Now first I must say for the price I really like this motherboard. Everything was working great besides this M.2 issue. I was able to get the OS installed when I moved my M.2 into the second slot (ULTRA M.2). (The one without the built in heatsink.)  So why wasn’t the first slot working?

Well it looks like it will not work in that first slot unless you have a Gen 11 Intel Processor. I am using a Gen 10 i7 10700. The wording in the manual left this in question, but when looking at the website it makes it more clear.

The manual that came with the Motherboard states:

“The Hyper M.2 Socket (M2_1) supports M Key type 2242/2260/2280 M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen4x4 (64Gb/s) (Only supported with 11th Gen Intel Core processors)”

I took this to mean it if you want Gen4x4 (64Gb/s) functionality you need a 11th Gen, but maybe the older 10 would still work at a slower speed. That appears to not be the case and was a misunderstanding on my part. Bummer.

The website did make it more clear by stating : “(Socket M2_1 works with 11th Gen Intel^® Core™ processors only)”

You can read it on this ASRock B560M Pro4/ac webpage here under storage if you were wondering- Link: B560M Pro4/ac

So if your having the problem with your M.2 SSD not being recognized in your ASRock B560M motherboard I hope this helps. Its a bummer i cant use that nice slot with the heatsink built in. I guess it will go to waste until I can get a Gen 11 CPU.

Summary

Here is where I ended up mounting my M.2 SSD for reference. I can use the Green slot (ULTRA M.2), but not the Red slot (HYPER M.2) and this is by design. MYPER M.2 is only available if you have a Gen 11 CPU.

The post B560M PRO4-AC M.2 slot not working appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

Initially I was looking for a tried and true Samsung EVO mSATA, but being older technology I did not have a lot of choices and the Samsung’s I found were marked up pretty high.  So I tried out a ORICO mSATA that had no reviews on it yet, so thought I would add my own review and include a little benchmarking in case others find it useful.

ORICO M200 mSATA Review.

The packaging

Here is how it showed up. It appeared to be well packaged, but it did have a rattling sound inside like something was moving around. It almost seemed to be to much noise for the mSATA drive to be moving.

What’s rattling inside?

So I opened it up to see what was inside and found a pleasant surprise. Not only did the ORICO mSATA drive include screws, they also INCLUDED A SCREWDRIVER! With all the drives I have bought lately that can not even bother to include screws, here is a drive that not only includes 3 screws but also includes a screwdriver. It almost seems absurd and I have to say at first I wondered if it was by accident. This was a little above and beyond. Great job ORICO!

Here is a closeup front shot of the ORICO M200 mSATA drive.

Here is a closeup of the back of the ORICO M200 mSATA drive.

So I went ahead and removed the drive ORICO mSATA drive from its static packaging and popped it onto my Dell XPS 2720 motherboard. Loaded up Windows 10 onto it and decided to run a few benchmark tests on it. Here is a quick shot of it installed on my motherboard of my DELL XPS 2720.

Benchmarking

One of the things I was looking at when deciding on a mSATA was the read/write specs. This drive was being listed as 560MB/s Read, and 516MB/s Write on a retailer website, but when I went and checked the ORICO website for this drive size its listed at 550MBs/489MBs.  Not a big difference, but thought I would mention it. Since I was looking for a smaller 128GB sized drive as it would only be used for the windows OS and a single program I was focused on speeds in that drive range. I noticed that drive speeds varied between the sizes for the same models.

I also noticed this one was advertised as 3D NAND while some others were not. This drive is listed as being mSATA 3.0 6Gbps and is using TLC Flash. I ended up going with this 128GB drive as it was cheap and since this was just being used for a DVR I really didn’t think I would need a larger boot drive. I have the 3.5″ mechanical drive that will be used to store the videos.

Here are the results I got doing a drive test with CrystalDiskMark.

As you can see it scored really well. Pretty close to what was advertised a t the retailer I had checked and above what the ORICO website listed. For reference you can find specs on the ORICO website here.  Needless to say I was very pleased.

SUMMARY

What can I say besides this drive has exceeded my expectations so far. My boot time on this PC is now under 15 seconds. It has fast drive speeds. It came with a free screwdriver and also included not 2 but 3 screws. (I guess in case I lost one?) The price point of this drive was right in line with a lot of cheaper drives so I feel it was a good value. The only thing so far is that this is my first ORICO drive. I am hoping it has some good longevity and lasts me the life of this pc.

Speaking of longevity, I should have mentioned that I saw it stated it has a 5 year warranty or a certain amount of total bytes written, whichever comes first. In the case of this smaller drive that looks to be 50TBW while the larger 1TB drive would be 400TBW.  You can find that info on their website. After all is said and done, I am happy with this purchase and have no buyers remorse.

The post ORICO M200 mSATA Review appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

Before I start the NOCTUA NF-S12B review i want to mention this fan is designed for low impedance (Low pressure).  Basically this means they are designed for areas that do not have much pressure resistance. Pressure resistance can come from Dust filters, mesh and cooling a radiator for a water cooled PC, or a heatsink. If you are using a fan to cool a radiator or heatsink, you may want to use a High Static pressure fan and Noctua also makes these and an example would be the NF-P12. They have a different blade design for pushing more air with the increased pressure.

So that being said, I plan to remove my internal dust mesh filter and will use the NOCTUA NF-S12B as a case cooling fan. This should give me low pressure for moving air into the case.

The reason I am trying these out is I want to make my PC as silent as possible. NOCTUA is known for making very silent fans so I decided to give them a shot. Also they now have options besides the old Brown and beige colors that was the standard for Noctua.

NOCTUA NF-S12B review

Here is a closeup of the NOCTURA NF-S12B 120mm fan. I love the new grey color and do not mind having no LED’s. But initially I do see something that will go into my CON list for these fans.

No Bumpers included 🙁

The first downside for me is that they did not include Bumpers / Vibration pads. They now sell these separately (NA-SAVP1) in multiple colors to match your case design. While having the option to pick your color is nice, to me not including them makes the fan seem a little cheap. Otherwise I would have no complaints. I ended up buying a box of 16 Vibration pads and it cost me $6.95 which seems a little spendy for some plastic. Because of this I ended up only using the pads on the side of the fan that touches the case. I think a better option would be for them to include a basic standard color bumper/vibration pad and just charge a buck more.

The test

The version of the FAN I bought was the PWM model. I wanted this so I could have the speed auto adjust by the signal from my Motherboard FAN header. These operate between 400 and 1200rpm which should be very quiet. They are rated at 18.1 dB

I also decided to do a very unscientific test. I am not sure how good this sound meter app is, but thought I would try it out. With the existing fans in my case I was bouncing around what seemed to be an average of ~33-35 dB

So I pulled off the cover to my case and replaced my existing RBG fans with the new NOCTUA NF-S12B fans

Overall I don’t mind the look of them as they will be behind the front cover. I do like this new Grey look better then the old brown colors. It still bugs me a little they do not include the vibration pads.

Now to be honest my PC was not that noisy, But I could here some faint fan noise. When I turned on the PC after installing these I could still here some faint fan noise, but it not from the front of the case anymore. That area was almost completely silent. I could also still feel air movement into the case so they are working great. Now my noise appears to be the back case fan and the stock RYZEN CPU cooler. Here is how it looked on the sound meter. It seemed to stay mainly under 30dB, I would say the average was around 29dB. Again not the best sound meter and a very un-scientific measurement as surrounding noise may have changed slightly.

Conclusion.

PRO’s:

• VERY QUIET!
• The new Grey color is better than the Brown (my opinion)
• Noctua Quality
• Price was reasonable in my opinion (I paid 13.95 each)

CON’s

• Vibration dampers need to be bought separately.
• Vibration dampers cost to much (6.95 for 16)

I am very happy with the outcome of these. But now this did create an issue where I now need to quiet down the CPU cooler,  back case fan and power supply Fan. So I will be buying some more fans and supplies and see if I can get my PC to be almost completely quiet for the majority of my tasks. (Then work on the Video card which only really spools up when gaming). Here is NOCTUAs website if you want to check out there other fans Noctua.at

If you are looking for a RGB fan, here is a link to some that I reviewed that I was really happy with.

The post NOCTUA NF-S12B review appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only, and shows how I replaced my drive. I am not responsible if you try this and void your warranty, injure yourself or damage your property. If you do not know what you are doing please seek a professional. 

Types of M.2 SSD drives

To start of I want to mention the Dell XPS 13 uses a M.2 SSD instead of a standard 2.5″ SSD or standard platter hard drive in the laptop. The m.2 SSD is a much smaller drive which makes it well suited for the Dell XPS 9350.

M.2 FORM FACTOR

The Dell XPS 13  9350 uses a 2280 form factor M.2 SSD.  This is a very common form factor, but you would want to verify your replacemnt drive matches this. What does 2280 form factor mean? Basically that the SSD drive is 22mm wide by 80mm long. Pretty simple. You can find M.2 drives that range between 16. and 110 mm in length, and 12mm to 30mm wide.

NVMe/PCIe vs SATA

The other option when purchasing a drive is NVMe/PCIe or SATA interface. Basically the NVMe uses PCIe and the advantage is that it will be faster then the SATA model M.2 drives. This is due to PCIe using 4 lanes for data while a SATA drive only uses 1 lane. So a NVMe drive can send more data at once. Since the Dell XPS 13 9350 is capable of using a NVMe drive, I went with that option.  One other thing to mention is that NVMe drives also cost more than a SATA drive. So that may play into your decision.

Samsung EVO 970 plus

I chose to buy the Samsung 970 EVO plus as it does state it has the 2280 form factor. Plus they are pretty well known for being reliable drives. It is also an NVMe drive which should be faster then a SATA drive. As for the size, I went with a 500GB model. 

Replace the Dell 9350 SSD (M.2)

I was pretty happy with how easy it was to replace the Dell 9350 SSD (M.2) drive. Basically you just need to remove the screws on the back that use a very small torx bit. It was the same one I have used for cell phone repair and a small Philips head screwdriver. The torx screwdriver will be used for all the outside screws on the case with the exception of the screw under the XPS flap. That will use the Philips head. You will also use the Philips screwdriver to remove the M.2 screw holding the drive in place.

Once the screws were removed I used an old credit card to pry the back away and being careful not stick the card in to far. slowly moving from one side of the laptop to the other side. All in all it was a pretty easy process.

Here is the inside of the Dell XPS 13 9350 and the 128GB M.2 SSD I am going to replace.  I highlighted the screw that is holding it in place.

And that is it, I swapped it out with a new Samsung EVO 970 plus 2280 500GB M.2 Drive.

Final steps

Now to just snap the cover back on , replace all the screws I removed and reload windows onto this new drive. To reload windows from scratch I used a Windows media creation USB drive I had previously created. Here is a link to Microsoft for creating a Windows 10 install USB through Microsoft’s Windows media creation tool.  When I did this windows re-install my windows was already activated and I did not need to enter a activation code. I think it must be tied to my bios in the Dell XPS 9350.

If you start seeing add in your windows start menu, you can see this post on how to remove them, Here is that link

Hope you found something in this post helpful.

The post How to replace Dell 9350 SSD appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

I just recently swapped out a hard drive and re-installed Windows 10 on a HP Pavilion 15 p033cl laptop. After the Windows 10 install the keyboard was working fine. Then it did a windows update and found the p033cl keyboard not working.

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only. I am not responsible if you damage your equipment or injure yourself. Also this site uses affiliate links. This means I may make a small amount of money at no cost to you if you buy something after clicking a link on this site.

This is how I was able to fix my issue. First I verified that the keyboard was still functioning by restarting and hitting esc to see if I could get into the setup menu. This did work so I knew the keyboard did function and my cables did not come lose after swapping the hard drive.

Next I plugged in a mouse and then turned on the built in Windows on screen keyboard.

start menu –> Windows Ease of access –> On screen keyboard

Then I navigated to control panel device manager.

You can just right click the start button and then click device manager.

Once in device manager I could see the keyboard and touchpad had the yellow warning icons.

The error I was seeing was “Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)”

To fix it, I right clicked on the Keyboard and clicked properties. Then I went to the Driver tab.

First I tried to update the drivers and that did not resolve the issue. So I uninstalled the device.  I did this for both the touchpad and the keyboard. One of them gave me the option to delete the driver during the uninstall and I did chose that as well.

Summary:

After removing the devices and rebooting the laptop the keyboard was working again. It reinstalled everythign correctly. I guess during the windows update something went wonky on the laptop and the drivers or software got messed up. Hope someone else finds this helpful.

Also here is a review of a 1TB adata SSD I recently put in my desktop. If you haven’t used an SSD drive before, they are super fast. I think its one of the top upgrades for a laptop or desktop.

The post HP Pavilion p033cl Keyboard not working appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

I just recently purchased a ADATA SU800 so thought I would do a quick SU650 vs SU800 comparison between the two SSD drives in case anyone was wondering about the differences. The Adata SU650 usually seems to run quite a bit cheaper but also has lower read/write speeds advertised as opposed to the SU800.

DISCLAIMER: This site may earn affiliate commissions from links on this page. 

Spec Comparison.

Here are some spec comparisons of the SU650 vs SU800 SSD drives.

Here are the speed comparisons I was see between the two drives when comparing. The SU650 was a smaller 240GB drive I had purchased a while ago and had ran a benchmark right after purchasing. The SU800 I just recently purchased and was quite a bit larger 1TB in size. I used Crystal Disk info to get the readings. In the chart below the SU650 is green, SU800 is Blue.

As you can see my Read speeds and Write speeds were faster with the more expensive SU800. Also when I was comparing spec sheets and looking on the website it looks like the SU800 has a higher TBW value. This value changes depending on the size of the drive so I did not want to make a side by side comparison. But it looks for each size the SU800 has a higher number.

SUMMARY

I don’t think you can really go wrong with either of these two drives. They both ranked high up on my speed test of all the SSD drives I have benchmarked. With the SU800 being the fastest 2.5″ Sata 6Gb/s drive I have tested so far.

As a result, for me it would all depend on my pocketbook at the time of purchase. Because the SU800 was not much higher in price at the time I was writing this I would probably go for it with the speed increase. Similarly if I could save quite a bit of money due to one being on sale, I would go with the SU650 as it has been great so far for me.

If you would like to see the full review of the SU800 you can see it HERE.

As for the drives tested, Here are the links to the manufacture website and addition specs if  your interested:

ADATA SU800

ADATA SU650

The post SU650 vs SU800 – ADATA SSD’s appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

After having such good luck with the Adata SU650 SSD drive, I decided to try out their SU800 model and see how it does. This will be going in a new Ryzen PC build I am doing. While usually I am fine with just a 240GB or 512 GB as a boot drive, with the lower prices of SSD’s lately I decided to use a 1TB SSD drive.

Disclaimer: This site uses affiliate links. This means I may make a small amount of money at no cost to you if you buy something after clicking a link on this site. 

Adata SU800 Ultimate 3D Nand SSD review:

Adata SU800 Packaging

The packaging for the SU800 was about the same as the Adata SU650 I bought with the exception that they did not include an insert this time. You just get a box with the hard drive in it and it arrived in a padded envelope. For reference this is the manufacture link to the drive I am reviewing, and model number I received ASU800SS-1TT from amazon which was on sale at the time and included free same day shipping for Prime members.

Not really much to it for packaging. I guess its good to help the environment by not including a paper manual that would probably just be thrown away. The box did have a QR code on it to scan that took me to the Adata.com website for the drive.

Some ADATA SU800 Specs

Here are some specs I found on their data sheets and website for the Adata SU800 that I like to look at when purchasing an SSD drive, and a few thoughts that include my understanding of SSD specs.

MTBF: 2,000,000 hours (Mean time between failure ~325 years if I just did the math right. But I read a more accurate way to do this would be to take something like a 1,000 drives and if you ran them 24 hours a day = 24,000 hrs, then divide by your MTBF and you get a failure every 83.3 days.) Not sure if all manufacturers test under the same conditions (temp, load, environment etc..). Anyways its a large number and I have yet to have a 2.5″ SSD fail on me yet. Maybe I am just lucky.

TBW : 800TB* ( Tera Bytes Written *for the 1TB model I am reviewing) This is another large number that I will probably never reach on this PC I am building. 

NAND Flash : 3D TLC (Triple Level cell) My understanding of this would be in cost and reliability 3D Nand types would be ranked in order as SLC, MLC, TLC and QLC . With Single level  Cell (SLC) being the most expensive and most reliable (Enterprise level  harddrives).

Warranty: 3 Years (I tend to never send back a drive even if it fails unless I am sure I can wipe any personal information off it, so I tend to not care as much about warranty as some.)  

Read / Write speeds : 560MB/s – 520MB/s (Higher listed speeds then my ADATA SU650)

Included Software with the Adata SU800

They do include some free software when you buy their drives that you can download from the website.

• ADATA SSD Toolbox
• Migration utility software
•  

I only downloaded the SSD toolbox software as this was going to be a new install of windows and not a migration. One feature of the SSD Toolbox software is that they included a section for firmware updates for the SSD. As a matter of fact I saw there was a newer firmware available for my SU800 (Q0922FS). I checked the release notes and did not see mention of performance improvements, and it looks like just compatibility optimization. Not sure if I will load it as my drive is working great so far.

ADATA SU800 Ultimate SSD Benchmarks

First thing I did was to set the drive to use GPT (GUID partition table) and then format as NTFS. Then I hooked it up to my motherboard for testing. For reference the motherboard I tested it on is a Asus PRIME Z270-A.

Here is the info from Crystal Disk info when running it on the Adata SU800 1TB SDD. One thing to note is that it shows the power on count as 5. This was the first time I turned it on, so assume the others were for testing.

Here are the results for my speed test benchmarks using Crystal Disk Mark. I have to say I am pretty impressed. This is the fasted 2.5″ SSD I have tested so far.

Summary

The speed results for the Adata SU800 1TB 3D Nand ULTIMATE SSD were REALLY good. As I mentioned above the fasted SSD drive I have tested so far. Plus the price point for this drive is great. While normally I use a 512GB drive, the price was so good I decided to jump up to the 1TB size. I guess that’s just a sign of the times as prices drop as new larger drives are coming out. For reference here is the LINK to my Adata SU650 review if you want to see those speed tests as that drive was slightly cheaper.

Here is a Amazon link to the drive – ADATA SU800 (sorry had to remove link, but you can just search for it directly. )

If you are still using a mechanical platter hard drive for your boot drive your really missing out. The main advantage of going with an SSD is SPEED. They are just so much faster its amazing. Also another great advantage is power usage. They use a lot less then a mechanical drive which can really help save on battery life.

The post ADATA SU800 1TB 3D NAND SSD Review appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

 Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only. I am not responsible if you damage your equipment or injure yourself. I am pretty sure installing this voided any warranties on my case. 

Antec DF500 vertical GPU mount Pro’s and Con’s:

The reason I wanted to use a Vertical GPU mount is pretty much strictly for looks. I like the way it looks mounted vertically showing off the GPU, and I think it takes some stress off the motherboard by not having the heavy card hanging off it horizontally. Plus I don’t like to see the video card sagging on the end due to the weight.

The main Con for me in using a Vertical GPU mount is that they block your PCI connectors. If I want to add a PCI card in the future I will need to go back to a horizontal mount. Another is some mounts put your video card right up against the side of your case and you do not get as much airflow to your GPU fans. And the final con which may be a deal breaker for some people is I needed to modify my new case by doing some cutting.

The unboxing

The mount I decided to use is the Cooler Master Vertical Graphics Card Holder kit , here is the link to it on the Cooler Master website for more specs and info: LINK

What was included in the box.

The mount needed 7 PCI slots available in the case. Luckily I had exactly 7 available in my Antec DF500 case.

Installing the Vertical GPU mount in the Antec DF500

First I removed my GPU and all the PCI blanks.

Next came the hard part (Well maybe emotionally). Cutting the bars between the PCI slots. I probably could have just cut a smaller portion just to allow my cables to plug into the card, but I went all in and just removed them all. Using a pair of big wire cutters I had in the garage I was able to get them cut, but you could probably do a more professional job cutting with a Dremel and then filing the sharp edges. Since I did not remove my motherboard I also had to be careful not to damage it in the process of removing the bars.

Checking the fit

Next I checked the fitment of the new bracket looked good. I was not worried about the sharp edges that were left as this is my pc and no one will be looking at the back or touching it but me. I did straighten them up a little with some needle nose pliers. If I was doing this for someone else I would clean it up a bit more.

Next I had to mount the PCI ribbon cable onto the mount with the two included screws.

At this point I just needed to plug in the other end of the ribbon cable into my PCI slot and then screw in the mount.

Plugged in the PCI ribbon cable into the motherboard.

Mounting the GPU

I then mounted the video card to the mounts PCI connector and added the screws to mount the GPU to the bracket on the end. At this point I also decided to switch video cards to a GTX 1070 from a GTX 1060.

One thing that I did not notice until I got it installed was that this mount left a lot of room between the GPU and the side of the case. This was a big plus as it should allow for some good cooling with the clear panel installed. Here is a picture of it after powering it up. You can see from the angle it has some good room for cooling maybe 2-3 inches from the side panel.

Here is another show of what it looks like with a MSI Armor GTX 1060 installed and the Acrylic panel on. I am going to let my son have the 1070 for his pc as he games more then I do.

Summary

First I want to say this Cooler Master GPU mount was surprising easy to install. I am REALLY happy with how it looks. Does it add any real functionality to my pc by installing a Vertical GPU mount in the Antec DF500? That’s debatable I suppose. I think it did take some stress off the Motherboard from hanging the GPU on its side. The downside was I did lose access to the extra PCI slots. Was it worth it for me? YES 🙂 especially as I look at my PC right now. I think it just adds that extra bit of “Eye Candy”.

Here are the links to the GPU mount used in my PC, and the PC case I have in case your interested: (Sorry links removed, but you can find it for sale on multiple sites)

• CoolerMaster Vertical GPU mount
• Antec DF500 case

If your interested in RGB fan’s Here is a review I did of the ones I had installed in this case HERE.

That concludes my post on my Antec DF500 vertical GPU mount install. I hope you found it entertaining and possibly helpful in some way. Thank for visiting my blog.

The post Antec DF500 Vertical GPU mount appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

Here is my review for the new LEDdess D series RGB Rainbow fan kit (120mm) that just came out. I was just looking for a set of 120mm fans to add to my Antec DF500 case that I just recently did a Ryzen build in. While I really liked the case, it only came with a single 120mm fan in the rear. The folks over at LEDdess sent me 3 of their new “D series” fans free to review.

If you have seen some of my other posts you will see that I have purchased some LEDdess (DS) fans in the past and really liked them. So I was anxious to check out this new version of RGB fans they have available. 

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only. This is just documenting me working on my PC’s. Any work you do on your PC is at your own risk. This product was supplied to me free of charge. That did not influence the opinion in the review. Also this site uses affiliate links. This means I may make a small amount of money at no cost to you if you buy something after clicking a link on this site. 

Packaging

For reference here is a link to the new leddess D series fans I am reviewing: (Sorry had to remove link, but you can search for it by name and find easily)

NEW LEDDESS D series RGB fan kit

This is the package that they came in, It was the 3 pack of fans, but when I checked amazon I see they also have a 5 pack available if you need more for your case. They also sell some additional LED strips you can purchase as an add-on. The controller can handle up to 10 fans and 2 led strips per the specs.

Here are the contents of the box, 3 of the new D series fans, fan screws, Fan controller, fan remote, power cable, warranty card and some tie wraps. Pretty much everything I would need to install them. 

Setting up the fans

The connectors are small so I always take the time to make sure I am plugging then in correctly and not upside down. Would be easy to break some pins. I plugged the fans into the fan controller.

I went ahead and hooked the power up to my spare power supply right away just to see what they looked like. Here is a snapshot after just turning them on for the first time 🙂

Here is a shot from the back, notice that you will not get much light on the exhaust side. The glowing bars around the fan are on the intake side. 

The light also shows on the side of the fans with this design that was added. The design does not represent airflow direction. 

Installing fans into case

Adding the fans to my Antec DF500 case was amazingly easy. Just pop off the panels and screw them in with the supplied screws. 

This is how I mounted the controller. It had doublesided tape on the back so I could just peel off the backing and stick it to an empty spot. The fan cables were just routed to the backside of the case and plugged into the controller. Then I plugged in the power from the controller to the power supply. No motherboard connection needed. 

The connectors are small so I am always careful Be careful to make sure you plug in the connectors correctly. I went ahead and fired it up to verify everything is working good before putting the panels back on the case.

They looked great with the tinted front cover back on.

Here is a picture of it sitting on my desk with the RGB ram turned off so you can see just the fans. I think the fans look really nice and they have a bunch of color choices.

LEDdess D series Summary:

I really liked this LEDdess D series RGB fan kit, and they keep the price very reasonable for people on a budget. I have also had good luck with my other RGB leddess fans in my sons PC. Those have been trouble free for over 8 months now. 

One new feature I want to mention on these new fans is fan speed control. This is really a nice feature as you can adjust the speed of your fans as you see fit. My sons older fans did not have this feature.

Another thing about these fans is they have a ton of different preset color combinations and designs to chose from. So in this post I am mainly just showing the rainbow. But I will also do a youtube video so you can get an idea of some of the color combo. 

Here is the link for these fans in case your interested. 

• Leddess D Series RGB 3x 120mm fan kit   

If you would like to check out my review of Uphere RGB heatsinks to add RGB to your non RGB ram you can see it here. 

The post LEDdess D series RGB fan review. appeared first on MyRandomTechBlog.com.

Here is my Antec DF500 case review (Dark Fleet series). This case goes on sale pretty cheap once in a while and I was doing a new build so thought I would check it out. I purchased it as a Black Friday Special for 49.99 with a $25 dollar rebate from newegg. (The rebate has been approved, and I will update this when I actually get the funds back by mail.) This was the cheapest price I have seen for this case so far. 

Antec DF500 case review

The Antec DF500 case came nicely protected and packaged in the box below. Sometimes I am amazed as the how cheap you can get a case for when they also throw in free shipping. It was not a small box as it was ~ 21″ x 21″ x 10″ 

Here is it after just pulling it out of the box, It had your typical Styrofoam packaging to keep it protected. Along with some plastic sheets protecting the clear plastic. No dents or scratches and everything looked great. I would give it 5 stars for packaging and protecting the case. (and 5 stars for the delivery driver for not throwing it around). 

The DF500 case

One nice thing I noticed was it had a removable filter on the top, Also a filter on the front and bottom of the case which I like. The other thing which I would add to the con column is it has only 2 USB 3.0 ports on the front panel. I would have liked to have seen a couple older usb 2.0 ports just to be able to use my 2.0 MB headers, but really not that big of a deal. I would probably just always be using the 3.0 ports anyways. 

Antec makes a couple variations of this case, and the one I bought appears to be more of the BASE model as it uses a tinted clear acrylic panel instead of the tempered glass that the more expensive RGB model uses. I think this was what also helped cut down the cost. While I would rather have the tempered glass if the price was the same, for me I am fine saving some cash and having the clear plastic (Tinted) side cover. They did have protective film to prevent scratches on both sides of the panel. 

In this picture  you can see the 3 filters (Top, front and bottom. ) Plus the screws on the bottom to remove the 3.5″ hard drive chassis.  One thing to note was the power supply cover does not appear to be removeable. 

The backside of the case

Here is a shot from the backside of the Antec DF500 case with the panel removed. I like having lots of slots for SSD drives. I also like the fact the 3.5″ Hard drive chassis can be removed. 

This is the removable chassis for your 2qty 3.5″ hard drives. (or I suppose any more 2.5″ drives as well). They also included the box you see which has all the extra screws and standoff’s.

What was in the white box in case you were wondering.

Specs:

Here are some of the specs listed:

• Motherboard compatibility : ATX, Micro ATX, ITX
• Maximum  GPU Length <= 380mm
• Max CPU Cooler height <= 165mm
• Maximum Radiator front <= 360mm
• Max Radiator Rear <= 120mm
• Side panel : Acrylic
• Fans included : 1qty 120mm (Rear)

Fan positions available :

• Top 3x 120mm / 2x 140mm 
• Front 3x 120mm / 2x 140mm
• Rear 1x 120mm  

Here is what I installed in the case for reference.

Installing parts into the Antec DF500

Cable management was pretty easy and looked nice once everything was installed. The case really has a lot of room and I wish I had the budget for some water cooling to fill in that space. 

Here is a picture with the acrylic panel back on the DF500 case. I think it looks better then the picture shows. The camera really shows more of the reflection. 

Now a shot with the computer turned on. 

SUMMARY

I just want to go over a few thoughts for this Antec DF500 case review. For reference this is the case I am reviewing.  I really like the look of the Antec DF500 Dark Fleet case. As a budget case I think it is a really good deal. I don’t think the pictures do it justice in this post. There are a lot of Pro’s to this case like Price, quality, clear side panel, good cable management, lots of room for more fans, a power supply shroud and it just looks great. 

But there are a couple cons that you should be aware of. Mainly the fact that you do not get more fans included (Just the single rear 120mm). I wish it had a true tempered glass side panel. They do make an upgraded model of this case that has more fans and a glass side panel. My plan is to pick up a set of RGB fans like in my review here of this pack of 6 leddess rgb fans. 

Other then that I think this is a great case. It has a ton of room inside, looks great and the price is very reasonable. 

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