Zalman Z11 Plus Black Case Review
Installing Hardware in the Z11 Plus
After digging around the accessory bag and locating the rest of the motherboard standoffs, I then got them installed into the proper holes. I am now ready to install the motherboard into this chassis.
The ASUS Rampage 2 Extreme is almost too big for this chassis. This is going to make my wire management a bit more interesting.
If you need to use the USB 3 front IO ports on the chassis, you will have to grab the USB 3 PCI expansion cover that has a couple of notches cut out of the cover plate, so you can route the USB 3 cable through the back of the chassis.
The Z11 Plus chassis allows you to place a bottom 120/140mm fan to the chassis. Unfortunately, if you are using a fairly long PSU, you will not be able to mount a fan here.
I went ahead and removed the external 3.5″ bay
device because I will need to use it for my 2.5 HDD that I will be using in this computer build. This will also have to be used if you plan on using a floppy drive with your computer.
All of the mounting holes for your drives are located at the bottom of this tray. It is a simple installation; line up the holes of adapter to the corresponding mounting holes on the drive, then use the right screws and secure the drive. The 2.5 HDD has the exact same mounting holes as an SSD.
Here is how a 2.5 HDD/SSD will be mounted on the back of the motherboard tray. There is enough room behind the tray to allow the use of these small drives. Since there is little to no airflow back here, I suggest you dont mount a 2.5 HDD back here. I am only using this 2.5 drive as an example.
If you install a CD/DVD/Blue RAY drive in the most upper bay, you will not be able to use a 120/140mm fan on the most forward exhaust fan mount.
I have done better wire management on previous chassis, but all in all this was not too bad.
On the backside of the motherboard tray are small little loops. These are used for the wire ties that come included in the bag of accessories to hold back the wires from the PSU.
Here you are looking at the size of the CPU cutout on the Z11 Plus chassis with the motherboard installed.
I am all done with my installation, well, minus the memory of course. The hose/tubing I am using on this computer build is 5/8 OD, and it was a bit tight to thread the hose/tubing through these small water cooling access ports.
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