CiT S012B Slim Micro ATX/ITX Case for 300W Power Supply Unit with Built In Card Reader - Black

I originally bought this case in July 2013 and this is what I wrote then:I like this case very much. I have put an Asus P5QPL-AM motherboard and one HDD in it with no trouble at all. I'm not sure about a second HDD although it claims it's possible.The instructions are a joke! They seem to have been translated (from the Chinese, I suppose) with the aid of the Google translator. Such sentences as "Backward pull the 5"25 on backward to take out" and "Cages on the screw 5"25 revolving to the rack, and installs VGA card" had my wife and me in fits of laughter. I suppose it's understandable but it's a pity that some foreign manufacturers don't take more care with instructions as it can give the impression that the item is not as good as it undoubtedly is.Two years later (August 2015): Today I decided to replace the fan with a Zalman ultra quiet fan, something which I've been meaning to do for some time. In fact the Zalman is noisier than the original fan! Maybe it's the cpu fan that I can hear. Either way, the noise of the original was not that obtrusive and my view of this case has not changed. I still think it's an excellent little case.Eleven years later (April 2024): this has been working faultlessly for eleven years. I use it as a mail server so it's on 24/7 and is ignored most of the time. Yesterday it started rebooting every few minutes. Today it won't start up at all, so I wonder if all that is wrong is that the power unit has become faulty. It's a non-standard unit so difficult, if not impossible, to find a replacement. So I'm tempted to buy an exact replacement and transfer all the innards from the old case. It's still relatively cheap even if the problem isn't with the power unit. I still like the neatness of such a small case.I think that eleven years isn't a bad run for a cheap case. I still think it's worth five stars.

This is a great PC case for the price. It's compact and neat, and is plenty roomy enough for a Micro\Mini ITX\ATX motherboard with a good sized heat sink. I had about 3-4 cm to spare on top of my fan\heat sink combo.The front is cleanly set out with a blue LED for the power supply and a red LED for the disc activity. The latter of which is optional and can be disabled simply by not plugging the cable in if you want a more discrete PC. There are two USB ports and a card reader on the front. Both of which attach to a standard type 1 or 2 motherboard USB connector.There is room at the back for a standard sized breakout panel, and 4 half hight card slots.The case includes single 80mm fan, which is located at the top (or on the left hand side if you lay the PC flat), and there are ventilation holes the entire width of the front and the top, and holes for a second case fan on the bottom\right hand side.The PSU is located at the front, and can be rotated by 90deg to allow larger size motherboards to be fitted. It vents through the bottom of the case when laying down, so you may want to invest in some rubber feet if you plan to have this in desktop configuration rather than tower configuration. I paid £1.50 including postage for some.The built in PSU is a standard sized SFX PSU rated at 300Wat. Which is more than enough for a motherboard, two sticks of RAM, an SSD, and HD and a DVD, and a basic graphics card capable of "light" gaming. Though you will want to upgrade this if you want a more powerful graphic card.The PSU's dimensions are 125 x 63 x 100 mm (W x H x D) . You can fit a larger PSU in if you remove the tray that holds the discs and DVD.The case is well presented. The body is enamel\gloss black and doesn't show fingerprints too much. The front is piano black and does show fingerprints, but not too much as to be a pain.The case comes with all of the screws needed to fit discs and the motherboard, and by default can mount an optical disc, an SSD and a single 3.5 inch HD. You could fit two 2.5 inch HDs in the single 3.5 inch slot but you would need to buy a tray adapter for that.The PSU is well connected. There is a standard 20+4 pin Motherboard connector (24 pin for ATX, 20 pin for ITX) and a 4 pin CPU connector. There is a connector for a floppy disc, 3 S-ATA discs, and 2 4 pin connectors for older EIDE discs.Overall a great little case for the price.The one downside is that the PSU fan is SO NOISY. I'm used to loud computers, but this thing is turned up to 11. I've never heard such a loud fan on a machine that didn't have a bad bearing.This is OK for a regular computer in a room with somebody who doesn't mind the noise in exchange for a cheap case, BUT it means that it's not suitable for an HTPC unless you shut it away in a cabinet.Fortunately, it's really easy to change the PSU and there are cheap and quiet ones on the market if you do feel like changing it.At this price it's not a problem. The PSU is more or less being given away with the case so you can replace it if you like.I brought this case directly from CiT, and their service was FANTASTIC. I ordered this last thing at night and they had it with the courier before midnight and it was delivered the next day. Even though I am at the other end of the country.They literally had this with the courier within 2 hours of my order even though I ordered long after most businesses would have gone for the day.

I guess you get what you pay for. It's reasonably well built and aesthetically pleasing.I didn't use the instruction manual as I'm reasonably well experienced in PC building (24 and counting). But from the front page it was in poor English so it might not be too helpful.As far as building goes it wasn't a pain, the PSU cables were long enough but the CPU was a bit of a stretch and has to sit over the RAM.The big problem with this case is if you're running half decent hardware (I used an A8 5600K) then it will got hot (and loud). To amend this I removed the drive cage (I'm using SSD only- no optical drive) and Installed 2 120MM fans, one under the area the PSU is installed in and one over the motherboard near the PCIe lanes. I used Velcro adhesive patches to connect the fans + ssd to the chassis.If using reasonably powerful hardware (i.e. quad cores) you might want to steer clear unless you like ghetto modding cases for a challenge.