In-Win CE685.FH300TB3 300W MicroATX Slim Case (Black)

I like this case for the same reason that I like some other Inwin cases: they have stately appearances that make them appropriate for professional environments. Personally I don't need either water cooling or vibrant LEDs. My CE685 houses a NAS unit. It is a small form factor case because of its thin appearance, not because of its long front to back dimension. The existence of an external 5.25 inch drive bay allowed me to install some front superspeed USB ports, and I used the opening for a 3.5 inch drive to house the receiver of a Simerec remote control unit. Running the wires for the remote required some attention because storage got in the way. Adjacent to the 5.25 inch drive bay is an odd hard drive bracket. It works fine, but I had to install remote control wires as well as SATA cables with angled heads before I put the motherboard into the case because the fit between the hard drive bracket and outward-facing motherboard SATA ports was very tight. Nonetheless, using the hard drive bracket and the underside of the 5.25 inch bay allowed me to install two 2.5 inch SSD's with space between them. If anyone wonders, a 92mm case fan will fit into the bracket in which Inwin supplies a 90mm system fan, so that one can install a more silent 92mm fan if one desires. For my uses the case runs super cool, as the Pentium processor has never topped 60 degrees and the motherboard has not exceeded 45 degrees, even under heavy processor loads.

Bought this case to repurpose my old motherboard, CPU, and RAM. Overall the build went pretty smoothly, despite a couple of hiccups (see cons). Pros: - The case is well laid out. - Tool-less mounts work well. - Stock fan isn’t loud. Make sure you use a fan header than can voltage-control non-PWM fans. - Thinner than normal PSU wires make cable routing much easier for the 24-pin and 4+4 CPU power connector. - Love the dual-size power LED connector. Genius idea. - 4 front USB ports are a nice bonus. Cons: - Front panel LED connectors aren’t labeled with positive and negative. I had them backwards. I believe the colored wires are positive and the white is negative. - If you have a full-sized 9.6” x 9.6” motherboard that also has side-facing SATA ports, you will not be able to use the plastic cage for the 3.5” hard drive. I was able to mash the drive in without the cage, but it’s still a lot of stress on the cables. - Some steel parts inside the case are sharp. They don’t all have rolled edges. - Tool-less mechanism built in to the case cover MAY interfere with very wide CPU coolers that come close to the max. - As others have stated, the external 3.5” bay seems useless without removing the only intake fan. I’m not sure whether a card reader exists that’s shallow enough to clear the fan. - I think the case needs to have a vent above the CPU socket to aid in thermals. EDIT: 10/09/2021 - Case is still great, and is now an OPNsense router with a different mobo. HOWEVER, my SuperMicro X11SSH motherboard does not utilize one of the normal Micro ATX mounting holes. To avoid risking any shorts, I had to rip one of the standoffs out of the case. It seemed to be the only standoff that wasn't actually a "part of" the motherboard tray, but it was still press-fit into place and needed to be ripped out. I realized now I probably could have covered the standoff with electrical tape and would have been fine.

Love this case. Even though this case is smaller it is perfect for fitting all my components. Perfect setup for cd player and hard drive. I like skrewless setup and it seems very sturdy. The case is well worth the money and the psu is nearly silent. Only suggestion is just be aware of how your motherboard fits into the case you might have to buy slim sata cables for your motherboard connetions.

Nice, solid case..quiet..easy to assemble.. Looks good, small footprint..seems to have a supply that is of quality.. I loaded with a matx solution no problem.. Designed to be used as htpc or tower.. I am extremely pleased with this purchase for what I intended for.. A compact, lower powered media player-basic office-network device A quality unit

This case is amazing to be honest. I wanted to downsize from atx motherboard to matx and this case is perfect for that. You can't fit a full size graphics card, which sucks, but there are some good low profile graphics cards that compensate for this. I thought cooling would be an issue since there is only one fan in the front but surprisingly it has pretty good airflow. I was also able to fit an amd wraith cooler into the case (the stock cooler with the ryzen 5 1500x cpu) It has almost no clearance above the fan, but it is enough for the cooler to still work. If this is a concern you could always get an aftermarket low profile cooler and it would also be fine. I mainly just like how the whole case is compact and easy to move and fit on small desks. In addition the side panel is super easy to open for quick access, which is great for me because I hated taking off the mid sized tower side panels. Even the included power supply is pretty good and has enough output for all my stuff, including a 3.5 inch HDD, 2.5 SDD, and a disk drive (plus what's listen below) Computer specs: cpu - amd ryzen 5 1500x w/ wraith spire cooler gpu - GIGABYTE GeForce GT 1030 Low Profile mobo - B350M GAMING PRO MSI mATX ram - Ballistix Sport LT 8GB Single DDR4 2666 MT/s wifi card - TP-Link TL-WN881ND N300 PCI-E

This product is just great, the price is affordable, and I really like the material used.

1) Mfg states internal clearance above CPU is 81mm. However, indent for top cover release catch and mid-plate support are both over the CPU. This reduces internal clearance over the CPU to ~64mm. 2) Adjacent to lower right of motherboard is metal support, presumably for securing hard drive. Plate is extremely close to motherboard and may block any of its right-angled connectors. With MSI PRO B650M-P ProSeries Motherboard, the 20-pin and SATA connectors are blocked. Loss of 20-pin connector means front panel USB ports are not available. 3) Poor documentation. Email to support to follow.

Perfect fit to remove my GPU and turn my mid tower pc into a small size form factor pc !

Have used dozens of these cases (and the BL040). Very clean and simple looking; great for office use.

great quality. exactly as advertised.