Antec Skeleton Review
Exterior or Interior ?
Normally at this point in review, we would start with the exterior of the case and work our way to explaining its interior. But I’m not sure you can even call the Skeleton a case, let alone figure out its exterior and interior. Everything is visible from just one look at the case. So we’ll deal with both aspects at the same time
See what I mean? That is why they call this, the ‘Skeleton’. The front panel of the Skeleton includes a little dot on the left which is the HDD status indicator, reset button, IEEE1394 (FireWire) port, two USB ports, eSATA, headset out, mic out and power button, from left to right. In the picture above on the right, you will notice a yellow strip of clear plastic running horizontally. This is the retention panel used to hold the PCI/PCI-E cards in place. It contains holes into which PCI brackets on the cards can be screwed.
One of the problems with testbeds is that your components don’t get any active cooling due to the lack of any fans. The massive 250 mm fan on top of the Skeleton will ensure against that as it blows air onto the motherboard tray. The frame is made from steel reinforced ABS and the component tray is manufactured from 0.8 mm cold rolled steel.
One look at the Skeleton should make it clearly evident that due to the open nature of the case, it is very prone to accidents such as liquid spills or objects hitting your components.
The fan has a multi-colored LED setup which looks fantastic. The color displayed by the setup can be controlled by the switches shown above on left. The LEDs have the following 9 modes:
- Auto – The pattern changes in this mode constantly with all the colors mixing with each other and in my opinion this looks the most beautiful.
- Blue
- Green
- Red
- Blue + Green
- Blue + Red
- Red + Green
- Blue + Red + Green
- Off
Additionally, the fan speed can be set to low, medium and high. The fan is almost inaudible in the ‘low’ mode. It is quite silent in the ‘high’ mode and it’s not disturbing. It manages to push a lot of air in this mode which is certainly a good thing for enthusiasts as this cools the whole motherboard; especially the memory sticks and the northbridge.
The side panels can be removed easily. Just push the tab shown above (one on each side of the panel) and the side panel is easily removed.
One feature that many enthusiasts who change their components regularly would appreciate is the easy removal of the component tray. The component tray can be removed by loosening two thumb screws on the back side of the case. One of these is shown in the image above. Once the screws are removed, slide the tray out. The tray comes out to about three-fourth of its length. If you want to completely remove the tray from the case, you need to press down on the latch on the right side of tray (as shown in the image on the right above) and keep pulling the tray towards yourself. This procedure can be quite tedious to get used to at first, but keep at it and the tray will soon be out of the case.
Hi I like this article and it was so informational and I am gonna bookmark it. One thing to say the Indepth analysis this article has is trully remarkable.Who goes that extra mile these days? Well Done! Just one more tip you shouldget a Translator for your Worldwide Readers …