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As a standalone mainboard, the FS40 would probably lead a wallflower existence, however, add the custom case to morph into the SS40 and things change dramatically. In terms of the visual appearance, the main difference between the SS40 and the earlier models is the Lucite front panel. The clear Lucite accents the brushed aluminum saddle that reflects the light in iridescent Mother of Pearl colors to provide a visual ambience that could be topped only by a smoke Lucite front and antique bronze finish. I have the feeling we will see something like that in the near future but we will also need some new front panels for the DVD-Rom to match the rest.

Installation

Installation of the SS40 is extremely straightforward, the first thing one notices when opening the case is the "passive" heatsink connected with heat pipes to the rear exhaust fan.

The "passive heatsink is connected to a radiator via heat pipes. Accessibility is restricted by the drive bay tray that can be removed after loosening the two Phillips type screws at the top. The entrie fan assembly can be lifted out of the case after removing the four thumb screws holding it in place at the back of the rear panel.

Access to the entire cooling setup is partially blocked by the drive bay tray visible in the bottom part of the picture. All it takes, however, is to loosen the two screws and the entire tray comes out to allow access to the CPU socket, the DIMM slots and the IDE interface.

The entire tray holding one 5 1/4 and two 3.5" bays can be taken out after removing the two screws. This will also allow almost unrestricted access to the DIMM slots and IDE connectors.

Removal of the heatsink requires dismantling of the rear exhaust fan first which is a matter of a few seconds, courtesy of the thumbscrews used to hold the fan cage. Once the fan assembly has been removed, the heatsink can be lifted out of the case and reveals its shiny copper bottom.

The "corpus delicti" a.k.a. heatsink, heatpipes, radiator compound featuring a view at its bottoms.

Keep min mind that the entire installation procedure is described in form of stop action pictures in full glossy color and English and Chinese text in the separate XPC manual.

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