Question Is there a way to test a computer case by itself?

[consptheory77]

I am planning to build my own desktop this year. I built one desktop before in 2015. I staggered the purchase of that build's parts a little bit, over three months. But because this new desktop I'm planning is very this year, instead of the already past it (two year) Haswell components I was using in 2015, I'm going to have to save and buy at once, or stagger and save when there are sales. I was thinking July's Cyber Monday might prove to be a value, but maybe not. But if I were to buy parts one a time, I figure it would be Case > PSU > Motherboard > Cooler/CPU. I am supposing that the NVME and the RAM could be bought in any order as long as it is under a year because of warranty. I am wondering if there is any way to test a case by itself. I am thinking that it is likely I would at least have to get a PSU to test the case, but I guess really it needs a motherboard too? Or then there's the reverse strategy, that the case is actually the last component needed, because one can make a functional computer by assembling the components and setting them on the motherboard box.

 

[USAFRet]

1. Buy all at once. Or at least, within a week or two.
2. There is no real way to "test the case" without all the other parts.

 

[hotaru.hino]

What do you plan on testing? The most I could see here is just a fit check, but that's about it. If it's a popular enough case, I'm sure someone reviewed it for thermal performance.

 

[punkncat]

As unsolicited advice...I tend to stagger upgrades where I can in that for the easiest "tick-tock" is to do the mobo/CPU/RAM one session, then upgrade GPU/PSU on another. The other components are typically inexpensive enough to do in between. The important aspect with doing it this way is having a malleable goal so much as hardware is concerned while keeping target performance in mind.

 

[consptheory77]

What do you plan on testing? The most I could see here is just a fit check, but that's about it. If it's a popular enough case, I'm sure someone reviewed it for thermal performance.

I want to make sure the fans and and the front I/O works, but I'm guessing there is no way to do that without a motherboard.
I know the PSU paper clip trick, but I guess there's no equivalent for a case.

I am wanting to get a Lian Li Lancool III. I have read some reports that the manufacturer, while very responsive to warranty inquiries, is slow at processing returns and replacements. And I can't find stats on the matter, but the impression left is that an inordinate number of Lian Li units are sent out subpar or damaged in shipping, and they don't worry about that unless you complain.

If that's the case, I might consider buy one that's already subpar at a discount. One seller on ebay has a Lancool III, that has a crack in the bottom of one foot, the bottom shell is recessed, and the parts box broke, and is missing a few (non-essential) screws. He wants $140, which I think is way too much, but if it were $100 I might consider it.

 

[consptheory77]

As unsolicited advice...I tend to stagger upgrades where I can in that for the easiest "tick-tock" is to do the mobo/CPU/RAM one session, then upgrade GPU/PSU on another. The other components are typically inexpensive enough to do in between. The important aspect with doing it this way is having a malleable goal so much as hardware is concerned while keeping target performance in mind.

That makes sense, and I would follow this pattern if I had more disposable income. Indeed, with the Haswell I began with a Pentium G3258 and then upgraded to 4690K, the semi-modular 520 watt Seasonic PSU got upgraded to a 850W modular EVGA, the R9 270 to a RX 580, and whatever SSD OS disk I had (I forget) is now a 2TB Samsung.

I could probably get by doing a cheaper Alder Lake build, but I am determined to do a Raptor Lake.

The Haswell build was maybe an initial $500 outlay, but this year's project is projected at $1400, and I'm not even counting the GPU.

Indeed, this would all be made simple I would just buy it all at once because I have fair enough credit, but I need to make a trip later this year (not a vacation) and that's going to be $5K there staggered across a few cards, so I'm contemplating how I can fit the cost of the trip and the cost of the new desktop in the same year.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I want to make sure the fans and and the front I/O works, but I'm guessing there is no way to do that without a motherboard.
I know the PSU paper clip trick, but I guess there's no equivalent for a case.

A multi-meter in continuity mode if you don't mind poking at multiple pins will tell you if there's at least a connection.

Everything on the front panel, except for the LEDs, is basically an extension cable or a switch.

 

[geofelt]

Buy all at once if you can.
Over time, parts get better and cheaper.
You may find that the good deal you had 4 months ago is not what you now want.

If you buy all within a couple of weeks, you can assemble and test while still in the return and warranty window.

FWIW...
The paper clip test for a psu is only good to confirm a dead psu.
Passing the test says nothing about the proper working of the unit.

DO NOT BUY a cheap psu.
A cheap PSU will be made of substandard components. It may not have all safety and overload protections.
The danger is if it fails under load, it can destroy anything it is connected to.
It will deliver advertised power only at room temperatures, not at higher temperatures found when installed in a case.
The wattage will be delivered on the 3 and 5v rails, not on the 12v rails where modern parts
like the CPU and Graphics cards need it. What power is delivered may fluctuate and cause instability;
issues that are hard to diagnose.
The fan will need to spin up higher to cool it, making it noisy.
A cheap PSU can become very expensive.

Do not buy one.
While there are lists of psu quality, they are educated opinions.
My best way to find a quality psu is to look at the warranty. 7 years or more will get you a good unit. Less than 5 years will get you a questionable unit.

You could probably buy a case early, they do not go obsolete.
But it will just sit there. What is the value in that?

New products are coming along all the time, and they will represent a better price/performance over the products they replace.

Save your money and let it draw interest until it is time to build.

 

[consptheory77]

Buy all at once if you can.
Over time, parts get better and cheaper.
You may find that the good deal you had 4 months ago is not what you now want.

If you buy all within a couple of weeks, you can assemble and test while still in the return and warranty window.

FWIW...
The paper clip test for a psu is only good to confirm a dead psu.
Passing the test says nothing about the proper working of the unit.

DO NOT BUY a cheap psu.
A cheap PSU will be made of substandard components. It may not have all safety and overload protections.
The danger is if it fails under load, it can destroy anything it is connected to.
It will deliver advertised power only at room temperatures, not at higher temperatures found when installed in a case.
The wattage will be delivered on the 3 and 5v rails, not on the 12v rails where modern parts
like the CPU and Graphics cards need it. What power is delivered may fluctuate and cause instability;
issues that are hard to diagnose.
The fan will need to spin up higher to cool it, making it noisy.
A cheap PSU can become very expensive.

Do not buy one.
While there are lists of psu quality, they are educated opinions.
My best way to find a quality psu is to look at the warranty. 7 years or more will get you a good unit. Less than 5 years will get you a questionable unit.

You could probably buy a case early, they do not go obsolete.
But it will just sit there. What is the value in that?

New products are coming along all the time, and they will represent a better price/performance over the products they replace.

Save your money and let it draw interest until it is time to build.

I totally agree about the PSU. In narrowing down my choices for PSU, I came down to Super Flower Leadex Titanium 1000W, a MSI MPG A1000G PCIE 5.0, and a Corsair RMx Shift 1000W. All about the same price, all come with a 10 year warranty.

"You may find that the good deal you had 4 months ago is not what you now want."

Case in point, I was thinking about getting the Samsung 970 Evo Plus, about $125, for the OS drive, and I will still do that, but I discovered that for my other M.2 slots (which are just going to be used for media storage) the Intel 670p is 2TB for $75. That's only a little more than I paid for mechanical 2TB drives a few years ago!

 

[consptheory77]

My best way to find a quality psu is to look at the warranty. 7 years or more will get you a good unit. Less than 5 years will get you a questionable unit.

I see that the PX-850 PSU you have listed has a 12 year warranty. The price is a little too rich for me, but those flat cables sure do look nice!

 

[geofelt]

Why not use a 670P for your C drive also?
Intel is one of the more sound ssd makers.

Do not chase fast sequential benchmarks.
These experts could not tell the difference:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKLA7w9eeA

 

[geofelt]

I see that the PX-850 PSU you have listed has a 12 year warranty. The price is a little too rich for me, but those flat cables sure do look nice!

Actually, that item was a mistake.
Long story, and an argument for the non F version of processors.
My 750w psu failed, and while I had a spare psu, it was not strong enough to run my graphics card.
So, I installed it and used the 12900K integrated graphics.
Surprisingly I could hardly tell the difference.
I sent in a rma to seasonic, and to avoid waiting for the rma, I
ordered a 850w replacement.
My fingers got confused and I ended up with a platinum psu that I really did not need.
I am not unhappy about that.

 

[consptheory77]

Why not use a 670P for your C drive also?
Intel is one of the more sound ssd makers.

Do not chase fast sequential benchmarks.

I did see that video last year, so it's not about sequential benchmarks. And the MBTF is the same for both. It's partly aesthetics (the Intel being "bare-bottomed" as it were) but then again I'd be getting a motherboard with heat sinks for all the M.2 slots so what difference does it make, but then there is the question in the back of my mind as to whether the MLC vs QLC makes a difference, and that the Intel has less overprovisioning than the Samsung. As I am someone who tends to max out their OS drive.

 

[geofelt]

I can't argue aesthetics.
But, please do not max out the space on your OS drive.
Plan on increasing the size when it reaches 90% full.

My DIL sent me a lenovo M73 tiny that was, indeed abysmally slow.
It took some 15 minutes to boot with a 128gb ssd.
It took 3 minutes to get a response from the windows button.
The problem was that all but 3mb of space was used.
Replacing the ssd with a larger one fixed the issue.

 

[consptheory77]

But, please do not max out the space on your OS drive.
Plan on increasing the size when it reaches 90% full.

I'm at 279GB free of 1.81 TB

I guess then you would say for my new build I ought to get a 4TB OS drive.

When the desktop was newly built, it would boot in seconds. Now it takes minutes, as if it's a mechanical drive. Magician says the drive is healthy. Otherwise the system runs fine, except for Chrome, which tends to lock up if I don't reboot every day. I've got 32GB of RAM, my usage is only at 50% max maybe. I did increase the virtual memory allocation, and that did help, but I am the "30 tabs open at once" so I wonder if my processor is too old. Or it could be Windows creep. I could do a clean install, but then I'd rather just get a new system anyway if I'm going to have to do that.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm at 279GB free of 1.81 TB

I guess then you would say for my new build I ought to get a 4TB OS drive.

No, you should offload some stuff to a different drive.

 

[consptheory77]

No, you should offload some stuff to a different drive.

I've got a 2TB Microsoft One Drive backing up the "My Documents" folder (anything I don't want to lose is there) so I have redundancy but let's see, I'm still using only 530GB of that 2TB, so I guess there is stuff I can move off.

 

[consptheory77]

1. Buy all at once. Or at least, within a week or two.
2. There is no real way to "test the case" without all the other parts.

As a matter of fact, I'm not only considering to buy it at once but to buy the CPU, motherboard, and RAM at my local Best Buy, in person. Ideally, I'd live near a Micro Center, but I don't. But I have seen some reviews where there is some dissatisfaction that the motherboards are being shipped without any padding. I doubt shifting during shipment by itself would cause a CPU pin to bend, and I guess otherwise the item would arrive either broken or not, but still, best to be sure, quickly, and in person.

 

[USAFRet]

I've got a 2TB Microsoft One Drive backing up the "My Documents" folder (anything I don't want to lose is there) so I have redundancy but let's see, I'm still using only 530GB of that 2TB, so I guess there is stuff I can move off.

I meant aother local drive. Not a cloud place.