Silverstone LC20 Case

I’ve been tinkering with the idea of building an HTPC (Home Theater PC) for a while now. So when we received the Silverstone LC20, I leaped at the chance to write a review on it. Read on to find out how this HTPC case fared.

The idea of an HTPC is not brand new.  Since video cards were created with TV output, people have been interfacing with their television sets. With the advent of TV Tuner cards, people have actually been able to use their computers as televisions directly.
But things change, and the area of computer and television integration has been no exception.  New hardware and software allowed us to crawl out of the Stone Age and put one more foot into the Digital Age. Computers can now be used not only to display output on a television, but to act as a complete entertainment platform.  You can watch movies, listen to Internet radio, and play PC games, all on your TV.  In addition, your computer can act as a PVR (Personal Video Recorder), recording your favorite shows to hard drive for you to play back at a later time.  All this is just touching the surface; there is much more you can do with your HTPC.  You may even find yourself replacing some of your existing home entertainment components altogether.

The Silverstone LC20 is a computer case, designed to be used as the home for an HTPC computer.  The case is sleek and attractive, so it won't look too out of place among all of your other home entertainment products.  Before opening the box, I took a quick trip to Silverstone's website to grab the specs on the LC20:

Material	Aluminum front panel, 0.8 mm SECC body
Color	Black
	Silver
Motherboard	Standard ATX, Micro ATX
Model	LC20B(Black)
	LC20S(Silver)
Drive Bay	External	5.25¨ x 2
	External	3.5" x 1
	Internal	3.5" x 6
Cooling System	Front	2 x 92mm or 80mm fan slots
	Rear	2 x 80mm fan slots
	Side	1 x 80mm fan slot
Expansion Slot	7
Front I/O Port	USB2.0 x 4 IEEE1394 x 1 audio x 1 MIC x 1
Power Supply	Optional standard PS2 (ATX)
Net Weight	7 kg
Dimension	430 mm (W) x 170mm (H) x 430 mm (D)

As always, Silverstone has created an attractive package for the LC20 case. The box shows the case both in silver and black (we got the black one).  They say that patience is a virtue, but I don't have any, so I opened the box up to see what we had.

  

 

Once I opened the box, I could see that the LC20 was held securely in place, and hence safe from most injury, by some thick foam spacers. I could already see the dark aluminum chassis, so I wasted no more time and ripped the case unceremoniously from the box (gently, of course).
Here's a pic of the case as it was when it came out of the box.  Take note of how this case looks more like a stereo component than an actual computer case.

Let's take a tour of the case, shall we?I can tell you that this case, in black, is indeed beautiful. It has the same basic look as your typical stereo component, and should fit in nicely. I prefer black stereo components, so I'm quite happy that the model we received was black.  Let's take a look at the case from the outside.

On the front right of the case are two doors. You open these doors by pressing them on the top. The larger door on top houses up to two optical drives.  Here's a pic of the door open.

The other door is much slimmer, and on the bottom.  It contains four USB ports, a Firewire port, and jacks for headphones and a microphone. Here's a pic to illustrate.

On the left side of the case, on the front, is an attractive power button.  Not your normal PC case, that's for sure.

Moving on with our tour, along the side we find an exhaust port that can hold an 80mm fan.  It's these small things that make a case a joy to work with.

And this brings us to the back of the case.  Let's take a look at it, and then discuss it.

Looking at the above pic, you can see that the motherboard sits all the way to the left.  Directly above the motherboard socket opening, there is room for two 80mm fans, for further ventilation of the case. The one thing that's kind of odd about this case is the placement of the PSU, over to the right.  But we will discuss that a bit later.The inside of the case is nearly as impressive as the outside.  Here's a pic of it as soon as I opened it.

Notice how wide open the case is inside?  It's almost a completely empty shell, and there is PLENTY of room to work.  In addition, there is a stabilizer bar running across the top of the enclosure, to add stability from front to back.  Let's take a close look at those cages.

These are the hard drive cages.  As you can see, there are enough slots for six internal 3.5" hard drives.  Better yet, by removing the two small screws at the top of each cage, the cage is removed completely for securing the hard drives.  This makes it pretty simple to work on them.

This picture shows the optical drive cage. This is where you would install your CD and DVD drives. There is room for two of these drives inside the cage. You can also easily remove this cage with the two screws seen at the top of the picture.  When you do so, you are left with the floppy drive cage. It's hidden from view in the above pic, but trust me, it's down there.

Here's the area where the motherboard goes from a different vantage point.  Again, I stress that this case has a TON of room inside to work with, so let's go ahead and install some hardware!Now that we are all intimate and familiar with the case, let's add some components and see how it all comes together.  For this machine, here are the components I'll be installing:

• EPoX 8U1697 Motherboard with AMD 64 3000+ CPU and 1GB OCZ RAM
• PowerColor X1300 video card with 512MB RAM
• XG Magnum EX 600w External PSU
• Pioneer DVD +/-R Reader/Writer
• Samsung 120GB IDE HD

The first thing I did was install the motherboard into the case.  The board is a full-size ATX board, and it fastened in securely.

Once I had this in, I decided to do a test-fit of the wires, to make sure they could reach where they needed to on the motherboard.  Well, the good news is that they fit.  The bad news is they only fit if I stretched them tight, and did not re-install the optical drive cage.  Nah, that wasn't going to work.

After examining the problem, it suddenly became apparent what the issue was.  The wires, namely the USB leads for the front panel, were fed through the wrong hole in the front of the case.  If I was able to re-route them through a different hole, I should be able to get an additional 10-12 inches of slack.  Being that I was only short by two or three inches, this would be plenty. The yellow arrows point to the USB headers on the board.
So I disassembled more of the case, and spent the next 20 minutes meticulously re-running the wires through the closer hole.  It was a little difficult, but I finally managed to get them all successfully in place.  Here's a couple shots of the progress:

One thing I'd like to point out is the placement of the PSU mount.  In this case, it is on the opposite side of where you would normally expect to see it.  This puts the PCI slots in a direct path between the PSU and the PSU power connectors on the motherboard, in many cases.  On this particular board, it couldn't have been any worse.  I had to install the video card, and then run the power leads over the top of the video card, to plug into the motherboard behind it.

Notice how I'm not actually installing a full PSU inside the case, but instead this adapting harness? That's because the PSU I'm using is external, and does not sit within the computer's case itself.  This will be beneficial, since it will mean less heat generated inside the case.

With the board and PSU hooked up, it was time to install the DVD and hard drive.  Installing them into the drive cages was no big deal.  Here are some pics of the drives in the cages, and then the cages installed into the machine.

 

And finally, all that was left to do was hook up all the miscellaneous wires and power cables.  Here's a final pic of all the components hooked up and ready to run.  Notice the blue USB cables, and how much extra length I have, now that I moved them to a different access hole in the case.

And of course, a few shots of the case closed up, and even resting comfortably in its new home in my wall unit.

I've got to tell you, this case has PLENTY of room for hardware and drives and STILL looks plenty sexy sitting in your entertainment center with your other home theatre components.

In addition to everything we installed, there were three additional fan slots on the back and side of the case, as well as two fan brackets on the front of the two hard drive caddies. There is also a grill on the side of the case where a normal PSU would be mounted, to allow better ventilation for the PSU itself. Basically, this case is not only roomy, but provides many options for enhancing the cooling of the case.
It is worth noting that this case did not come with a remote control or any kind of readout on the front of the case. Those additional bells and whistles are available in the LC20's big brother, the LC20M.
Here are the highs and lows for this case:
Highs:

• Looks very sleek
• Takes a standard ATX motherboard
• Tons of drive bays
• Excellent fan options
• Front Panel USB, Firewire, and Audio jacks

Lows:

• Had to re-run cables so they would reach sockets on the board
• Power supply placement can be inconvenient for some boards
• Somewhat pricey ($120 at the time of this writing)

Overall, the biggest problem with this case was the wiring.  It was easily remedied with a little work, but I'm quite surprised it left the factory wired that way. Most of the motherboards I've worked with feature USB headers in a similar location on the board, so none of them would have fit in this case.
As far as price, if you want a sleek HTPC case, then this is the price you have to pay.  Sure, you could pay less than half the price for a computer case that would do the trick, but it wouldn't look as good with your entertainment center.
Overall, I give this case an 8 out of 10, and the Dev Hardware recommended award.  If you are looking for a sleek case to use as a base for a HTPC, then this might just be what the doctor ordered.

I'd like to thank Silverstone for sending us the LC20 to review.  If you would like more information about this case, or any of Silverstone's other products, please visit their website at