Evercase ECE1341 Slim BTX Case at ASE Labs

»Evercase ECE1341 Slim BTX Case at »ASE Labs

BTX is the latest and greatest standard to happen to computers since the introduction to ATX 10 years ago. While BTX may be the latest, not everything that is BTX is the greatest. The Evercase Slim BTX case is on the bench for review and it doesn't shine.

Does anyone know where the E1341-AZ1 Azalia Front IO:2*USB V2.0/2* Audio/Firewire (IEEE1394) kit can be purchased? Preferably in the USA. Need details on where the extras can be purchased for this case. I would only need a quantity of one so hopefully it would be ordered from a place that does not have a minimum purchase amount restriction.

Thanks

Welcome to the site.

Email one of their distrubuters. http://www.evercase.com/newsite/6buy/index1.htm That's what I did to get the parts. You can also email them directly.

Email: usa_sales@evercase.com

Its been several months since I attended the ICC here in Tampa, FL. (April) After reveiwing many of the supposed latest and greatest products I chose to go ahead and order the Intel Evercase special offer. It is now July and I am just now getting it all together. Your review hits most points right on the head. When I originally received the products which included the Evercase ECE1341 Slim BTX CaseV, Intel 530J P4 3.0, and the Intel 915GMH Mobo I was pretty excited. How quickly it turned into an ongoing nightmare. The biggest problem I encountered beyond the case was the original board design was shipped with a flaw causing it to short seconds after power-up. I fought with Intel for weeks only to be told that I am not the only one with this issue and I will have to wait until the engineers find a solution. I finally received the updated motherboard and put it all together. After the grueling assembly I was really only impressed by its sleek appearance. The lack of case addons was a big disappointment and I did have to order all the additional parts from Evercase as well. I emailed them directly and ordered by telephone without any hassle. Thank goodness the addons were rather inexpensive. I found this site by chance looking for information about the psu and what type of video card it could handle. I had been searching to see if the 6600GT I wanted would run in this case without issue. I can apparently see that its going to be a snug fit. I must ask before I order this card, how well did the card perform in your setup? Any PSU or heating issues? This case is thin and attractive but a bear in every other aspect. Once assembed this thing is no lightweight either. For the money I invested I am going to keep it and make the best of things. For those who haven't already invested in this rig, I suggest you might want to shop around.

I will include I an image of my setup if I find some time, but for those that just read this article, you know what it looks like.

Evercase ECE1341 Slim BTX Case
Intel 915GMH BTX formfactor motherboard
Intel 530J P4 3.0HT and Intel 550 P4 3.4HT
1012 PC3200/333
120g SATA
Liteon Duel Layer DVD+-RW
3.5
Windows XP Pro SP2

Logitech Mouse
harman/kardon speakers
19" AL1912 LCD

It opens my email real nice!

»http://www.aseville.com/systems.php?id=28 That is my system setup. Make sure to post yours at ASEville. My motherboard was also DOA. I'm getting it RMAed.

The system ran fine with everything. I'll be posting a review on the 6600GT this week. The system was also noisy, much more than I would've thought BTX would be.

Hey, I also got this ICC combo. I too found it to be a bear to install.
And now that it's all assembled, strange things are happening. What symptoms did your computer exhibit when you found it to be DOA. I'm getting garbled video display (eg. the splash screen sometimes has a black box instead of the p4 logo, going through the BIOS setup and suddenly random letters/lines of letters begin to disappear), to complete inability to get video to show. The CPU heatsink gets very hot very quickly as well and the CPU fan doesn't seem to be spinning fast at all. So basically, the three items I'm checking are the memory, mb (chipset/BIOS in particular) and cpu. Ugh.
Good accurate review though. Got me some very useful info about what came with the case and what to expect when I installed the system. Shared the same complaints you had, plus, I didn't like the sharp edges on the front grille. I just have a feeling I'm gonna cut myself one stupid morning. Although I doubt anyone other than Intel ICC attendees will come across this case. As I saw with their Enlight case they sold in addition to the 865perl+3.0c package 2 years ago. At least Evercase responded to my requests to purchase the front panel audio/usb2/firewire addition.

That sounds like you have a faulty video card. If you are using the onboard type, you may want to call up Intel for help. I called them up for my RMA and they were talking down to me because I was calling as a consumer, not a store.

Was using onboard. Called Intel, heard a familiar story (others were having similiar problems, what's your IPD # and your board will arrive tomorrow). Anyway long story short, new board arrived, noticed some small differences in the boards (2 caps look replaced and all inductors? -coils of wire- were replaced). Amazing what happens you you've familiarized yourself with the setup. The second round with teh board took a scant 15-30 minutes to put it together and power up. I do have to give them props for fitting the PCI3x16 riser card, securing perfectly along the removable rail and the 2nd hd slot fitting neatly right above it, also screwing into the support rail. As with cabling, after looking at other SFF compters, I can say that there are worse than this case, and this case does give you a little (well... very little) bit of space to hide and squish cables, It is a bit outrageous that they give us 2-3 ft long cables to span a distance of 6 inches tho (eg Front panel 1394).
The one major design flaw I found with the board was the placement of the FDD header, as the cable has to cross the stream of fire to get to where the FDD in this case is. However, I'm sure there are plenty of cases that will have the FDD and CDROM side by side and thus be a better solution. I also had some issues with drivers after the bootup, but they seem to be just about all behind me now. And despite the fact that we have Intel's "mainstream" cooler, when the computer is idling, simply playing music or word processing, its barely audible. Quite nice, esp for an Intel stock fan. Only lasting concerns will be finding a vid card to fit in, and concerns about heat, esp the HDD in the primary HDD bay. It's surprisingly heavy for a computer this small, and if someone wants to steal components, they'll have to find a map to locate all the screws just to be able to gain access to the motherboard.

I just swapped out the CPU on this system....I must say that Aron was if anything too charitable in his review. I hesitate to really trash a product and always try and give the benefit of the doubt to a manufacturer, but my bottom line review of this case is do not even think about buying it. Even given the fact that a slim case requires a more difficult installation of components, it is obvious that the whoever designed the case never actually had to work with it. It was bad enough to configure....forget about a CPU Swap....even HDD changes are painful.