Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
Opening the left windowed side panel of the SilverStone KL-02 allows majority access to the inside of the case. Again, it incorporates a traditional design of placement of components. The traditional single chamber design locates the power supply at the top; no crossbar is placed in that location to allow a more unobstructed case view. A bit of clearing from the top and side can be observed when installing a standard power supply, so I ended up sneaking and hiding some cables in that area. Six 5.25" drive bays (With one allowed to be converted to an external 3.5" drive bay) are located near the top with tool-free mounting clips.
The motherboard tray at the back is pre-drilled to accommodate ATX and mATX motherboards; as all standard cases goes. The drilled holes are done cleanly -- a good sign of detail and quality. While the motherboard tray is not removable, there's ample working space around it as far as a midtower goes.
The rear exhaust fan. This section is slightly recessed back to allow more clearing between the large CPU fans and the exhaust fan; in which I did find it slightly helpful in decreasing processor temperatures by reducing heat congestion. A low air resistance eight ring grille is installed on both sides of the stock fan. I don't find this necessary, but the one in the inside may come into handy for users who care less about their cabling. I don't have it installed to have less airflow impedance -- while it's negligible, every bit helps. This SilverStone Everflow fan can take 4-pin Molex power input or 3-pin to your motherboard.
Every expansion slot cover is a separate metal piece that is fully ventilated to maximize airflow, along the area directly next to the expansion slots to further maximize airflow in the SilverStone KL-02 by using an organized array of small circular openings. Unfortunately, the installation of expansion cards are not tool free; which is, to be honest, quite a rarity on modern cases. I have seen poorly done designs with clips breaking after a while, sending me back to the traditional screw mounting method, but hey -- at least they tried.
The 5.25" drive bays. In my opinion, it's done very well in regards to the tool free installation; it's just about sliding the drive in from the front and that's about it. But on the other hand, I find myself replacing the expansion slot cards a lot more than I would ever replace a DVD burner or whatever, so the practicality of this can be disputed against expansion card tool free installation mechanisms. What I really do appreciate is the little clip next to it to allow the user to more conveniently organize power supply cables. It's always appreciated from cabling-obsessed users like myself.
A removable four-bay hard drive cage is located at the bottom behind the 120mm intake fan; the cage orients hard drives horizontally. A removable rack with rubber vibrational dampeners allows hard drives to be slid in and out from the front -- a SilverStone CP05 accessory is included to fixate the power and data connectors to fully permit physical hot swap of SATA hard disks. A contact board is placed on the hard drive cage and the other on the mesh to allow the fan to be disconnected without wires holding it back -- otherwise, convenient hot swapping to compliment the hot-swappable hard drives. Again, as I previously mentioned, I found it extremely innovative, it didn't work out too well for me. I ended up pulling the fan cable directly to my motherboard -- but it did not really interfere with this convenience anyway.
SilverStone mentioned that the KL-02 is unique as far as midtowers go because it can accommodate super long 26cm+ video cards such as the NVIDIA 9800GX2 or GTX 280. I haven't really gone around to test it, as the longest cards I have on hands are all 23cm (3870, 9600GT, 8800GT, 8800GTS G92, you know those), but it will extend to the hard drive cage area so the hot swap accessory must be relocated from the top. That's not a big issue, mine's in the bottom already anyway. Just a heads up.
Remember when I said earlier that opening the left side panel "allows majority access" to the case internals? Well, you know what? I know you just said "no"... I heard it from here, lol. I mean, haha. I've been on Windows Live Messenger and Facebook too much. Tells you something when my productivity is down. But anyways, back on topic...
Opening the right side panel is important in terms of access. SilverStone has carefully designed the fixed motherboard tray with lots of holes in the appropriate locations -- not just for ventilation, but I found that some of the openings such as the one in the top and bottom is a cabler's dream -- I've ran so many cables behind the tray and to the motherboard, it's actually kind of funny. This is especially convenient when it comes to the abundance of case I/O cables. I would be nice if SilverStone expanded a bit in this area like what Antec has done with their Antec P182 to accommodate more and thicker cables, but I definitely appreciated it in my build.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
