In-Win BL631 Small Form Factor MicroATX case build

Moving the contents of my Compaq SR5433WM "Wal-Mart Special" into the In-Win BL631 SFF desktop case. Overall I'm happy with it, but it doesn't come with any instructions, and that power LED is way too bright!

[@vernonbishop]

I recently built my friend a PC in one of these cases. I got the idea for the case from this video, and it worked for the build she needed. Thanks again! :-) It was an Intel Core i3-3240 build, with 16 GB of RAM, and a combination of an SSD, and a Hard Drive that she already had. We used a Dell Optiplex 3010 motherboard for the build. :-)

[@volodimirkun]

Hey Man! These lables are for use with 5.25" Diskettes . They are put on a diskett, covering a cut-out security slot , protecting the data from over-wrighting or deleting. This function was realised in 3.5" disks as a plastic switch. But 5.25 disks were too slim to have such a switch built-in, so these stickers were used.

[@volodimirkun]

Yes, 5.25 disk-based PC was the one, i started getting into computer science back in 1996... Our local maker-space-type place computers had no built-in HDDs and we used5.25" diskettes to boot them with a MSDos and Norton Commander User Interface.. Those were fun time, nevertheless... :)

[@novoiperkele]

Too slow.. :(

[@zhbvenkhoReload]

+Vladimir Kunnikov those were the days😎

[@CraigTube]

Funny thing about those little cuts you get when you build a PC is that you never remember when or how they happened. :)

[@jaykay18]

Those labels are DEFINITELY write-protect tabs for 5.25" floppy disks! Those were used to cover the notch on a 5.25 to prevent writing to it. The shiny, foil-lined ones you had were especially effective for drives that used an optical sensor as they would reflect the light rather than allow it to shine through. Later (cheaper) disks used black labels.

[@MarkTheMorose]

14:05 yes, I have to admit to being old enough to remember using those silver stickers, usually with my Commodore 1541 at home, and on the PC XT at work. It seems like a nice case; nice to see a reset button on there, that seems to be something that budget cases - and big names like Dell - don't have any more, presumably cost-cutting. Cable management is always tricky in SFF cases; one solution for IDE and floppy ribbon cables is to replace them with round ones.

[@Sutekh94]

14:09 Write-protect stickers for 5.25" floppy disks.

[@CGQuarterly]

For write-protecting 5.25" floppies.

[@uxwbill]

Yes, I know what those things are. :-) That's a nice looking little case. I think your cardboard baffle came out looking *great*.

[@skylius]

Hey guys! It's Uxwbill!

[@uxwbill]

~8 years ago that would have been a novel observation...

[@skylius]

+uxwbill Uhhh I don't get it. :I

[@uxwbill]

I've been following and watching vwestlife's videos *almost* from the beginning of my career on KZbin. And I knew of his AM stereo web site many years before that!

[@skylius]

+uxwbill Oh, sorry I didn't know. I don't get jokes or anything well for that matter.

[@themaritimegirl]

I'm not sure how good that brand of power supply is, but that's a pretty nice case. Also that card reader/floppy combo is awesome!! I want something like that for the 530. I think it's normal for Windows to have to re-install the keyboard and mouse whenever you move them to a different port. It happens when I switch ports on the 530. I don't know what makes them different from any other USB device, but that's how they work. I hate how on almost every electronic device with a blue LED, the LED is brighter than a thousand suns. I don't know if it's because blue LEDs are more efficient and manufacturers don't bother designing a lower current drive into their devices to compensate, or what.

[@rogeliolopez2190]

Blue uses more power

[@isaacwright2247]

I think you have a cool looking main computer. It's even retro-styled. It looks nice.

[@travis4798]

Windows XP sp3 registered to Steve jobs LOL! You win the internet. ;)

[@Y34RZERO]

This is something I would of done back in the day. I like to keep my computers even if I don't have a need for them, I have a want to keep them and run different software on them. I don't know why. It's just an interest of mine. I kept my old Optiplex GX1s, my GX150, and a bunch of thin clients. I hated when I would have to get rid of a computer. I picked up a bunch of Dells from my school and made a beowulf cluster with them. I used to pull systems from the trash. My first "modern" system was a trash build. Nowadays everyone wants specialized gaming rigs but I just enjoy making systems and fixing old computers.

[@ProtoMario]

When you switch MOBO's these days, it always needs to install that device driver for whatever reason. Mine had to reverify windows too... I've transfered 5 MOBO's so far, everytime, mouse, keyboard and windows are the 3 things, + my extra HD's.

[@vwestlife]

The motherboard is the same as before. But for some reason every time I plug the mouse or keyboard into a different USB port, Windows has to re-detect them. Once I get around to using them in every USB port, that won't be a problem anymore.

[@MattBytesRetro]

I think its because the device is identified not only by the device it's self, but also by the port its connected to. So when its connected to a different port, its not really doing a 'reinstall' of the driver, so much as its adding the device to that new port ID.

[@EndUser2090]

The silver stickers are for enabling writing to floppies. Audio cassettes and VHS tapes had a similar protection.

[@electronicsworkbench]

I know I'm a bit late but those silver tabs were used to write protect 8" and 5.25" floppy disks. I'm old enough to remember the 80 and 96 column punch cards as well as the 8" floppy disks (drives were IBM/Shugart 901's) of the early 1970's. By 1976 the 5.25" drives were made available by Shugart and later adopted by Apple. Our first "home computer" was an IMSAI Micropolis 8080 with the operator panel, Zilog Z80 CPU and a dual deck Micropolis 5.25" floppy drive set in a single cabinet. The monitor was a modified 13" color TV driven by a Dazzler graphics board. Ah, those were the days... I remember them well. :-)

[@TheRadiogeek]

Write protect tabs for 5 1/4 floppy disks. Yep I'm an old geek. Nice video.

[@techtron2376]

Amazing how much they can cram into that tiny little 3.5" drive shell, yet still having a working product.

[@NotAnUploader]

This case looks nice, reminds me of things like the Antec Design Fusion. Love it, nice little PC as well.

[@hartleymartin]

Those silver labels are for write-protection on 5.25" Floppy Disks. Those were out-dated technology when I was in high school, but we still had a computer which used them as late as 2002.

[@rogeliolopez2190]

I was born by the time floopy disk where obsolete but those are write protect labels for 5.25' floopy disk that will cover a tiny little pit so it won't be overwritten

[@mikesk356]

Write-protect for 5.25" floppy disk. Nice case. Looks better than the Compaq tower.

[@Mikeywil0003]

Cooler Master Elite 360 is a good small desktop case. It has two 5.25 bays, one internal 3.5, one external 3.5, it takes a standard ATX power supply that is mounted in the front and has a power cable extension inside the case. It can also accept a full size ATX motherboard if necessary, and also can fit large CPU coolers. The one I got came with a power supply and a 120mm case fan. The only issue I had with it, it will not fit long graphics cards.

[@fredrubble5024]

I've just used a case from this series (BL641) for a small desktop (that will actually sit atop a desk) for my wife. Still no instructions. Mine has the connector for 2 X front USB 3.0, and the cable is ridiculously long. The main power cable and the ATX cables are too short. I couldn't get the first of the 4-pin 12V to plug into the ASRock motherboard properly. I've bought an extension cable and hope that goes in better. I was worried about the mobo with all the pushing. I had to cut the white cable-tie, too. The connections for the front LEDs, power button etc are a pain given their proximity to the power supply cabling, and orientated strangely compared to my last build. The crazy 3-pin connector is still there but now had a 2-pin alternative wired in. I couldn't use the CPU fan shroud, far too many cables in the way. The mountings, or lack of them, for hard drives are nuts. I mounted an SSD and even that wasn't straightforward. All that wasted space for optical and floppy disc (!!) drives. Mine came with the 80mm fan pre-fitted, I replaced it with a spare Noctua I had lying around. I also replaced the standard AMD Wraith Stealth fan with the Ryzen 3 3200G CPU with a Spire as I'd replaced my own PC's Ryzen 5 3400G standard cooler with a Prism. Despite the extra height, it fitted fine. System not yet up and running, as I've had no end of trouble with orders for RAM sticks through Amazon. This would be a great case with a few mods- like proper HDD or SSD mounts and deletion of optical and floppy disc drive bays.

[@vwestlife]

Yeah, it's rather cramped inside, but that is to be expected with an SFF case. I also noticed that if you turn it off you have to wait a few minutes for the power supply to cool down before you can turn it on again.

[@HPad2]

Your Goodwill sells keyboards for $5? My local thrift stores sell Older Dell Mechanical keyboards at times (picked one up last week) a whole $3 and a few years ago got a IBM model M keyboard for $1

[@DaniRadioCat]

Heh, those labels are to write protect 5.25 diskettes, however in a pinch sometimes I'll use electrical tape instead

[@robert1975031]

having the labels was one thing, but how about the cutter that would add the notch to a 5.25 disk as well? somehow I have two of these lol.

[@alecjahn]

I ended up swapping LED connections on my Cooler Master case, in addition to toning down the blue LED with some Scotch tape, so that the power LED is the dimmer of the two. It's also nice because I don't really need a power LED anyway, but I do like being able to see HDD activity when I need it.

[@LawrenceMacMacster]

I love the desktop idear but sadly my ml350e Proliant won't fit into a small horizontal case (!) so I replaced my desk with a coffee table, now can put my screen on top. It's probably what HP engineers had in mind when they made that 3 feet long case. Also fits a keyboard 👌

[@JackStavris]

That actually doesn't look bad for what that is to be honest, although I wonder about that power supply, I'm not a fan of no-name brand PSUs, so I hope it doesn't give out on you as it looks a bit to proprietary to replace with a nicer aftermarket unit.

[@FlintG]

Cool video! I do like the slim profile of the new case.

[@KrissBartlett]

stickers are for the 5 1/4 drive floppy disk so you can read only not write to them covering up the cut out slot

[@oisnowy5368]

Over two years late, but yeah... I remember putting on those 3M stickers on the floppies I wanted to protect against overwriting.

[@retrocjt]

The silver labels are for covering the notch on a 5.25 inch floppy disk and preventing data from being edited or deleted

[@Fender178]

Yup those are Wire protection stickers for 5.25 inch floppies. I remember seeing those a long time ago.

[@GGigabiteM]

Powerman uses the same OEM as Antec (or is the OEM for Antec PSUs) and are respectable units. They're actually better than Antec because they don't have the "noise killer" technology which ironically leads to thermal death on many Antec PSUs due to lack of airflow. I have a couple of older Powerman ATX power supplies and they've lasted well over the years, only needing to be recapped once.

[@ComputerGenius10]

When I went to goodwill yesterday there was a thunderstorm outside and the power flicked on and off and you could see the computers starting up windows 7. Also a really loud alarm went off out of nowhere but the cash register we were at never went down which was lucky because we were in the middle of checking out.

[@ethan043]

You've been on KZbin for 10 years!

[@sawajiri100]

nice cassing.. can be fitted the motherboard type is LGA775?

[@kevwang0712]

14:00 Stickers for the write-protect notch on 5.25" floppies! Yeah, kids nowadays have no idea, and the stack of labels beneath it are for labelling the same floppies

[@XodiumLabs]

Never used them for such a purpose myself but I know those are write protect labels. Man, now I feel old...

[@DDT2005]

14:00 : Those are for write enabling 5.25 floppy disks :)

[@michaeldickens1101]

Dennis Thompson Actually the opposite, the notch allows for writing, so the stickers are for write protect

[@Kundalini12]

Looks like a better quality case than the In-Win Dragon Rider that I have.

[@AnonPlaysVr]

great build i like the case and hardware choices i love socket 775

[@Gmoney6422]

Thanks for uploading in my bday!

[@CKT1138]

i use a piece of floppy label paper soaked in black ink to dull the blue led on my case, works great!

[@nathanallan1]

If you use a bit of sand paper or somehow rough up the power LED it will become diffused also can spread the light somewhat down the strip.

[@N2tech]

I believe those silver stickers are used to cover the hole after you remove the write to safety tab on media.

[@sawajiri100]

the cpu casing looks beautiful and i really like it.

[@sawajiri100]

sorry for my bad English

[@MetallicBlade]

On the subject about the power LED shutting off during sleep, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe some BIOS have a setting to choose between dual-color and blinking modes. Might be worth a try. Nice case btw.

[@vwestlife]

This one doesn't.

[@voaks]

Those little labels look like write protect strips for 5 1/4 floppy disks.

[@kbhasi]

11:17 I bet those power and disk access LEDs are as bright as the ones on my VIA artigo A1000... they're even the same colours!

[@MrPocketrocketgaming]

The little labels were used to lock floppy disk to read only although this didn't exist on 3 1/2 disks.

[@WaybackTECH]

Power Man has been around for several years, they have also have gone by PowMan as well. Cheap and cheerful power supply. Seem to be decent, nothing special. This case would make for a decent looking HTPC. You can get a PCI or PCI-E USB 3.0 or 2.0 card to use with your card reader.

[@LuisMercadoorg]

Nice little case. I missed your computer themed videos. May I suggest you cut out black foam board instead of that cardboard. It will go nicely with that matte black finish.

[@Clell65619]

Way late, but the silver stickers are write protect stickers for 5 1/4" (and 8 inch) floppies.

[@CobsTech]

How do you jump the pins for the fan? Do you use like a long paper clip? or is there a proper tool/something you can use to safely do it?

[@Dev850]

Didn't those go over the square notch on a 5.25 floppy disk for write protection?

[@TAVIII]

i have not watched the video yet but you can often fix those bright leds by wrapping them in something like shiny paper and you won't be able to see it anywhere near as easily, even two layers is ok or more.

[@kawawete]

You can wake your pc from sleep with the keyboard if you check the keyboard in the Device Manager, you can say if it's allowed to wake the pc from sleep there ^^

[@setSCEtoAUX]

5 1/4" Floppy write protect stickers! I bet I still have some in my Commodore 64 stuff, but chances are the adhesive has gone all weird in the past 30 years.

[@keithpetrino]

I guess im a little late here, but you can get internal usb hubs to get an extra few headers.

[@cjhawk67]

You should flash the board makers bios onto it I did that with the ecs am2 board that was in my hp comaq presario sr71xx and the led front panel lights function correctly in a normal case and it even unlocked overclocking tools for me. I paired it with a 500 watt rosewill psu and a old msi ati radeon 6950 that has a 6970 bios flashed onto it for a decent little free to play gaming rig.

[@vwestlife]

The MS-7525 was an OEM-only board, so there is no unlocked version of the BIOS.

[@cjhawk67]

+vwestlife ah owell I guess I got lucky with the one I had. It's a ECS Elitegroup iris8 board in mine.

[@Ivo--]

the labels would go around the side of 5.25" floppies on the write-protect notch.

[@brownie77089]

I've never seen a combo floppy / card reader. Thats pretty cool

[@RossTheGenMan]

those silver labels are for write protect on 5.25 floppy disks

[@rogeliolopez2190]

Because of how bright the power led is this should be called the 76 dollar nightlight if not flashlight.

[@andrewdupuis1151]

I like that bright light. it looks cool.

[@highjack2778]

I have a acer veriton office pc which uses this very case, I wonder how acer used a standard case and motherboard, considering hp and dell make use of custom hardware

[@ChaosChimeraGaming]

I wonder if this would be cheap in nz don't like my old HP desktops case would this be able to fit a 1060?

[@rogeliolopez2190]

1060 is too big but any low profile card should fit also that card uses too much power and you wont find anything higher than 350 whats for a psu to fit that case unless you mount the psu outside ( there are no name brand 400w psu that fit this case but thoose are probably more of an electrical bomb than a psu.)

[@SonicHacki]

I feel like buying that case for my MS-7525 HP a6645d as well, But since I use a graphics card, I am not sure if my HD6550 will have good cooling (not even sure if it will even fit) As for the standby LED, have you tried ripping apart the LED wiring from your compaq case? You could replace that blazing power LED with the compaq one. IIRC, you can enable mouse/keyboard wake from device manager, so in that way, you don't need to press the power button for waking up your PC.

[@lnro4494]

I had a Dell Inspiron 530s, and with the front panel off, the blue LED was blindingly bright, you can't even look at it directly.

[@jimbronie]

I think those macally keyboards were made specifically for macs, hence the white color.

[@IntellitechStudios]

how did you get powers by the force to make your XP beep at will?

[@vwestlife]

ToggleKeys.

[@itsGuy]

Hi, I bought a bl040 case, it came with a fan installed (I got it second hand) it is very dirty, so I wanted to replace the case fan.. but can't for the life of me figure how to take the case fan out (btw the bl040 is the same as your case, just has a different face plate) if you know how to remove the case fan, that would be awesome. I've been searching everywhere and can't find, was hoping your video showed it

[@ugh.idontwanna]

Write protection stickers for floppies :)

[@gattie12ben]

Nice video :) It's nice to see how other people build their pcs :D

[@Kujokouklos]

Ha ha. 5.25" floppy disks write security labels! AWESOME!

[@Rustbelt_Research]

Are those silver labels for printing your own address labels?

[@ilcool90]

Actually the cardboard shield looks very neat

[@jimbronie]

Those are old 5 1/4 write protect labels!! Haven't seen those in a long time.

[@KingHenryVR4]

Were those metallic stickers used to prevent overwriting on the old 5.25" floppy disks

[@jessiebrawler]

I came to this video because i was trying to install an SSD into this specific case. I could not figure out how to do it! then i see that you have a hard drive frame or some kind of mount. My case didn't come with that piece, so i was freaking out.. Ultimately i had to bend some metal and screw it in to mount it... lol

[@orrinus]

Ah, yes... The good old write-protect stickers for 5.25" disks. Back in the day, I actually wired a switch into my Commodore 1541 drive to enable/disable write-protect and ignore whether the sticker was there or not. Did the specs say how much weight the case could support for something like a monitor? Nice video BTW!

[@IntellitechStudios]

did you get the Samsung driver to have TRIM on XP?

[@vwestlife]

It's called "Samsung Magician". It comes with the drive.

[@IntellitechStudios]

vwestlife oh, so it's automatic or you have to download the tool?

[@vwestlife]

www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools.html

[@jturner718]

Aren't the silvery stickers meant to provide write protection on 5.25" floppy disks?

[@vwestlife]

Yes, they aren't.

[@adey88splace]

5.25 inch write protect tabs!!!???!!! Nice build, I also get bitten by computers whilst building them.

[@silicongraphics]

You could get a usb pci card that has a plug on it for the front panel USB connectors

[@HappyJigg]

I remember that those labels are for covering up the copy protection on a floppy disk.

[@andljoy]

Not a bad little case , thanks for the video. That combination floppy and card reader thing looks interesting , i look forward to seeing the video on that. I am also not a fan of stupidly bright modern power LEDs on equipment, the case i built my firewall in has one and i had to put black electrical tape over it and i can STILL see it, i just don't see the point of that its silly, whats wrong with a simple old school LED ?

[@millerzj9GamingV2]

Well usually they're not that bright but in my testing, Compaq motherboards make LEDS really bright.

[@chloeprice8]

lol..a wile back i put like 75 of those bright leds in various color's in my pc to illuminate the inside..brighter than the sun haha

[@chloeprice8]

Mike Hall hahaha! to tell the truth it was brighter than my rooms 36watt fluro XD they were the high beam ones so you could reach the brightness of a flashlight with only 4 of them.. but the psu was not very happy about it tho

[@kaiyoshi2243]

Write protect stickers for both 5.25" and 8" floppies. I like this case, may pick up one for myself.

[@NelsonBigGunP200Fan]

I've heard that XP does not support TRIM which is what SSD's need for performance. However there are programs that can do it for you.

[@vwestlife]

Yes, I have Samsung Magician installed which is their official SSD support software for XP and newer.

[@stonent]

For the LED, try coloring it in with a sharpie. It shouldn't be completely opaque.

[@stathissim]

are they write protection for the 5.25 disks?

[@Sys-Edit0r-1995]

Is that label thing used for 5.25" when you need to cover the notches, think I heard about it in some video.

[@777anarchist]

A black sharpie is the solution to all the mid-00's blue power LEDs.

[@DaniRadioCat]

What can cause a ThinkPad 355 (similar to your 360C you showed in a video but a lower-end model) to not display anything on the LCD? Dead backlight or inverter? Dead CMOS battery? Bad caps on the power/DC board? (External LCD works fine, it's just the internal LCD that has a problem)

[@vwestlife]

Probably a bad backlight or backlight inverter.

[@LostScout-8X]

Thank you for the build video.

[@chuckjones5775]

The labels look like tape to cover the wright protect notch on 5.25 " floppy disks.

[@SudosFTW]

I have that same Marvell-based Ethernet card. heatsink'd the chip, but otherwise mine is exactly the same. the goodwill you went to is atually using POSready, if you can believe it. I've seen one of them boot up.

[@AZEMBadlen]

I see you have upgrade quality a lot. What camera are you using right now

[@vwestlife]

Canon HF200.

[@AZEMBadlen]

Thank you :)

[@AidethElwing]

aren't those silver slips the write-protect tape for 5 1/4" Disks