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Zalman HD-160 and Accompanying Products

 by Joshua Buss on March 31, 2006 12:05 AM EST
48 Comments | Add A Comment
48 Comments
HD-160 Case - Installation

After the power supply, the motherboard is really the next logical unit to put in the HD-160.


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With the cages out, our standard test motherboard assembly was very simple to put in place and attach to the included standard ATX mounting points.

Next up is the hard drive, which (as we mentioned before) wasn't too bad except for the two screws that have to go towards the bottom on the front side of this cage.


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As it usually tends to be, our sideways-facing primary IDE channel port was once again a bit of a nuisance, but certainly not as bad as it has been in the past. With the option to take out the entire HDD cage (bottom piece included) if necessary, this is really only a minor complaint.


Click to enlarge.

With the necessary cabling and most other components in place, the last cage can be screwed into place, and thankfully this unit, even with the optical drive already mounted, is fairly simple to install.

After this was done, we connected a few cables, including the ATX power cord and IDE cable to get a picture before any real cable management was performed.


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Thanks to the extra space on either side of the external drive cage, cable management is a breeze in the HD-160. We were able to route cables much better than in other cases with minimal effort.


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Finally, we installed our 6600GT video card, which was about as simple as it could be. Even longer video cards shouldn't have any problems inside the case, thanks to the smart layout.


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Included with the HD-160 is a VFD, which by default simply displays "Welcome to HTPC", but after installing drivers, it displays the current date and time, as shown below.


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A nice Windows MCE remote is included as well, but the documentation and software for programming the remote are lacking. However, since most of what goes on with the remote and display are only tied directly to Media Center Edition, this perhaps isn't as big of a deal as it might seem. When working in the OS itself, the display has a much better idea what information to display and the controls on the remote integrate automatically with the base software of the OS - especially windows media player.


Click to enlarge.

HD-160 Case - Interior (cont'd) CNPS-9500-LED
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  • SonicIce - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    yeah i was just joking around man. you did a good job reviewing it the way you did.

  • JoshuaBuss - Monday, April 3, 2006 - link

    Thanks man, I never am sure on these little 'comments' sections.. I tend to get a lot of crap here.. haha.

    I kinda guessed that you were joking actually, but wanted to take the time to clarify why exactly I cable it the way I do anyway. I suppose for a lot of people, they might've read your post and NOT thought it was meant in jest.

  • 4AcesIII - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Thermaltake's Mozart and Bach cases have that thing beat hands down at less money. And why not tell us that the vfd and remote are farmed out to Imon by Soundgraph? Anyone notice how the vid cooler eliminates use of slot next to video? If you're going to do that why not get something that puts the hot air out the back like some other after market vid coolers do? This is nothing other than a big black box with alot of stuff bought from others to put into and with it and not especially attractive either but that sorta follows Zalman's history in my opinion. Go ahead and buy it if you want a Yugo get something else if you want quality.

  • segagenesis - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    I think this is the HTPC case I've been waiting for. Screw how big it is... I want as quiet as possible.

  • topher42 - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    Take a look at the OrigenAE X11.

  • ScarletGrayFire - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    It's about time we have an HTPC case capable of quietly cooling a high-performance HTPC! This case fits right in the audio rack, and with three 80mm fan locations and enough room for a quiet CPU HSF, one can run an Athlon FX CPU with a state of the art video card. Also, an Arctic cooling vga cooler will push some of the heat in the PCI card area out the back of the case. Word is that this case is actually manufactured by OrigenAE.

  • mbhame - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Those pictures are awful. What gives??

  • JoshuaBuss - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    care to elaborate? any particular pics? I thought most turned out very good actually..?

  • Howard - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    It's spelled "exemplary", and I only see 3 discrete copper heat pipes (re: Zalman 9500).

  • JoshuaBuss - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Thank you. I don't know what I was thinking.. I knew it was three all along..heh.
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