Kingwin KT-424S Review at Speeed's Reviews

INTRODUCTION:

Today I am reviewing the Kingwin KT-424-S aluminum case. Recently I decided to upgrade my case from an Enlight 7237 midtower. The Enlight is a fine case but I need to upgrade my daughters 800 mhz Dell Celeron and she will need a new case as we all know how proprietary Dell is.

I wanted a case without a PSU as I have an excellent Zalman 400B-APS so I began looking around. Have you noticed how many exceedingly ugly cases there are? I'm not sure whose buying these atrocious things but someone must be. I didn't want a case that had an alien front bezel or twenty blowholes as I am into quiet computing. I saw no need for a window as my computer rests on the floor. I don't need to look into it's guts on a routine basis to satisfy some urge. That is fine if that's what someone wants, it just isn't me.

Searching for a case is a very easy proposition just go to newegg and look at their case department. Newegg has as large a selection as anyone and their prices are usually the least. The Kingwin first caught my eye several months ago but my "throw the spare change in here cup" wasn't full enough and by the time it was newegg was sold out. I looked at several other vendors but their prices were ~$25 more and my need wasn't that urgent. I filled out the back in stock e-mail notification form and waited.

WHAT YOU GET:

A very handsome plain aluminum case with all the hardware for install and some poorly written and inadequately illustrated directions.

FEATURES:

10 Device Bays: Four 5.25 and Two 3.5 which open at the front of the case and have slide locking panels for quick, secure mounting. These bays also have the option to further secure drives with up to four supplied screws. Four 3.5 internal bays with shock absorbing silicon rubber grommets for stability and shock resistance.

Three 80 mm case fans. Two are stacked vertically at the front bottom situated to blow air over the internal bays, which is good if you need/want to cool your hard drives. One fan at the rear. The two front fan speeds can be controlled via a rheostat that is mounted under the front bezel. The Kingwin website FAQ states that all three fans are controlled by rheostat. I didn't find the rear fan controllable. There is a removable front fan air filter.

Thumbscrews for the add-in cards, side panels, the 4 external 5.25 drivebays and mobo tray.

Folded edges everywhere to protect your knuckles (NICE).

Two front USB 2.0 ports and 1 1394(Firewire)Port.

A removable slide-in motherboard tray.

MY INSTALLATION:

The first thing I did (following the directions) was remove the mobo tray. It is held in place buy four thumbscrews in the rear. This gave me room to install the PSU which is held in place buy four supplied screws. I'm not sure why but sliding the PSU into place wasn't as smooth as it might have been. It took me some jockeying before it was in the screw down location. Once in place though it is very secure and supported by two partial shelves as well as the screws.

Next up was the mounting of the mobo. All my previous mobos were secured to the tray using the familar screw down holdfasts
which for the most part are fine but can be problematic if the holdfast unscrews from the mobo tray while removing a screw. To mount the mobo on the Kingwin tray stand-off clips were supplied. I find this preferable to screwdowns. The
stand offs clipped in easy and clipped out easy. Frequently I have found that items which once clipped in were a bugger to remove. That was not the case here. I then installed my cards which was a pleasure to do at the kitchen counter in good light. They are all secured by thumbscrews. The mobo slid into the case withput a hitch.

I started at the top and installed my CD-RW. The slots are well engineered. The drive had to be precisely aligned to slide into place which is what's needed for the design to work. Attached to the side of the drive cage is a large plastic sliding bracket. Once the drive is in place the bracket slides foward firmly securing the drive. The bracket has a latch that then slides down and locks the drive securely. It is a very well thouht out scheme. The floppy mounts using the same scheme. I installed my HD's at the bottom. These require screws but it was no problem lining things up.

As mentioned in the introduction I am into quiet computing. The less I hear my system the better I like it. I was using Zalman ZM-F1 80 mm casefans with the RC56 noisless connector and wanted to transfer those to the Kingwin. The two front Kingwin fans have the standard 3 pin connector. Instead of directly connecting to the mobo they attach to a speed control. The speed control derives power from a standard molex connector. All fans are Kingwin branded and have sleeve bearings. This page compares the Kingwin fan to the Zalman fan. Make your own decision. I did.

Something I have always found a pain is securing the front panel connectors. They are small and naturally have small letters. My eyes aren't what they were nor is my dexterity. A very nice feature of the Kingwin is that once they are connected they never need to be removed. The leads are attached to a plug. If the mobo tray needs to be removed the plug simply needs to be unplugged. The same holds true for the front USB connectors . There are two groups of four front USB connectors meaning eight single wires. I imagine this was done for the widest possible compatibilty but is a pain in the ass to connect all eight. Once connected though they don't need to be removed to withdraw the mobo tray. By default the front USB is unplugged and this led to problems. The plug is on the outside of the far side of the case. I hadn't noticed that there even was a plug and the directions don't mention it. I couldn't get the front USB to work. The directions regarding the hookup of these pins are vague and the illustration is of such low resolution that it is worthless. Just because I am persistant and can think of possiblities was I able to solve this dilema. I'm not so arrogant to think that this wouldn't have been noticed by many guys out of the gate though.

There is room outside of the box yet still inside the case that I found very useful. (FIG 2) I have a Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu CPU Cooler. The cooler has a rheostat that adjusts the fan speed. It used to be I had to find room inside for this mechanism, not a real problem, but now I can hang it outside of box on the farside of the case. There is room out there of other cables as well. Very Nice.

OPERATION:

My primary concern with this case was the fan situation. Though the air movement noise by the fans was acceptably low with the speed control turned all the way down the noise the fan(s) made was not. What I found was that one or both of the front fans makes noise which I can best describe as a regularly recurring intermittent hum. This won't be a problem for most guys but it is for me. I find it annoying. It is easy to remove the front fans. They are held in place by black plastic locking lugs and while the Kingwin website states it is virtually impossible to remove these lugs from the outside I found it very easy by just slipping a small flathead screwdriver under them. I pulled out all eight and replaced them with proper fan screws. I had hoped it was merely a poor mount but the sound eminates from the rotational point of the fans(s). I removed the Kingwin fans and conclude that one way Kingwin offered the case at such a good price was their use of cheap fans. I installed my Zalman fans in front with the RC56 connector and am at peace with the noise level. Finnaly, I added a Zalman RC56 noisless connector to the rear Kingwin fan because without it I could hear it. My CPU idle temp with all three fans running at there slowest, quietest possible speeds is 34C. The sytem temp is 39C. I ran the Serious Sam 2 demo for ten minutes. The CPU and system temps rose to 40C.

CONCLUSION:

This is a fine case with el cheapo fans. It has good looks (Fig1) and is easy to work on. I consider the whole package when I buy something. By this I mean the product and the support. The product is good but the support (manual and website) is second rate. All vendors should have a web forum. Kingwin does not. How much support does a case need ? Well, that depends on whether or not the owner has a question that can't be answered by what's available and very little is available at www.kingwin.com The manual was written by someone with a poor command of English yet it is the most complete case manual I have seen. It is much better than one small sheet of paper with an exploded case view.

For the $90 delivered price I consider the Kingwin-424-S a good value and recommend it to anyone.