If you’ve ever been in the middle of a system build or component installation and thought to yourself, “I wish I could reach through the case but there’s a panel in the way,” then Antec may have a solution for you with its new — and very unconventional — Skeleton enclosure.
Antec’s Skeleton is a frame with a removable drawer for components, a removable tray for the motherboard that sits atop the drawer and a honkin’ big 250mm (9.84-in.!) fan sitting up on its head with tricolor LED lighting. Basically, it looks like a cross between an arch bridge and a skinned Terminator . While it does have a bottom (sort of), it has no true sides, no back, front or top panels — and, best of all, no solid intervening panels to block your access.
I test a lot of equipment. My hard drive testbed had pretty much reached the end of its lifespan, thanks to an older chip set (and the fact that I’ve misplaced both side panels). It was time to build a new platform, and I thought I’d give the Skeleton a try.
Stuffing the Skeleton
Putting some meat on the bones of this Skeleton is beyond simple. Two thumbscrews hold the drawer in place. Loosen them (they won’t fall out) and then slide the draw out of the frame. While that will give you access to the motherboard tray, you can remove the tray itself entirely by removing the three screws that hold it onto the drawer.
Thankfully, I encountered no sharp edges no matter where in the case I jammed my hands, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to fit your whole hand anywhere, especially if they’re big, old ham hocks like mine. I was able to overlap my fingers at every point from anywhere inside so that made life relatively easy.
I selected an ASUS P5QL-E motherboard, which has six SATA ports, allowing me to take advantage of the Skeleton’s six hard drive bays. Unfortunately, that didn’t leave me any available ports for SATA optical drives or for the Skeleton’s front-mounted eSATA port. I’m considering adding an Addonics 4-port eSATA card to the system for extra drive capacity.
Once the motherboard was in place, I decided to install the power supply unit (PSU) next. It’s a good idea to install the power supply right after the motherboard, because once you’ve put the drives in place, it gets a little cramped in that drawer. There is a way around that: If necessary, you can route cables by turning the case over on one of its sides or its back, but it’s easier when the front of the drawer is empty.
Antec, of course, recommends one of its Signature series models: the 650 or 850 (watts). These devices are 80 Plus Bronze certified PSUs, which means they adhere to more stringent voltage and power output levels than uncertified power supplies. That’s why they’re great for a system being used as a testbed. The Signature 860 retails from about $213 to $272, so if your power requirements aren’t critical, find yourself a nice sub-$100 PSU and save some money.
Antec doesn’t recommend the newer PSUs with 120mm fans because of airflow problems with their internal fans, but the Skeleton will accommodate them and almost anything else, if you follow the directions.
A note: I found myself needing to add an extra power cable to the Signature 850 PSU (it has modular cables) so I could hook up a drive on the side panel as an afterthought. The plug-in module on the PSU was reachable but needed more effort than I was willing to expend, so I settled for an adapter cable attached to one of the existing lines. In general, as far as the Skeleton is concerned, it’s a good idea to think twice so you’ll only need to cable once.
Drives
There’s room for four drives — two 3.5-inch and two 5.25-inch — inside the front of the drawer. Antec supplies four special screws for them, one for each drive. Following along with the manual, which you will need to download (PDF), each screw is placed in a particular screw hole in a drive.
When you slide a drive inside along its rails, those screws lock the drive into place by fitting into special holes in one of the four “paddle” latches that are built into the drawer. If you need to remove a drive, just push the latch and you can slide it out.
You can also mount the drives permanently by using regular drive screws. There are holes along the outside of the drawer that allow you to do that; however, you will need to remove the two small side panels to gain access to them. They’re held in place by thumb latches and lift up and out of the bottom rail where tabs have helped keep them in place.
Although the Skeleton has four proper bays, it can also hold an additional four 3.5-in. drives, each mounted in one of the four provided carriers. The carriers are equipped with two hooked tabs that fit into either of two pairs of slots on the top of each side panel.
If you’ve been keeping score, that’s two 3.5-in. hard drives and two 5.25-in. optical drives inside the case plus four additional hard drives hung along its sides — and the enclosure is a mere 13.0 by 14.8 by 16.5 inches in size.
Clean and quiet
With all that open area and a 250mm fan, you may be curious about how loud the Skeleton is. Well, you can barely hear it at all. A few years ago, Antec developed a trick for its 120mm (and larger) fans — if you spin them slower than the average 80mm or 90mm fans, the noise level is reduced. Cooling power stays the same because the fan blades are bigger and push more air through. As a result, you can sit right next to the Skeleton and really not notice anything in the average room.
This has another advantage: it keeps dust away. My house is a dust magnet, but this is like having a vacuum on top of the case. You can feel the air being sucked away from the motherboard if you put your hand beneath the fan. And with no screens or filters, there’s nothing to clean every month.
Caveats
The one problem I faced was with the Skeleton’s front-panel audio cable. The HD audio connector was about an inch and half too short to reach the corresponding motherboard connector on the P5QL-E. The extra wiring added by the standard AC-97 connector piggybacked onto the cable did reach, but that means I was left with no front-panel HD sound availability.
Speaking of cables, the beauty of the Skeleton is the easy access provided by its removable drawer and lack of panels. If you tie-wrap anything from the motherboard to the frame you won’t be able to remove the drawer without cutting the tie-wrap. Also, if you’ve installed any interface cards (audio, graphics, tuner, etc.) on the motherboard, you’ll either need to remove them or disconnect the acrylic bar to which they attach at the back of the case if you want to slide the drawer out.
Conclusion
Antec’s Skeleton will make your life much easier when it comes time to swap stuff in or out, whether you’re doing it because you need to pretest components prior to deployment in other equipment or just because you’re tired of what you have.
Bill O’Brien is a freelance writer who has written a half-dozen books and more than 2,000 articles on computers and technology, including Apple computers, PCs, Linux and commentary on IT hardware decisions.
