Pedantic and Particular PC case Requirements

[Isaac Hunt]

I would like to find a PC case that can take full advantage of my motherboard's headers and pinouts. I am aware of PCPartPicker, but their search functions are not specific enough. I could use some help finding something, if I am not looking in the right place

I am looking for a PC case that has:

1 front USB 3.0 port
2 front USB 2.0 ports

dual led power button ( Power Button is backlit with 2 different colors of led, usually green/amber, such that one color can be used to indicate power on, and a separate color can be used to indicate sleep/hibernate/suspend)

Front Panel HD Audio
reset button
Hard Disk Drive access led
Pc Speaker (BIOS beeper)
[strike]Case Intrusion Detection[/strike]
ATX Motherboard Standard.
Not Less than 1 External 5.25 bay
Not Less than 2 Internal 3.5 bay
Not Less than 1 Internal 2.5 bay
Ability for effective cooling of CPU

All other specifications are irrelevant.

 

[MauveCloud]

I realize PCPartPicker can't filter all of those, but it can for many (like the drive bays and USB ports), which can help at least narrow down your search. However, I don't even understand what you mean by "dual led power button". Could you please explain that a bit?

It's hard to find cases that still have the "bios beeper" built in, since you can easily buy that separately: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812201032 (or if you want cheaper, here's a 30-pack: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2RP0YW4962)

Edit: as far as the case intrusion detection, from what I can find, that's available on some Dell and Acer prebuilts, but mostly not available on separate cases (except by modding), and I'm not sure it's all that useful, since it apparently requires AC power to work (meaning all someone would have to do to circumvent it is unplug the computer).

 

[Isaac Hunt]

I realize PCPartPicker can't filter all of those, but it can for many (like the drive bays and USB ports), which can help at least narrow down your search. However, I don't even understand what you mean by "dual led power button". Could you please explain that a bit?

Edit: as far as the case intrusion detection, from what I can find, that's available on some Dell and Acer prebuilts, but mostly not available on separate cases (except by modding), and I'm not sure it's all that useful, since it apparently requires AC power to work (meaning all someone would have to do to circumvent it is unplug the computer).

By "dual led power button" I mean the Power Button is backlit with 2 different colors of led, usually green/amber, such that one color can be used to indicate power on, and a separate color can be used to indicate sleep/hibernate/suspend status on the machine.

Thanks for the information about the case intrusion detection, and about the beepers.

 

[MauveCloud]

Okay, new question: What motherboard do you have that can support showing sleep/hibernate/suspend that way? I've seen it indicated by slowly blinking the power led, but I think indicating it with a different color of led would require an extra pin on the motherboard.

 

[Isaac Hunt]

ECS A75F2-A2

When properly configured, it has a steady green led for power on, and blinks the amber led for sleep/suspend, so long as the machine is not mostly off. I had misspoken, usually hibernate is a low enough power state that no leds are lit.

Only 2 pins on led. 1 is Ground(white) and the other is green.

 

[MauveCloud]

I looked up the manual, and all it says is that you can hook it up to a single or dual-color front panel mounted led. It doesn't say it would actually operate in dual-color mode, which from what I could find would require a third pin. Considering that some cases that come with led fans don't even have separate wires for a power led, I'm not sure dual-color power leds were all that popular.

 

[Isaac Hunt]

I looked up the manual, and all it says is that you can hook it up to a single or dual-color front panel mounted led. It doesn't say it would actually operate in dual-color mode, which from what I could find would require a third pin. Considering that some cases that come with led fans don't even have separate wires for a power led, I'm not sure dual-color power leds were all that popular.

Note: Settings must be changed in bios to support dual color behavior, so I think it has something to do with using the green cable as signal AND power. but I can personally testify to the result working. This is why I wanted a case that could take advantage of this.

Of the cases that I have been able to find, they don't even have a power led, let alone 2 colors of them.

 

[MauveCloud]

I think it would take too long to track down a case that really has a dual-color power led. However, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119277 looks like it meets your other requirements.

If you want to keep looking on your own, Newegg has a bit better filtering than PCPartPicker (including filtering to show cases that include both front usb 3.0 and usb 2.0 ports, though not by count - it shows the counts of those in list view, though, so you can quickly skip the ones that don't have enough). Here is a filtered list for you.