A Closer Look – The Case Itself
Here we see some of the customizability, the entire front panel is made of removable covers (with filters in ’em). Up top we see knobs for fan and LED control, one USB3 port and two USB2 ports, plus the usual audio ports, LEDs and power/reset buttons.
In the rear we have the normal business, the PSU can be installed with the fan up or down, the rear fan is a full sized 120mm jobby. Nice to see are three ports for water cooling, two for hoses and one for wires I imagine.
Thumbscrews to lock the case sides in place (though the sliding action holds the sides on quite well, which is nice). An interesting touch are a pair of black plastic handles attached to the sides to make pulling them off easier. I’ve never seen a case with such a thing before, I think I like it.
The motherboard tray case side has some bulges for styling and cable management room. Unfortunately that is almost all of the room, which can make things awkward. Below is a top view of the same side panel.
This side sticks out a bit too and has a 180mm fan in it.
Sharp eyed readers will note that the fan is set up to act as an exhaust fan and cannot be flipped over. More on this later. Also note the two pairs of wires leaving the fan, the white connector is for the fan and the black connector is for the LEDs. The fan controller and LED controller have similarly color coded connectors.
On the bottom are some nice tall feet, and the PSU vent/filter arrangement. The filter is easily removable with the case upright.
A couple glamour shots, one showing the top handle.
The handle is very convenient, I like it a lot.
A cutout for installing CPU heatsinks is always nice to see, there is a second cutout for cable management down there at the bottom and some slots with rubber grommets up the side of the motherboard tray.
Also note the tool free drive bays, 5.25″ bays all the way from top to bottom! Inside them are 3.5″/2.5″ trays:
One of the trays has a front panel blank for an external 3.5″ drive. The case comes with a spare cover in case you don’t have an external 3.5″ drive.
The drives screw into the drive tray, which is then slid into the slot and secured with the tool free latches. Unlike most tool free cases the twist-to-lock latches are found on both sides of the Seiran. This means that the drive is held more securely than in many cases, but also means that you have to take both case sides off and work with twice as many latches. The Seiran seems to be built with portability in mind which means the extra security of having both sides of the tray latched in place makes sense.
The front fan is mounted to two drive trays via front brackets that can be removed. This means you can mount the fan at any height you like, as well as being able to put the HDDs and any optical disks you have at any height. Very cool.
Up at the top are the wires for the fan controller and other front panel stuff. The top of the case is held on very securely and resisted my attempts to remove it to inspect the fan controller PCB.
From the inside we see the PCIe slot covers (vented, screwed in place) and the rear fan. The rear fan is powered by a Molex power connector on a fairly short cable, this means it cannot be plugged into the fan controller! The shortness of the cable makes cable management difficult as well.
