Black Aluminum Lian Li Imitation @ 34.99!

wow...pretty nice....although I dont need a case or can afford one, it's nice looking and has lots of nice inners...heheh good find
 
dang that's pretty cheap.. I wonder how much is shipping?
 
that 50mm fan mount on the back is scary

Is it even 60mm?

Yes, good mod candidate
 
It's a good price if your into the aluminum looks, but if your looking for something sturdy, then skyhawk isn't the company you should be looking at. The aluminum is probably 1/4 the thickness of a real Lian Li. It is more flimsy than a cheap steel case so be careful when your working with it and don't put it on an uneven surface because the sheet metel will dent very easily.
 
Wow, there are alot of ports on the front bezel and it looks like they aren't even hidden - and who needs a gameport nowdays anyhow??
 
I have a skyhawk case similar to the 34USD one. I bought it a 3 years back, and I am too ashamed to say what I paid. Notice that it doesnt list the material thickness...most panels on my box are less then .02 inch. The card slots are probably .015, very thin. I dont see the Mobo tray either.

On the upside it seems Skyhawk cases are getting better over time. This one was not available when I was looking. Also notice how they list the material thickness, 1.2mm=.042inch. http://www.dealsonic.com/skmssialatxm.html If you must go budget aluminum I think this is a better bet.


Side note, I started modding my old skyhawk case and one nice thing about thin AL is that it cuts like butter.
 
Pete84 said:
Wow, there are alot of ports on the front bezel and it looks like they aren't even hidden - and who needs a gameport nowdays anyhow??

I guess you could use it for a midi connection... what is that between the speaker connections and the midi/gameport? volume control?
 
urbsnspices said:
I have a skyhawk case similar to the 34USD one. I bought it a 3 years back, and I am too ashamed to say what I paid. Notice that it doesnt list the material thickness...most panels on my box are less then .02 inch. The card slots are probably .015, very thin. I dont see the Mobo tray either.

On the upside it seems Skyhawk cases are getting better over time. This one was not available when I was looking. Also notice how they list the material thickness, 1.2mm=.042inch. http://www.dealsonic.com/skmssialatxm.html If you must go budget aluminum I think this is a better bet.


Side note, I started modding my old skyhawk case and one nice thing about thin AL is that it cuts like butter.


At first I saw your measurements and thought it wasn't a realistic number but after a little reasearch, I came up with the following:

1 inch = 25.4 millimeters

.02 inches = .508 millimeters

.015 inches = .3675 milimeters

According to this site: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JuliaSherlis.shtml

The approximate thickness of a piece of copy paper is like 0.004 inches (.098 mm) thick.

So with that being said the sides of your case are about like 5 sheets of paper stacked together.


Hopefully this gives others a frame of reference.
 
Skyhawk makes nice cases for a reasonable price, i considered getting one instead of a lian li back in the day.
 
how does this one compared to the Kingwin ones that look almost exactly the same?
 
please don't buy this case unless you are really desperate. I have built 2 pcs in cases with identical innards and they are flimsy as fuck. The damn thing will vibrate too. Look at the pics and imagine how fun it is to mount a 7200rpm hd in there. BUZZZZZZ. I actually bent the side door on one of them just taking it off :eek: .
 
Yeah, they're only moderately thicker than soda cans, but when the case is assembled, it's decently sturdy as long as you don't sit on it or anything. It was very light for lanparty action, however. It's not a Lian Li. It's a $40 case. It's not a crazy bargain. I don't think they're losing money selling at that price.

The fan intekes are really crappy. I took a drill to mine, gradually drilling the holes larger until there was a couple of mm's holding they grill together. Alternately, one could snip it out entirely and install a decent grill. The processor fan duct is pretty good for feeding fresh air to a hot CPU, and it works well with a Zalman 7700.
 
Rix2357 said:
It's a good price if your into the aluminum looks, but if your looking for something sturdy, then skyhawk isn't the company you should be looking at. The aluminum is probably 1/4 the thickness of a real Lian Li. It is more flimsy than a cheap steel case so be careful when your working with it and don't put it on an uneven surface because the sheet metel will dent very easily.
I second this claim... I bought a skyhawk case off newegg that looks exactly like a lian li for the about 40 bucks. The thing is really flimsy, but on the plus side it makes it extremely light. Mine has 4 80mm(front,back,2xside) and I'm sick of the noise. My next case will have 120mm fans. Once I got it I had some serious modding urges, at least a window and top blow hole. But i figured with the labor(i'm lazy), tools, and materials cost I could have just bought a lian li. This would be a great case for building cheap pc's and selling to customers. But that's just my opinion.

gad_pc.jpg
 
I bought this guy's silver cousin that was on for $29 a few weeks ago. I've been very pleased with it is a mod project case, and would probably be ok with it as a primary case if I could find a place to mount 120mm fans front and rear.

I'm also putting a window kit where some of the 80mm fan mounts go in the doors to pretty it up a bit...

Its alot of case for the money...
 
urbsnspices said:
On the upside it seems Skyhawk cases are getting better over time. This one was not available when I was looking. Also notice how they list the material thickness, 1.2mm=.042inch. http://www.dealsonic.com/skmssialatxm.html If you must go budget aluminum I think this is a better bet.

I actually bought this case a few months ago. I think I paid something like $25 with free shipping. For the money, I think it's a great case. I like aluminum. The only downside is that it scratches easily.
 
mickey4paws said:
I actually bought this case a few months ago. I think I paid something like $25 with free shipping. For the money, I think it's a great case. I like aluminum. The only downside is that it scratches easily.

Can you confirm that the rear of this case is 1.2mm? If they beefed up the rear of their cases (along with everything else) to 1.2mm then it would be a decent budget box.

Also how hard is it to slide that mobo tray out? My case has great 'fit and finish' it is just waaay to thin.

Let me know, I am curious.


(When ever I think of my flimsy case I imagine chris farley yelling and waving his arms an eventually tripping on to my case and smashing it flat. Kinda like all the break-away coffee tables he destroyed... :p )
 
My first PC build (around 2001) I used an aluminum SkyHawk case. I bought it based on a couple of positive reviews. Problem was the reviewers never actually built a PC with the case before they posted the reviews.

If they did they might have found that every one of the swaged in nuts, the are used to lock down the expansion cards, pops right out with the slightest bit of pressure, which was needed because the holes didn't line up worth a crap.

They also might have noticed the hand shredding sharp edges everywhere on the inside of the case.

Unless SkyHawk has improved their quality over the past few years, I'd steer clear.

The plastic fan scoop on the case back, had a 60mm fan in the one I bought (the scoop looks just like the one in the link) but was made to accommodate an 80mm fan. so I swapped the one I have for the larger.
 
magnetik said:
how does this one compared to the Kingwin ones that look almost exactly the same?


Can't even compare. I own a Silver and a Black of the Kingwin you are speaking of. Very high quality cases, love em.

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/cases/Kingwin_KT-424/pg_4.htm

That was just from a quick google search-I'd have to disagree with the reviewers "None!" in the cons area as the case does have one glaring issue-if you want to use the front firewire port you must run the cable out of the back of the case and attach it to a add-in card. Non-issue for myself, but it's something to consider if you have firewire products.
 
t3mp said:
Can't even compare. I own a Silver and a Black of the Kingwin you are speaking of. Very high quality cases, love em.

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/cases/Kingwin_KT-424/pg_4.htm

That was just from a quick google search-I'd have to disagree with the reviewers "None!" in the cons area as the case does have one glaring issue-if you want to use the front firewire port you must run the cable out of the back of the case and attach it to a add-in card. Non-issue for myself, but it's something to consider if you have firewire products.

Or you could get a combo card and run it into the internal port. That's how I have mine. I do like the kingwins and don't mind paying a little more for better quality.. but I haven't been able to find any case I like more than my piano black CM ATC201 yet.
 
Dunno about you, but I ain't seein' any kind of removable motherboard tray on the linked case....
 
thabub said:
please don't buy this case unless you are really desperate. I have built 2 pcs in cases with identical innards and they are flimsy as fuck. The damn thing will vibrate too. Look at the pics and imagine how fun it is to mount a 7200rpm hd in there. BUZZZZZZ. I actually bent the side door on one of them just taking it off :eek: .

Agreed, my friend was cheap and got one of these against my recommendation. It was loud but he fixed that by getting two Akasa case foam packages and covering every surface of the case with it. It's still fimsy but at least it's quiet now.
 
Skyhawk seems to have a cross-eyed engineer or something.

A lot of skyhawk cases i've seen have the mounting holes for the power supply upside-down. This is a major pain if you have a psu with a fan that is supposed to suck air off the cpu, as it will instead suck against the top of the case.

At best, your cpu will run a little hotter. At worst, it'll fry your psu if thats the only intake for its fans.

If you are looking at the back of the case:
NORMAL:
SLK1650B.jpg

Notice how the top left screw hole is inset a bit, and the fan cutout is on the right.

SKYHAWK (abnormal):
dealsonic_1843_53788735

The circular fan cutout on the left should be on the right.

The case in this deal shares the chassis with another one i bought a couple years ago.
It has pretty poor ventilation out the back of the case.
dealsonic_1840_39790853

The fan near the cpu is a 60mm, which aren't too efficient, and are pretty loud.

They give you a shroud/duct thing to use with an 80mm, but it exhausts out the grid of holes on the right hand side of the back (in the photo). The holes are simply too small and spaced too far apart to manage any useful airflow. See the two screws on the grid in that photo? the area enclosed by them is the total area of the duct exhaust, which is way less than 80mm^2.

You can do a lot better for $35. I think Lanboy's were on sale for $50, also no PSU, last week at circuit city. Antec Sonata's go on sale at Fry's every now and then for around $70-80, and they include an antec 380w PSU ($40+ msrp).
 
The Skyhawk csaes I have used(3) all had removable Power Supply plates so you could mount them any way you want. You can't beat the price.
 
wlcrm said:
Skyhawk seems to have a cross-eyed engineer or something.

A lot of skyhawk cases i've seen have the mounting holes for the power supply upside-down. This is a major pain if you have a psu with a fan that is supposed to suck air off the cpu, as it will instead suck against the top of the case.

At best, your cpu will run a little hotter. At worst, it'll fry your psu if thats the only intake for its fans.

If you are looking at the back of the case:
NORMAL:
http://www.antec.com/images/400/backside/SLK1650B.jpg
Notice how the top left screw hole is inset a bit, and the fan cutout is on the right.

SKYHAWK (abnormal):
http://store1.yimg.com/I/dealsonic_1843_53788735
The circular fan cutout on the left should be on the right.

The case in this deal shares the chassis with another one i bought a couple years ago.
It has pretty poor ventilation out the back of the case.
http://store1.yimg.com/I/dealsonic_1840_39790853
The fan near the cpu is a 60mm, which aren't too efficient, and are pretty loud.

They give you a shroud/duct thing to use with an 80mm, but it exhausts out the grid of holes on the right hand side of the back (in the photo). The holes are simply too small and spaced too far apart to manage any useful airflow. See the two screws on the grid in that photo? the area enclosed by them is the total area of the duct exhaust, which is way less than 80mm^2.

You can do a lot better for $35. I think Lanboy's were on sale for $50, also no PSU, last week at circuit city. Antec Sonata's go on sale at Fry's every now and then for around $70-80, and they include an antec 380w PSU ($40+ msrp).

You should take a closer look at your first pic there. That Skyhawk has a removable plate that lets you mount the PSU in either direction. However, yes, the case in this deal does have the PSU mounting the wrong way. Just about every case I've had has one of those plates on them, the exception being a coolermaster mATX desktop unit. The Coolermaster has a double set of holes.
 
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