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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/526
AMK LAN-0334 ATX Mid Tower
by Mike Andrawes on April 10, 2000 2:48 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Quick Look |
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AMK
LAN-0334 |
The Good | |
+ Side panel access |
||
The Bad | ||
- Poor construction quality all around |
Based out of British Columbia, Canada, AMK Services is actually a PC reseller, not a case manufacturer as you might guess since we are reviewing "their" case today. What they do, however, is take cases from other manufacturers and add their own set of customizations to enhance the case. Their target audience is the overclockers out there, as evidenced by the focus on cooling in their enhancements.
AnandTech's first look at an AMK custom case is the LAN-0334 mid tower. The "LAN" part of the name comes from the fact that it is designed to be taken to LAN parties. The "0334" refers to the fan configuration, which will be discussed later. You can get other fan configurations on the same basic LAN case from AMK as well.
While we were unable to determine exactly who actually manufactures the LAN-0334, our best educated guess is Avance Technologies. The design of the case has a number of similarities to the Avance 8B04 Mini Tower we looked at a few months back.
It should be noted that AMK formerly used a case from a different manufacturer for the LAN-0334. They went with the new case to get an additional external 5.25" drive bay.
Let's see how AMK fares in the competitive ATX case market...
Specifications |
|
Form Factor | ATX Mid Tower |
Drive Bays |
4 external 5.25" |
Cooling |
Power supply exhaust
fan |
Other Features | Removable
motherboard tray Zip ties included Carrying handle (optional) |
Dimensions (HWD) |
17.5 x 7.75 x 16.5
inches |
Power Supply |
Sunny Technologies
ATX-250 |
Design
On the AMK website, you'll find the LAN-0334 referred to as an "18 inch LAN case" often. The 18" reference is based on its height, which is how AMK refers to all their cases. As a "LAN party" case, its small enough to carry to such LAN parties, yet still large enough to hold your peripherals and cool your case properly while sticking to the standard ATX format.
The front bezel is a unique design that features a bulging power button on the lower half of the case. Just above the power button are the two external 3.5" bays, which are covered with unique curved drive bay cover. Rest assured, however, that when those covers are removed, the two external 3.5" drive bays are of the typical rectangular type. Two status LED's to the right of those bays indicate power and HDD access. The reset button is located just above those two LED's.
You can see from the outside of the case the modifications that AMK has done. Two large cooling fans have been added one to the top and one on the left side of the case. Finger guards cover both fans. More on cooling later.
Two screws hold each side panel in place, while the top panel is permanently affixed with rivets. Once the screws are removed, the side panels simply slide to the rear about an inch and then can be lifted off the case. Note that the left side panel, the one you'll need to remove most of the time, has a fan attached to it, which in turn has a power cable attached to it. This makes removing the panel a slightly trickier proposition than in a traditional case, which has nothing attached to the side panel.
Expansion
The four external 5.25" bays are accessed by removing the plastic covers in the bezel and sliding the drive in place. The 3.5" drive bays, both external and internal, are accessed by removing the screws securing the 3.5" bay bracket. All drives are secured in place by standard case screws.
Throughout the case, we found sharp edges that could easily cut your fingers as you work, so be careful. The poor construction continues as we found that many of the panels in the case did not fit together particularly well.
Motherboard Installation
Motherboard installation is the only time you'll need to remove the right side panel under normal circumstances. A single screw at the back of the case holds the motherboard tray in place. Simply remove this screw and pull up on the motherboard tray to release it. The motherboard then attaches to this tray using standard case standoffs and screws. Reverse the procedure to complete the motherboard installation. Watch out for sharp edges, we cut ourselves repeatedly when removing the motherboard tray.
Our test bed ABIT BX6 Revision 2.0 fit without any issues and just about any single processor board should fit fine. It should be noted that a BP6 will fit, but the second CPU will block the use of the lower 5.25" bay. The layout of the case gives plenty of room to directly access all components of the motherboard. A nice touch by AMK is the inclusion of zip ties to keep all the cables in the system nice and neat.
It's interesting to note that the ATX I/O shield included features an ethernet cutout just above the USB ports. With Intel's CNR initiative and push towards integrated ethernet, look for this to become a standard feature on all ATX I/O shields, much like the cutouts for integrated sound.
Power Supply & Cooling
Despite the other problems we ran into with the AMK LAN-0334, by far the most disappointing comes with the power supply. The Sunny Technologies ATX-250 is a 250W unit that was the first to crash the test bed we use for case testing. This system is not particularly demanding of the power supply, so this is very disappointing. Don't even consider this case for a power hungry Athlon system. We were able to confirm that the power supply was the source of the problem by swapping in a known good unit.
While it's always possible that we simply received a bad unit, we lost a great deal of faith in that theory as soon as we removed the power supply and could feel just how little it weighed. This prompted us to open up the unit and take a look inside, where we found very small heatsinks and overall poor build quality. Take a look at the pictures below of the power supply internals, and compare those to the high quality units from Part 4 of our AMD Athlon Buyer's Guide, which focuses specifically on power supplies.
The Sunny Technologies unit does feature a physical power switch on the back, which can come in quite handy when troubleshooting a system. Just like almost any other current ATX power supply, this one featured a 80 mm exhaust fan.
Of course, cooling is the big focus of AMK's modifications to the original case design. The biggie is the 4.75" exhaust fan that is mounted in the left side panel. This is easily the biggest fan we've seen installed in a case that has made its way into the AnandTech lab. We'll also note again that the left side panel, the one you'll need to remove most of the time, has a fan attached to it, which in turn has a power cable attached to it. This makes removing the panel a slightly trickier proposition than in a traditional case.
A 3.25" fan is mounted to the top panel in a configuration that has become known as a "blow hole" and also exhausts air out of the case. Like the fan mounted in the side panel, the blow hole fan also features a guard to protect your fingers. It is still possible that stuff can fall through the guard and into your system, especially spilled liquids so be careful.
The left side panel features a monstrous 4.75", also with its own finger guard. This is the biggest fan we've seen to date in any case and it moves some serious air. Another 3.25" fan is included in the bottom front of the case and is configured as an intake fan. This completes the "0334" part of the model number, which refers to the two 3.25" fans and the one 4.75" fan. The LAN-3334 model includes an additional 3.25" fan mounted underneath the power supply as an exhaust fan.
The downside to all these fans is noise - at 68db, the LAN-0334 is the loudest case we've tested to date. The thin sheet metal of the side panels and main case body don't help mute the sound much at all, not to mention contribute to an overall cheap feel to the case.
The Test
For full details on how we tested, please read AnandTech's case testing methodology.
The LAN-0334 evaluation sample from AMK featured a 4.75" side panel exhaust fan, a 3.25" exhaust fan at the top of the case ("the blow hole"), and a 3.25" intake fan at the front of the case.
Interestingly, the ambient case temperature of the LAN-0334 was actually quite a bit higher than that of the FK-320ATX from Fong Kai, our current champ, despite the massive amount of air the LAN-0334 moves. Case temperature was about 6 degrees F hotter than the FK-320ATX, while HDD and CPU temperatures were in line with it.
Average temperature numbers looked much like the maximum temperature numbers, but the average ambient case temperature is only slightly higher, 2 degrees F, than the FK-320ATX. Average CPU and HDD temperatures were once again in line with the FK-320ATX.
It should be noted that the massive side panel fan should insure that any heat from the video card will be removed rapidly.
Conclusion
Quick Look |
||
AMK
LAN-0334 |
The Good | |
+ Side panel access |
||
The Bad | ||
- Poor construction quality all around |
Overall, we were very disappointed with the AMK LAN-0334 ATX mid tower case. It was the first case we've tested capable of crashing our test bed on a regular basis thanks to the low quality power supply. Further the construction quality of the case as a whole was also quite poor.
Fortunately for AMK, these major issues are not directly their fault, but rather the result of their case choice upon which their modifications were implemented. Their modifications were in fact well done, but the underlying case is just a low quality model. AMK could greatly improve the quality of their product by choosing a superior case to start with.
As it stands, we can't recommend the LAN-0334. You can probably make most of the modifications yourself to a better case if you're really looking for something like this.
How it Rates
AnandTech Motherboard Rating |
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Rating
(x/10)
|
|
Cooling
|
6.0
|
Expansion
|
7.0
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Quality
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2.0
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Features
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5.5
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Price
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3.0
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Availability
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4.5
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Overall Rating - not an average Click here to find out why |
4.0
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