near the case other than abient humidity which wasnt any higher than normal. More worrying is that its very hard to remove the panel without scratching the perspex due to the way the bolts are designed. The mark has dried out to a certain point there is still a nasty looking stain under the perspex. Its hard to blaim the case design for this but the fact you cant remove the bolts easily is a major pain.

Gallery

Pro's

• Looks very nice, would look great in the lounge
• Blue LED looks nice
• Quite light/easy to carry
• Easily made almost totally silent
• Removable drive tray
• Thumbscrews access to inside
• Support for pentium 4 based mini itx motherboards
• Good price
• Flexible placement should fit in a very small space

Con's

• Build quality not what it could be
• Quite noisy in stock form
• Orange led for hard disc would be nicer in blue
• Bolts holding perspex not removeable on top and bottom panels.

Conclusion

This is very nice case , it would make an excellent case for use in a lounge as a HTPC machine. Build quality lets the case down slightly but I may have just been unlucky.

Modding the Case for Low Noise.

Warning Hexus.net except no responsibilty for this mod it is under taken at your own risk
As I mentioned above the stock fans are quiet noisey far more than fussy old me can put up with, so I decided to sort the two main sources of noise. The main fan and the PSU fan are the worst offenders, the main fan is easy to sort , I just unplugged it and removed it from the case thats a lot less noise. The next fan to address is a bit more complex.

Here's what you will need:

• Soldering Iron
• Solder
• Heatshrink (and lighter) or Insulating Tape
• Wire cutters
• The replacement fan

For the replacement fan I went for a low noise adda fan, The second on this page First thing to do is to leave the system powered off and unplugged for at least 24hrs as PSU's can store charge for long periods of time. Next remove the three screws at the rear of the case that hold the psu in the case. When you've done that you can pull it out of the case. After this you have to remove the case from the PSU (Note its dangerous there's lots of dangers of being electricuted and you just voided your warrantee). There are 3 screws holding it in place , it may be stiff to take off bear with it, it will come off. When you've removed the case you can see the inisdes of the PSU. The fan is held in place with two small screws unscrew them and pull the fan out. Now you have the fan out you can pull out as much of the fan wire as possible, snip off the wire as close to the fan as possible to give you has much free wire as possible. Now its time to prepare the fan and the wires , cut back the insulation about 5mm to expose the core on the wires coming from the PSU. Now thread over about 1cm of heatshrink on both wires read and black. If you now make sure that the fan wires are also prepared in the same way, you won't need the heatshrink on these though. Now you need to solder the fan wires and the psu wires together , remember red to red and black to black. I tend to hold the wires while soldering with blue-tac to make it easier. Once the wires are solder together push the heatshrink over the exposed section and shrink them by holding them over the heat of the lighter. Push the wires and the fan back into place being careful not to touch any of the PSU components. Now you can screw the fan in (you may need different fan screws the ADDA fan require bigger fan screws than the orginals) Put the PSU back together and back into the case and your done. You should imediatly notice the difference in noise.

Mod Gallery

Thanks

Thanks go to Nigel at Ultim8pc for supplying this case and the quieter ADDA fan, Ultim8pc stock lots of SFF kit and is well worth a look.