Antec Sonata Series Solo II Mid Tower Case Review

Installing the System Parts

The accessories bag doesn’t have a whole lot to it. There are a few wire ties and screw bags for hard drive and motherboard mounting.

Overall, installation was quick. The only real stumble I had was figuring how to stash the extra cable for the 8 and 24 pin power connectors. The cables for the NZXT HALE90 PSU are very long. They are more at home in a full tower than in a short midtower like the Solo II. So when it comes to the power supply you use on your build, modular cables are must, and the shorter the better for main 8 and 24 pin power cables.

Also, when it comes to the power supply, most PSU’s today are designed such that they are mounted in the bottom of case, with the fan pointed down. This puts the fixed power cables to the inside of the case. With the Solo II mounting flipped it puts the fixed power cables to the outside. This is just something to keep in mind when planning wire routing.

Installing hard drives was simple. The suspension mounts were the easiest; just set the drive between the straps and go. Not too sure how well drives mounted like this will do traveling. The drives are being held in place by friction of the straps.

The trays on the other hand have screws that hold the drive to the tray, and the tray into the case. So if your system travels a lot might be best to go with this mounting rather than the suspension mounts.

Looking behind the motherboard tray I didn’t have a whole lot run back here. Mainly because there was no room for it. There was enough space that I could reroute the front I/O panel wires between the motherboard and the motherboard tray. This made for a nice clean lower half in the case and if I had a front intake fan, the cables wouldn’t block the flow.

Now, I knew that if I didn’t show it, I would get emails asking. Yes, if you are thinking of water cooling you can fit a RAD in the bottom of the Solo II, and triple 120 at that. Granted, you will be limited to mATX motherboard, and have to poke holes in the bottom of a nice new case, but that is what modding is all about.