Thermaltake Shark Aluminum Full Tower

Installation:

So after taking a good look at everything, we embarked on our adventure of installing the components into the case. We started with the motherboard. The motherboard attached to the motherboard tray pretty easily. Then in order to place the tray back into the case we had to replace the I/O panel in the back. This was our first hurdle. The I/O panel is very tightly stuck in the case. There are also no grips or latches to help with its removal. Therefore, we resorted to taking a screwdriver and viciously prying at all sides of the panel. It took probably at least 5 minutes to finally punch out the default panel. However after it was replaced, there were no further problems with the installation of the motherboard. The next components that were installed were the CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives. Just like any other rail mount system, the rails were attached to the side of the drives and then the drive had to be forced, not slid, into the bay. It just so happens that the sharp aluminum of the case catches on the rails once installed. When you depress the rail to release it, the case bends with it, resulting in the rail NOT releasing. After trying repeatedly to remove the drive by normal means, we resorted to our trusty screwdriver yet again. We removed the right side panel and front bezel and finally were able to pry the drive rail away from the bay. Needless to say, this was quite annoying. We ran into yet more problems when trying to replace the front bezel. The front port connector wires got stuck between the fan and the bezel, which prevented the fan from moving. It took a few tries of carefully pushing the wires around to clear the wires from the fan. After that was finally finished, we moved along to installing the floppy drive. Luckily there were no problems here. The drive was simply screwed onto the bay frame and slid back in. The rest of the installation was pretty painless. The hard drives were screwed in and slid into the rails (no problems here unlike the 5.25” rails). The power supply was then installed, all cables and wires were connected, and then all of the PCI, and AGP expansion cards were installed. The clamp retention mechanism for the slot worked surprisingly well and kept the cards (yes even the heavy 6800GT with NV Silencer 5) in place.