800D not holding up

:confused:

Let me put this in the right frame. I love the features and layout of the 800D. The cooling airflow is excellent in spite of what you may read from some complainers. I found that that the key is balancing the airflow. (right amount of intake for right amount of exhaust.) With that balanced the cooling does everything it should including the swap bay drive cooling. The fans are low RPM, large diameter. That means quiet with plenty of CFM. You can not just throw fans in anyway you want and expect to get good cooling from the airflow layout the way it is. You must think! My case stays quiet and is very cool for an overclocked machine. I added one medium CFM, low RPM fan to the top exhaust to balance my H50 cooler and the air flow is great.

Sorry, I got off on a tangent. The features are great, but the execution in materials may be a little off to keep the price point. After about two months of moderate duty I am having the following problems:

The number three swap bay back-plane has failed even though it has only swapped twice. I have confirmed it is the plane by using different drives, different MB ports, etc in a systematic method. It may be on the power side of the back-plane because the OS will see that there is a drive there, but the drive in that bay will never rally spin up. (The problem surfaced as intermittent failures to boot and then the drive not showing and so on. It took a lot of time to trace down the failure. All is fine now without that bay loaded. It just costs a lot of time to trace that kind of failure and time is money.)

I can't send the case back because I make my living off this machine and I can't afford the down time for two way shipping for just a bay down. I will have to save for a replacement case and then deal with it.

The swap bay door will no longer pop open. I have to use a small screw driver to pop it. The door design is more complex than expected when I took a look at it. Each mount point has adjustment screws and track and the latch does as well. I haven't messed with those due to lack of time, but it may be an alignment problem due to use. Again this is a cool design, but could be beefier to avoid the failure I have.

The plastic covers inside like the one covering the swap bay back-plane are hard to keep in place because they flex a little too much. I don't object to plastic but they could be a little more ridged.

I have never been happier with a case design. ( I have had a lot of them) I just would appreciate a little more attention on the next version to durability. Yes I would buy a newer version to replace the failures on this one if it were available. I like the design that much. I just need to not waste time chasing failures :laughing:

One odd suggestion, how about holes in the feet to mount casters?

One odd suggestion, how about holes in the feet to mount casters?

OTOH, you could just put it on a motorized skateboard, drive around town and scare the crap outta some kid :)

I think I suggested that when the case came out. +1 to that idea of course :)

+2 more. :D:

 

OTOH, you could just put it on a motorized skateboard, drive around town and scare the crap outta some kid :)

More likely, you would get a ticket for operating a motor vehicle without a license plate. :biggrin: