Fractal R4 issues?

Hardware Cases / Chassis
1

Well I just finished putting my old PC parts into an R4.

Generally I'm pretty happy with it. I've made everything super tidy and neat looking and it's nice and quiet.

But a few things annoyed me so I thought I'd post them because I don't generally hear people mention them much.

 

 

SSD mounts on back of motherboard tray sound great, but needing to remove the mobo to remove SSD's is pretty crazy. SSD are known to be less than reliable in some cases and are usually used as a primary drive for the system etc.

Having the SSD strapped back here just seems dangerous. More so if you want a clean looking system because by definition you'll spend more time organising everything nicely which will need to be un-done and re-done if the mobo has to come out.

Some tight tolerance friction fit rails would have been much better here.

 


SSD related again, the SSD screws both bottomed out on my Corsair C300 and Vertex 3 drives before the SSD was pulled tight to the HDD trays. Basically they seem too long.

Thankfully my old case had 2.5" SSD converter bays with appropriately short screws (in silver, noooo!) to allow me to fit the SSD tightly to the HDD trays.

Since I have two SSD I just black-tacked them together on one HDD tray, since I have 2 x 3.5" HDD I wanted to fit everything into the lower HDD mounting bay area.

 

 

Lastly, the un-used vent holes look a bit pants. I'd happily spend another £25 on accessories for this case, or perhaps more.

I didn't think it'd bother me having these present but in the end the case does look a bit stupid with all these holes on the outside blanked off.

A vent-free roof, side panel and maybe some HDD tray SSD adaptors (so they can mount more than one SSD) would be things I'd like to buy if they were available.

I've not yet checked to see if the side panels are inter-changeable (a quick glance and it seems not), so I can't even buy a spare side to flip over?

 

 

All in all it's still a good case, absurdly good value for money and I'd highly recommend it. But it could be more expensive or have accessories and be better still in my view!

Mainly some more innovative thoughts on how to approach SSD drives and mounting.

Dave

2

I'm currently putting mine together... I can't find the hard drive led cable for this case... any ideas?

3

yeah, dont use it....  Lots of cases dont have an hdd led

4

Thanks... now to attach all of the five fans..

5

I think I read somewhere that you can use the power LED for the HDD LED instead... but then you don't get the power LED.

 

Just weighing up the logic of flipping my PSU right now.


Currently its sucking in from under the case, but it seems maybe a touch noisy as the fan is possibly straining as the feet are sticking down into the carpet a bit restricting flow.

Tempted to think sucking in the internal case air will make it quieter... but many people seem to think noise and temps are unchanged no matter how you orient the PSU.


I'm running a mk1 Corsair HX850 and it's currently the loudest thing in the case by a long way.

 

To flip and re-arrange wiring or not to flip... hmmmm.

I wanted to desk mount the case rather than have it hidden, so would like it as quiet as possible that is all.

 

At this point I wonder if the HX850 is actually a good PSU for being quiet. I might need to give it a clean with some compressed air hehe.

Dave

6

As for mounting SSDs on the back of the motherboard. Fractal Design themselves improved on it with the Arc Mini R2. They use two SSD trays that screw to the back of the motherboard tray with thumbscrews. Here: http://www.fractal-design.com/media/0e86f49e-948a-4cb0-8095-c83ab763926b

Maybe they'll release an R5 version that uses those SSD trays.

I personally really like how they camouflaged the top fan vents on the Midi R2. The top mesh looks like an integral part of the design. One of the Corsair Obsidian cases has a similar design, but instead it uses magnets to keep the mesh in place (instead of thumbscrews, like with the Midi R2). Forgot which one, there are so many of them.

7

sticky velcro pads = put the ssd anywhere you like.....