Need case recommendation - VERY high end stuff

[EyeMWing]

My machine needs a new home - this white ATX full tower is getting ugly, FAST, and it's construction shortfalls are starting to become painfully evident. I've been shopping for MONTHS, and have come up with NOTHING affordable that meets my requirements.

My requirements for it's replacement are:
ATX or inverted-ATX (WTX?) full tower (or extremely spacious midtower) that's deep enough to give me space to run my cabling ball without blocking off mobo connectors
Black
Drive door preferable (To hide my white drives until I phase them out and replace them with black ones)
Toolless expansion slot design, similar to that found on the Dell Optiplex GX-150 and GX-260 (I'm in the EXTREMELY disturbing habit of not screwing things in)
Drive rails for EVERY bay (I'm in the very disturbing habit of using a single screw to secure my drives now)
80mm or larger rear exhaust behind CPU quadrant
80mm or larger front intake that will actually function as an intake unmodified (No plastic in the way)
4+ internal 3.5" bays
3+ external 3.5" bays (Floppy, flash media, custom connection space)
4+ external 5.25" bays
Possibly a side intake fan
No PSU (I already own one, plus a stockpile of others, and do not care to pay extra for another)
*NO WINDOW*
Punchouts on the back panel for affixing COM port and game port directly to the case, as I actually use all my PCI slots (On an A7n8x Deluxe) and need the COM and game ports
Front USB and firewire would be cool, but I can always just put those on my connection bezel
Did I mention *NO WINDOW*

Also, what do you guys recommend in the way of air filters?

And let me reiterate this - I DO NOT WANT A WINDOW.

 

[EyeMWing]

The Chieftec/Antec server chassis is VERY close to meeting my spec, but lacks the screwless expansion slots and one external 3.5" bay. If someone could suggest a modification for the expansion slots, and tell me where I can get it without the window, this may be a done deal

Edit: Directron sells it without window. Now about those expansion slots...

 

[mechBgon]

Thumbscrews come to mind as a very direct way of making the Chieftec into a toolless case...

You can find the true full-tower Chieftec/Antec designs at Directron (link to a whole slew of them) and some don't have windows. Hope that helps!

 

[mechBgon]

Incidentally, Directron also has an interesting Mitsumi floppy drive that also has integrated memory-card slots, but it's beige. Still, you could use vinyl dye to dye it black if you wanted. link

 

[0roo0roo]

antec/chieftec.

 

[EyeMWing]

I already use thumbscrews - or try to, but my laziness somehow manages to prevail (Especially on bigger cards, the backplane on my case and the backplane on the card never seem to line up, and it's a pain to bend them)

Maybe a new case would solve that, eh? Well, I think I'm sold on a midtower black Chieftec Matrix (The full tower only has one extra 5.25" bay and I'm likely to use a dedicated fileserver long before I'd fill up all the HD bays on the midtower. And those vent holes on the front just BEG for a light mod), that mitsumi floppy/memory card beast, and a thing of vinyl dye.

Hrm, vinyl dye. I guess I won't have to buy a new DVD burner after all, eh? Yeah, I bought one of mine right before the price crash from $300 to $170, and then a second one right before the crash from $170 to $130. So it looks like if I bought one more, they'd become sub-$100 components.

Now to ferret out a place to buy the dye. Thanks for all the help.

 

[mechBgon]

The other benefit of the full-tower version is that you get two fan-cooled HDD bays for a total of six fan-cooled HDD positions, while still retaining the two 3.5" external bays in the slide-in tray above. The mid-tower version has one fan-cooled bay and one that holds the exposed 3.5" devices (and therefore cannot hold a fan holder).

Here's a review with some good photos of that case (minus the door): link And note that it actually has *six* 5.25" bays, so you could host a 3.5"-external device in one of them using an Antec EasyUSB or something.

 

[EyeMWing]

Decided against the full tower option.

Finalized everything in my mind and just placed an order for this case:
http://www.directron.com/mx01bdjb.html
plus the mitsumi floppy/flash media combo above
plus a 52x Lite-On CDRW (My 32x is getting old) and a 16x Lite-On DVD
which when combined with my current two optical drives (32x Lite-On CDRW, Pioneer DVR-105 DVD-RW) will fill the 5.25" bays, ordered the components to build my custom connection bezel - Front headphone jack, 1x USB, 1x 1394, one XLR pointed at the microphone input, some toggle switches (individual fan control), a dimmer (master fan control), and a slew of plugs ranging from the mundane (4 pin molex) to the exotic (A7n8x style internal firewire connector). Don't ask how all that fits on a 3.5" bezel, but it fits on paper. My toggles are actually DIP switches.

Gonna hold off on ordering the cold cathodes until I have the case in front of me to measure the space available (Always a good idea)

 

[mechBgon]

Nice!

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
Decided against the full tower option.

Finalized everything in my mind and just placed an order for this case:
http://www.directron.com/mx01bdjb.html
plus the mitsumi floppy/flash media combo above
plus a 52x Lite-On CDRW (My 32x is getting old) and a 16x Lite-On DVD
which when combined with my current two optical drives (32x Lite-On CDRW, Pioneer DVR-105 DVD-RW) will fill the 5.25" bays, ordered the components to build my custom connection bezel - Front headphone jack, 1x USB, 1x 1394, one XLR pointed at the microphone input, some toggle switches (individual fan control), a dimmer (master fan control), and a slew of plugs ranging from the mundane (4 pin molex) to the exotic (A7n8x style internal firewire connector). Don't ask how all that fits on a 3.5" bezel, but it fits on paper. My toggles are actually DIP switches.

Gonna hold off on ordering the cold cathodes until I have the case in front of me to measure the space available (Always a good idea)

Why do you need cold cathodes if your case doesn't have a window?

 

[EyeMWing]

All those vent holes on the front are just begging for some neon glow from behind it