- Jun 24, 2001
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I dug out my old barely-used Cooler-Master CM Stacker STC-T01 (similar to the Stacker 810) and was curious about using it in a new build despite the age.
First, some amusing observations on an old "enthusiast" chassis:
Though it was once considered an absolute "monster" for air-cooling (see here?) uses a dinky little 80mm fans on the top, side, and empty PSU bay! Yes, despite that MONSTER-sized fan grill on the side, it has a shroud that only fits an 80mm fan. It should be easy to mod but it's not like this thing need more cooling!
Does anyone remember the Crossflow fan that sucks air through a vertical vent on the side in front of the motherboard and blows it across the motherboard? Some genius dreamed up that before even thinking about cutting bigger fan mounts in the traditional places.
I still have that accessory in a box somewhere because it didn't work with my full-length PCI RAID card (Promise SX6000).
It was probably the first/only enthusiast case that supported BTX (convertible) but it obviously came configured for ATX. I decked the thing out with three 4-in-3 drive bays loaded up with twelve 400GB HDDs (used 3.5" to 5.25" brackets to mount a 13th boot drive). I always bemoaned the "fact" that I would have to buy the optional BTX thermal module and lose 4 drives when I would "inevitably" upgrade to a BTX board. Obviously that never happened! Anand himself seemed pretty sure of it when he said "...the final nail in the coffin of boring computers will be driven by BTX." Granted, he was still right because it inspired all the reverse-ATX designs and cases with PSUs on the bottom for our existing ATX boards.
And now on to the meat of my post:
The BTX convertibility got me thinking that it might be possible to run in reverse-ATX by configuring it for BTX but not going all the way. Does anyone know if it's that simple? I have no idea where the manual is to look at the conversion details. It should be relatively easy to install a huge fan in the side-panel and only the fancy-looking mesh would keep me from cutting the top for a 120mm.
It's still such a nice-looking case that I was disappointed to see that the side panel was a little bent in the corner when I pulled it out. It's every bit as heavy as I remember (pro tip: don't think you are going to work on this thing in your lap with 14 drives and a Turbo-Cool 1KW in it).
First, some amusing observations on an old "enthusiast" chassis:
Though it was once considered an absolute "monster" for air-cooling (see here?) uses a dinky little 80mm fans on the top, side, and empty PSU bay! Yes, despite that MONSTER-sized fan grill on the side, it has a shroud that only fits an 80mm fan. It should be easy to mod but it's not like this thing need more cooling!
Does anyone remember the Crossflow fan that sucks air through a vertical vent on the side in front of the motherboard and blows it across the motherboard? Some genius dreamed up that before even thinking about cutting bigger fan mounts in the traditional places.
I still have that accessory in a box somewhere because it didn't work with my full-length PCI RAID card (Promise SX6000).It was probably the first/only enthusiast case that supported BTX (convertible) but it obviously came configured for ATX. I decked the thing out with three 4-in-3 drive bays loaded up with twelve 400GB HDDs (used 3.5" to 5.25" brackets to mount a 13th boot drive). I always bemoaned the "fact" that I would have to buy the optional BTX thermal module and lose 4 drives when I would "inevitably" upgrade to a BTX board. Obviously that never happened! Anand himself seemed pretty sure of it when he said "...the final nail in the coffin of boring computers will be driven by BTX." Granted, he was still right because it inspired all the reverse-ATX designs and cases with PSUs on the bottom for our existing ATX boards.
And now on to the meat of my post:
The BTX convertibility got me thinking that it might be possible to run in reverse-ATX by configuring it for BTX but not going all the way. Does anyone know if it's that simple? I have no idea where the manual is to look at the conversion details. It should be relatively easy to install a huge fan in the side-panel and only the fancy-looking mesh would keep me from cutting the top for a 120mm.
It's still such a nice-looking case that I was disappointed to see that the side panel was a little bent in the corner when I pulled it out. It's every bit as heavy as I remember (pro tip: don't think you are going to work on this thing in your lap with 14 drives and a Turbo-Cool 1KW in it).
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