XClio Case Design
For a few years now, I’ve been prone to add a fan at the front of the case to provide additional/needed cooling for the HDDs located at the lower front portion of the case. With the XION II, I didn’t have to add a fan - there already was one included. However, when I attempted to add one of my own 120 MM fans to front of the XCLIO, I discovered there was no way to install one of this size! (See the following photos, please.)
The Front Bezel is easily removed once four screws are removed from inside each side of the case. You can clearly see the layout of the framing so that fans of various sizes can be added just behind the aluminum frame. Fans CANNOT be added on the front of the frame due to the wiring and lights installed behind the front bezel.
Attempt to slide 120 MM fan into place results in failure.
Attempt to slide a 120 MM fan from between the HDD rack also fails.
This is quite baffling as the case is definitely designed so that one can be attached to the frame just in front of the HDD stack. But, no matter which way I tried to install a standard 120 MM fan, it would not go in. I might possibly could force one into place but it would bend the front frame and even, perhaps, do damage to the fan. So, I opted to simply see how the case would do without adding any additional fans at all. It should be interesting to see if there’s any difference once everything’s in place and at operating temperature.
Another matter I discovered is in regards to the assembly of the side cover and the 360 MM fan. If you look closely at the following photo, you’ll see that there’s a set of wires wrapped around the outer rim of the fan housing:
This puzzled me a lot. I still can’t come up with any logical reason for this unusual routing of these wires. I had to take a closer look at this area after realizing that the small LED in the side cover – between the speed control knob and the ON/OFF button for the fan lights – was not coming on. After taking the entire assembly apart and routing that set of wires in a manner that made more sense to me, I still can’t get this LED to glow. It just seems that something isn’t wired/connected correctly. It definitely should come on but is either not properly connected or the LED is broken or burned out. Otherwise, the LEDs on the fan and the ON/OFF switch do work as expected.
Other than these small problems, the 6030 Plus! is ready to be put into operation. After all, the main thing we want to see is how well it cools the components in comparison to our original XION II setup.
The Case in Action
If the large blue light from the 360 MM Fan is too much for one’s taste, it can be turned off using the Push Button On/Off switch. The rotating button below the ‘non-glowing’ LED controls the speed of the fan.
