Moneual Labs MonCaso 312 HTPC case - Page 2

You really need to stop teasing us!

Have a good vacation, I'm looking forward to your report once you return and put the case together!

-PGPfan

Through a conspiracy of events I found myself going home a day earlier than planned and got a free Saturday before my family skiing trip. The family also happened to have other plans so I locked myself into the home office and started the build.

So the system is almost complete now; all that remains to be done is to install the FloppyDTV TV tuner - which has a CAM slot for encryption card and really should be installed in a PCI slot or external floppy bay so that the card slot can be reached from outside the case. This is not possible in the 312 because the card is full height and there is no external floppy bay. So the plan is to install the tuner card in one of the hard drive bays which means the card slot won't be accessible, but that's a minor inconvenience.

The build turned out to be easier than expected - the Moncaso 312 chassis is very well designed and considering the limited height and depth it turned out to be really easy to work with.

Unfortunately I ran into 2 problems:

1. The Nexus LOW-7000 cooler, which is a perfect match for this mobo because the fan reaches over the NB heatsink, did not fit because it did't leave enough rom for the LG GGC-H20L BD/HD DVD drive. No room for the SATA connectors. So I had to revert back to the stock Intel cooler.
   
2. The Gigabyte Odin GT 550W PSU that I had purchased did not work with the Gigabyte GA-G7AM-DS2H motherboard. It powered off when the Windows installation had just gotten started. It also powered off evey time I exited the BIOS settings. In the end I replaced it with another (a lot cheaper) PSU that I had lying around. So either the Gigabyte PS is incompatible with this mobo or I had received a broken unit.

Other than these 2 snafus the build went fine. Here are some pictures; they are quick unedited snapshots so my apologies for not posting Ansel Adams class stuff. Why doesn't this site scale images?



Nice looking box. The case cost me 250 euros including shipping from pc-cooling.de



Small accessory box inside with remote control, screws, and manual.



And the box did contain the right case...



The Nexus cooler would have helped cool the NB... (: Alas, that was not to be.



The insides.



And with the hard drive and optical drive cages removed. From left the volume control board, card reader, front ports, and IR/power module.



Here's what it looked like with the mobo installed, still with the Nexus cooler. As you can see not a lot of room for the optical drive between the cooler and the front of the case.



VelociRaptor hard drive mounted in its cage.



Hard drive from a different angle.



So the Nexus cooler went out and the Intel stock cooler replaced it. A lot more room now.



The case comes with a power adapter so the system can be powered on/off from the remote. This turned out to be a godsend because my motherboard's ATX power connector ends up right under the optical drive and there is very little room. Many PSU connectors are very large and inflexible, such as the one on the Gigabyte PSU I first installed.





And finally, here we are with everything installed and ready for software installation.

Will post a couple more pics when I have the tuner card installed.

/politby

Lovely case... Classy too . I just got the omaura tf11. should have probably waited for this though. I wanted a case for an atx motherboard though

Thanks for the pictures.

Thanks for the photos Politby!

It's looking very nice! Would you mind commenting on the operation of the volume knob? I'm doing a build using the MSI Diva board with an internal amplifier and will (hopefully if it works decently) be using the volume control quite a bit.

Thanks in advance!

-PGPfan

Don't know. I guess it is intended to control the Media Center volume. I won't be using it anyway because I get my audio fro HDMI. Looks nice though.

In case anyone is still concerned about this, I can confirm it is NOT an iMon IR receiver or remote. It is an MCE compatible device, it shows up in the Device Manager as a "consumer control device", not the standard "eHome Infrared Receiver" but the included remote control works exactly like the standard MCE remote.

Unfortunately, that's been basically the problem the whole time - it's not an MCE remote, it's a "compatible" so for example, if you have an MCE keyboard like I do, it won't work.

My understanding from talking to Moneual was that it IS an oem'd remote from iMon.

-PGPfan

politby

If you have the case open again, can you span a pic of the clearence between you optical drive and the motherboard components?

Thanks for the pics and the narrative. Enjoy your new toy.

M

Can you elaborate?

I haven't tried my Harmony remote yet (which is programmed to act as an MCE remote) - are you suggesting the remote (if it is iMon-sourced) sends proprietary commands to the receiver in the case and they then get translated to standard MCE commands?

There was no iMon software delivered with the case, I have only installed Windows and the Moneual remote acts just as if it was a standard MCE remote. I used to have a Silverstone case that came with an iMon remote which needed the iMon software to be running in order to work at all.

I'm not at home now so can't give you any exact measurements or pictures until Thursday, but I'll give you a couple of parameters: my LG drive (185 mm deep) reaches over all the 4 memory slots on a typical MicroATX board. There is very little vertical clearance between the optical drive so you can basically rule out any memory modules with tall heatsinks or otherwise nonstandard height.

There is also the factor of the PSU to take into account; in my case there is only about 5 mm space between the edge of the PSU and the LG optical drive. So a larger than normal PSU in combination with a deep optical drive may also present a problem.

Finally, I think a CPU cooler with a larger (horizontally mounted) fan than 90 mm can also be ruled out if you have an optical drive 170 mm or more deep.

/politby

politby

No rush on the pics, whenever you can.
I was looking for the clearence to the memory modules.
Thanks for the tip on the PSU, I will take a look at your previous pics.
If you can, could you get a top down and an incline view from the left.
Thanks again. Enjoy.

I wish they would finally provide retailers with product. The wait is killing me. Even your source pc-cooling.de is sold out now.

yes - I wonder how many they had and how they could get them - as it seems no one else have.

I replied to you're PM - looks like I was too late though!! The Shuriken would probably fit.

I'm curious - do you think it would be possible to fit 2 80mm fans on the left rear side of the case, between the motherboard and the case side?

Holes would have to be cut, obviously.....but if they would fit, I might try and get hold of one of these.

It's a pretty looking build and this is probably the most non PC looking case ever made.

D.

Might work. The space between the mobo and the case wall is less than the normal thickness of an 80 mm fan (25 mm), so the fans would sit very close to the USB headers. If the fans were mounted near the top of the case, it could work.

I can take some measurements and post later this week.

Yep, that's exactly what I mean! MCE 'sees' an MCE remote (as in, the commands it receives are all MCE) but the ir hardware isn't true MCE and as such, you can't use an MCE ir keyboard or MCE remote with it. It uses it's own proprietary ir codes whereas true MCE devices use RC-6 (a Philips protocol) codes.

-PGPfan

Ouch. That would be not so good. I will test this out thoroughly when I get back home on Thursday. I just hope I can teach my Harmony remote the commands - that worked with my Silverstone iMon device.

Will post results.

I wonder if this is the problem they are reworking at Moneual? The whole reason these are not available yet is they have a problem with the IR receiver. Once the issue (don't know what the issue is) with the IR receiver is resolved the cases should begin shipping. (Around March 16th)

Hi politby, two questions,

1. Is it possible to use the "bluray faceplate" even if you don't have a drive mounted?
2. where can you install the 40mm fans?

/Jonathan

To use the faceplate w/ o drive installed, all you'd need to do is put a strip of strong (but removable) tape on the inside of the front panel, covering the drive opening, and then insert the faceplate into the opening.

There are 3 cutout grilles for 40 mm fans on the rear panel of the case.

/politby

Okay, I'm back from skiing and I can reassure anyone who is concerned about the remote control/IR receiver. It sends the same IR codes as a standard MCE remote. I just tried it with my Shuttle based system which has a standard "eHome" IR receiver and it works fine.

It also has a sticker on the back which says "RC6 remote" which indicates it uses the RC-6 protocol. So not an iMon device.

And because I apparently got my hands on one of the few cases so far to reach an end user (had to rub it in, didn't I ) I must have received an early example and there is no hint of any problem with the remote or IR receiver.

In fact, it works 100% as advertised and I love it.

There is 20 mm of clearance between the inside surface of the case and the USB headers on my Gigabyte motherboard. From the top of the plastic edges around the headers to the top of the case is 78 mm.

You have the same motherboard, don't you? So if you use 80 mm fans thinner than 20 mm they can be squeezed into the space you mentioned. 25mm thick fans won't work because there won't be enough vertical space between the USB headers (the use of which you would have lost anyway) and the case lid.

/politby

I have exactly 10 mm clearance between the lowest edge of the optical drive and the top of the memory modules. So there would be a little more space than I thought for taller memory modules.

Thanks politby for checking this out for us. I hope it works as well with the MCE keyboard. It does make me wonder what the actual holdup is for those of us waiting on it. Still hoping for a functional volume knob!

-PGPfan

Spoke to them again today - the US release is pushed back AGAIN to the 24th! Somebody in their distribution needs work a little harder and figure out a real, solid delivery date.

-PGPfan

Maybe you shouldn't be too unhappy you have to wait. There IS a problem with the IR receiver after all. It just took some time for me to notice it as I only yesterday got my tuners installed.

Any time I press the "Info" button on the remote, Media Center crashes. Not a normal application exit (which afaik there is no IR command for), it just dies with no error message or anything.

This is not caused by the remote control, it must be something with the IR receiver board, because the included remote works fine with my Shuttle HTPC which has a standard eHome IR receiver. My Harmony One remote, programmed as an MCE remote, also crashes Media Center when "Info" is pressed.

So the IR receiver apparently sends something over its USB connection that crashes Media Center. And the only command that does this is "Info". All the other commands work as expected. Pretty far fetched and maybe not so surprising it slipped through QC.

So now I may end up having to ship the case back to Germany. Grrr.

I am NEVER again going to be one of the first owners of a new product. Or at least not for a while.

I got a (very prompt) response from Moneual Korea this morning.

They confirm they have found problems in the firmware of the IR board and that they will send me a replacement IR board with updated firmware asap. Good sign they care about their customers.

They are also saying the delay in shipments in the U.S are "to meet domestic Korean domestic market launch", not because of the IR problem.

/politby

In case anyone is interested in the Moneual 811/812 cases, I just thought I'd share some information I received from Moneual's sales department. These cases will probably warrant their own thread in the future, but I figured this was a logical place for the time being.


Justin

very sexy case i might have to pick one of these puppies up for the bedroom. are they available in the US yet?