Moving around to the of the AeroCool Zero Degree is where things
begin to get a bit different, the first thing you will notice is the power
supply is located in the bottom portion of the case and actually vents out
the bottom of the case thanks to the opening and meshing covering applied
over the that opening. This will insure that a great deal of the warm
air of the power supply is exited out the case and not causing the internal
components to rise in temperature as the system heats up.
Installation of a power supply is very straight forward,
the first thing required is to remove the four screws holding the mounting
bracket in place. Next take the mounting bracket and place it on the
power supply and mount it to it using the standard four mounting screws that
you normally mount the PSU with. Once the bracket is attached to the
PSU move the PSU back into the enclosure and start sliding the cables
towards the front of the case and then attach the final four screws.
You have a choice to make when it comes to mounting a fan
or a pair of fans on the rear plane of the AeroCool Zero Degree. It is
configured so that it will accept either a pair of 80mm fans or a single 120
mm fan. What we opted to place here was a
Noctua NF-s12
120x120x25 mm fan.
Looking even closer at the rear of the AeroCool Zero
Degree
you can see that there are additional screws where you would not
normally expect to find them. These screws are used to help
re-configure the Zero Degree into a true BXT form factor motherboard simply by
changing out the rear rear plain of the enclosure.
While the slot covers are not tool-less they we did not find this to be
to big of a problem due in part to the fact that the video cards and NIC
card that we installed were very easy to install and the fact that we
were forced to screw in three machine screws took very little time out
of our schedule.
Looking at the side-panel of the case the first two
things that will catch your eyes are the huge 15" x 15" UV reactive window
in the side-panel offering you a great view of the inside of your case.
The second thing you can't miss the 250mm fan located on the side-panel.
This fan turns at a maximum speed of about 800 rpm so you will need not work
about any extra noise being caused by the fan.
With the side-panel removed you can get a good look at
the inside of the Zero Degree and for the first time you actually see just how many
drives it is capable of holding. With the power supply located
at the bottom of the case we are left with a great of room at the top of the
case. You can also see that there are a pair of hard drive bay located
on the top of the power supply cage, this is handy for mounting say a pair
of SATA RAID drives.
