There comes a time in every young man’s life where he needs to venture away from the traditional computer cases. A time where he needs to let go of the boring old every day computer case. That’s where the Aspire X-Cruiser comes into play. Its sleek, yet simple design make this case the perfect case for anyone who is buying there first custom case to seasoned veteran. I thought long and hard weather or not to order a new case, and spent countless hours surfing the internet for the perfect one. When I stumbled upon the X-Cruiser, I knew it was the right case for me. I ordered it on the spot, and was not in any big hurry to have it shipped to me, so I put it on the basic 3-day shipping. At the end of day three I was getting a little antsy because my case had not come in yet, but sure enough on the fourth day it arrived. I got home from work around 10pm, and tore into the box, pulling out my new case. I sat the case on my table, and admired its beauty.

First I’m going to cover the specs of the case before I get into all the installation. Seeing as the case came preassembled, there were not any instructions, which did not bother me at all. There was however wiring instructions for the front panel, which helped me out a little bit. The case itself has only two 80 mm fans, which is one minor disappointment in the case. After coming from a case that had 5 fans, and going to a case that has two fans made me a little concerned, but the air duct on the side of the case helps out some, reducing the heat off the motherboard. I may in the future add one more fan to the front to increase air flow through the case. The X-Cruiser comes with 2 external 3.5” drive bays, 4 external 5.25” drive bays, and 5 internal 3.5” drive bays. For being just an average gamer, I really do not need a whole lot of room unless I decide to add another hard drive later on. Not being a traditional case, the front USB ports are on the right side of the case, instead of being on the front of it. The ports are located on the front right side next to the door, which is very convenient for me.I really like the three gauges in the front, because they tell you the temperature, fan speed, and volume of the case. I have yet to put the temperature dial to good use, but all three seem to be very accurate. The only big flaw I found about the design of the case was the door. The door does not lock into place, yet sticks into place by a magnet. I do not know how long that will hold out, or if it will last longer than one that clicks closed; only time will tell.

Finally moving into the installation process, I would soon discover a few more problems. I first installed my CD ROM drive, and DVD drive. The CD player went in fine with no problems, yet the DVD drive toke a minute to get it into the slot. After that I installed my hard drive, which fit just snug into its slot. From there I moved to my power supply. I really loved this cases design for its power supply slot. In my previous case, my power supply was held up by only four screws, which made me use some fishing wire to make sure it did not break the screws and fall and break my motherboard. But with the X-Cruiser, the slot has a bracket for the power supply to set on, which made me feel more secure. After the power supply was in place, I moved on to the motherboard. Now, this was where I ran into problems. The first problem was with the panel that the motherboard sat on. I screwed the board down, and stood back to look at it, and realized that the motherboard was a few inches from the back panel. I played with it for a few minutes and finally managed to move the board flush with the wall. The next problem occurred when I was putting on my video and sound cards. After I popped them into place, I realized they were a few centimeters off the back wall also. Now I had to move the board up an inch so everything could screw into place properly. After all the wires were plugged in, I switched the case on. All the hard work finally paid off. The case glowed with beauty. Everything was working very well. Therefore, I fell giving this case a B+ is must appropriate. It has a very simply design, yet contains minor installation problems.