Introduction

The first stages in my quest for a silent PC have begun. The first step was the purchase of a new PC Case. After much research I decided upon the Antec Sonata. The Antec Sonata is a mid tower case that comes with an Antec 380w power supply. It is marketed by Antec with the slogan “hear the silence”. Today I hope to provide some insight into the Sonata case.

The Packaging

The case came in a box that could be considered sexy by the standards of generic components. It really makes me wonder if the price tag would be lowered by a standard cardboard box. The upside is you can stare at your box longingly while pulling your old PC apart. Inside the box the case is wrapped in plastic and foam packed. No chance of this baby breaking in transit.

Features

TruePower 380Watt ATX12V power supply with single fan design for enhanced quietness
Front mounted USB and IEEE1394 (FireWire) ports
Washable Air Filter
Front Audio ports
9 Drive Bays:
- 3 x 5.25″ external drive bays
- 2 x 3.5″ external drive bays
- 4 x 3.5″ internal drive bays in individual trays with rubber grommets to absorb hard drive vibrations
Cooling: Up to 2 120mm Fans
- 1 rear (standard)
- 1 front (optional)
Motherboards up to Standard ATX

Installing Drives

The manual included is descriptive, but would have been better served by diagrams than the mass of different languages explaining the same thing. Given this however, I had no problems figuring out what to do. I used the included screws and attached my floppy, dvd, cdrw and Audigy Live Drive to the rails. The rails provide three holes for the front screw and a rear long hole so that drives with different hole positions can be accommodated. I guessed that the center hole would do the job and got lucky. I would also recommend that if you install a device such as the live drive into the top bay that you attach the data cable BEFORE mounting the drive rails into the case. It will make life easier once you have mounted everything else in your case. The right hand panel of the case, and the top of the case don’t come off, but with everything rail mounted they don’t need to.

Mounting the hard drives was also an easy matter. There are special screws to use when mounting your Hard Disks Drives to the rails. The manual does explain that there are special screws, but you need to pay attention to realise. So there is no confusion if you buy one of these cases I have taken a shot of the screws you should use to mount you hdd to the 3.5″ rails. In effect these screws prevent you from screwing your drives in too tight. This ensures that the grommets aren’t squashed, and are able to absorb all of the vibration optimally. Nice touch.

I have installed my Hard Drives into the top and bottom slots. This gave me more room to bend my round cables. You will also note that I have coiled the front usb and firewire adapters into the back of the drive bay. I decided that I didn’t need them with my Audigy Live Drive. To stop them from rattling around with any vibration I used Sellotape to tape all of the pin connectors together. I ended up pulling all of the drives and rails out after installing the motherboard so I could squeeze more cables in through the space. All in the interests of neatness and airflow.

Filling the Case

I have an Asus A7V-266 Motherbaord which is standard ATX size. This was a perfect fit. The only
mistake I made was not covering the antec holes behind the power supply (I can’t be bothered fixing it now as I am buying a new motherboard soon).
As you can see I have pretty much filled this case to the limit for everything except hard drives. Given the amount of stuff I have crammed in, I am
pretty happy with how tidy I have been able to make the case in comparison to my old Aopen full tower case. The fact that the case is well designed has
allowed me to tuck most cables away.

Fans and Power Supply

It is worth noting that the 120mm case fan in the rear has its own special “fan only” connector from the power supply. This connector has a second 4 pin molex on it, and seemed to be a pain to keep the cables away from the fan. I have since used the trusty gaffa tape to stick the extra cable and molex to the back of the case above the 120mm fan. This fan is running at 1215 rpm on system startup and is slow enough to visbly see the rotation. With my hand out the back of the case, it doesn’t create anywhere near as much turbulence as the power supply fan. Under full system load doing a 3ds Max render for 20 minutes with the case closed, my motherboard temp jumped from 26 degrees to 32 degrees in ambient room temp of 24 degrees celcius. The fan jumped from 1215 rpm to 1700 rpm, but was still totally inaudible (the CPU and Power Supply are both noisier affecting this too). I should note here that in my old full tower case I had front and rear fans and two fans in my PSU, and the motherboard temp would go from 28 to 40 degrees in the same test. All in all the big 120mm fan and good airflow are working wonders for reducing noise, and heat in my case. I don’t think I will EVER buy a case with 80mm case fans ever again.

The power supply is a special single fan design. The PSU fan connects to a 3 pin fan header on your motherboard. I found it quite odd that the blue and black cables of this PSU fan connector were different lengths. The power supply also has a 4 pin molex connector on the outside. I can’t figure out why this is there, but there has to be a reason. It has a nice black cover, I assume for safety reasons. Now this power supply runs hot. The air blowing out the back of the power supply seems warmer than I would expect. I can’t quite warm my hands with it, but it is definitley much warmer than the heat coming out of the 120mm case fan. This has me convinced that the single fan in this power supply could be too much of a compromise. As with most novice Silent PC enthusiasts I now have a sound level meter and thermometer on my list of things to buy.

Noise reduction.

As much as this case is a quiet case, I pulled out the trusty Black Gaffa Tape do block some areas of potential noise concern.
Like I mentioned earlier in the review I should have done this BEFORE assembly, and covering the right hand side Antec holes under the power supply will have to wait.
Anyway, I have covered the holes on the left hand side of the case using two strips of gaffa. Te best way to explain this is the pics below.

This made a small difference to the noise, and doing the other side when I replace my motherboard and CPU will make more small gains. Every little bit helps. During the install (if you have paid attention to the photo’s, you would notice I also removed my northbridge fan and replaced it with a Zalman heatsink.
This was an absolute prick to install, but it looks sexy and doesn’t make any noise. The real noise offendor in my case is now the CPU fan.

Fingerprints

This case is described as “Piano Black” and none of the photo’s you have seen here do any justice to the brilliant shiny black of this case. The only way you can think of it is as a shiny black grand piano
you would see at a cabaret bar. Seriously, it is that good. But it does have it’s drawbacks. Can I say fingerprints. Luckily, being the uber geek, I have spectacle cleaner, and just hit it with that and dried it clean with lint free cloth.

Conclusion

Throw on the included Antec Case Badge and we are done. Some things to note that I haven’t covered in this review. The front panel that does firewire, usb and audio was of no use to me so I haven’t mentioned anything about it. Great feature for some, not for others. Like me though, you can choose not to use it. I also haven’t talked about the sexy Blue Lights in the front panel that I have disconnected because they would keep me awake at night.

But the important thing is does this case live up to it’s reputation as a quiet PC case. YES, it is at least half as loud as my old system. Is it totally silent, NO. The power suply still makes some noise, and is louder than I had hoped. BUT, until I silence my CPU, I won’t be able to be sure how much noise the power supply is making. Even taking this into account, the power supply is still much much quieter than my old aopen 300w power supply.

Now that I am writing the conclusion I am remembering the things I haven’t mentioned that I should. I can’t hear the Hard Disks even with the case open. The rubber grommets do such a good job of absorbing the noise. This is one of those benefits that you notice only when you do a big file transfer and you turn to your pc waiting to hear the chatter and you don’t. The sideways mounting of the 3.5″ drives is an absolute godsend. I think every PC case should come this way.

If you are in need of a case and you don’t mind spending the bucks, this is definitely a case worth getting. But remember, use some gaffa over those Antec holes before you put anything in the case, and don’t
forget to tie down some of the loose cables.

For details on where you can buy these cases in Australia, see the Blue Couch computer shops page.