A First Look at the HTPC Case Genre with the Ahanix D.Vine 4

Installation

With a smaller case come a few obstacles when installing hardware. Sometimes, if the case is small enough, certain hardware would need to be installed before others to alleviate any roadblocks. We ran into this problem with the power supply and even our hard drive when installing our test bed.

Just to get an idea of how our PowerStream would fit into the D.Vine 4, we tried to swap out Ahanix's factory unit, but we ran into a problem with the installed optical drive. It was evident that we would either need to squeeze the life out of the power supply's wiring or remove the optical drive beforehand. The factory unit was easier to work with, since it had a smaller foot print.

Click to enlarge.

All of the drives were also difficult to mount because the HDD bay needed to be removed to screw in the 5-1/4" drives as well as the HDDs. Hopefully, designers of these HTPC cases will soon begin to implement some of the nicer tool-less features that we see in mid-tower cases today.

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

Total time for installation of our test bed took about 20 minutes.