Silverstone LC19 Case
Sep 30th, 2010 | By SimonIt wouldn’t be hard to figure out how to install all your components into the LC19 without reading the included instruction guide, but you’ll want to keep it handy if you run into issues. To start, I stripped the case down by removing the PCI-E bracket and optical drive cage. The optical drive cage is unscrewed from the underside of the case.
This frees up enough space to install my motherboard and then my hard drive. The motherboard installation in the LC19 is as simple as it gets. The case is shallow and completely open giving you plenty of room to work with. The hard drive is secured from the underside of the case. This is more of a tedious task than a difficult one as you need to keep sliding the hard drive around until the holes all line up. The anti-vibration strips look like they will be a huge plus in keeping noise levels down. There is no metal to metal contact other than the four screws.
If you want to use any expansion cards with the LC19, you’re limited to just 1 device and you have very limited headroom. I wanted to install a dedicated video card and first had to remove the PCI-E bracket and prepare the riser. The task itself is easy and well documented in the installation guide.
Where I got stuck was with the headroom, you have to remember the case is only 68mm tall and that doesn’t leave much room for heatsinks on video cards, especially if the card was designed to be only passively cooled!
If you’re set on purchasing the LC19, keep the following dimensions in mind. The heatsink can’t be taller than 38mm and the maximum allowable expansion card must be shorter than 19mm and have length and width dimension less than 171.8 x 98.4mm.
As I didn’t have a slim optical drive to install, I’m going to skip that step and for me the last thing to do is install a heatsink and put everything back together. I’m using the which is designed to fit inside the LC19. With this case, you are limited to a very small selection of heatsinks.
I also want to point out that once the optical drive cage has been re-installed, it is almost impossible access the corner of your motherboard if there are USB ports or jumpers to plug in. The positioning of the tabs to secure the optical drive are fixed so even though I want to say Silverstone should notch out that area of the drive cage, it would hinder the support of the optical drive. The only option is to make sure you have all your cables plugged into your motherboard before you re-assembly.
With everything back together, we can see how well the case performs with my new rig.
Here’s a breakdown of everything I’ve installed.
- CPU: Intel i5 661 with NT07-1156
- MB: MSI H55M-ED55
- RAM: Crucial
- Video: Onboard
- PSU: FSP120-AAB
- HD: Seagate 500GB 7200.12
- OS: Microsoft Windows 7
- Comparisons
- Silverstone LC19
- Open air (no case)
To get load temperatures I started the PC up and fired up OCCT for 2 hours to get the load temperatures. After the first hour the temperatures had stabilized. The temperatures were recorded from CPUID Hardware Monitor.
Next up was to kill the load and let the PC idle for an hour before recording the idle temperatures.
The idle temperatures are fairly impressive and the load temperatures are on the warm side but not totally unbearable. While I certainly wouldn’t keep running the processor at 70C, a few hours a night won’t kill it.
The only stock fan included with the LC19 is a 50mm exhaust. It provides no extra noise than the NT07-1156. Purely a subjective matter, I was surprised how quiet the LC19 was with the NT07. I was expecting the fans to be loud and annoying but it just provided a steady buzz that was easy to ignore.
The power supply is rated for 120W which can be limiting for most desktop machines, but it is just enough for my mATX machine. Under full load the processor draws 97W and factoring all the other miscellaneous devices requiring power, the FSP is probably going all out to meet my power demands. The voltages are a touch on the high side but not in any dangerous levels. The 12V line reads 12.23V, the 5V line reads 5.76 and the 3.34V line reads 3.3v.