AspireUSA X-Super Alien Aluminum Case

Up top we see another 80mm blowhole with the alien style custom fan grill.

Time to look around inside.  After removing the left side panel, everything superficially seems like every other case of this design.  Well that’s not even close.  The specs mentioned a removable motherboard tray.  To be perfectly honest, I thought this was a typo in the specs until I spotted it.  99% of mainboard trays are of the slide out variety.  The X-SuperAlien’s tray has two screws holding it in place.  Once removed, the tray lifts out of the case by two handles.  Sure this is another way to skin a cat but the slide out type of mainboard tray is superior, hands down.

     

The five hidden 3.5” device bays are oriented 90 degrees from what we are used to seeing.  This is to allow tool free access to your hard drives once they are screwed into one of the five trays.  The drive's orientation is such that the HDD connectors are behind the drive from this angle.  Something I found appealing about this design was it keeps cable clutter to a minimum by allowing extra IDE or SATA cable length to be tucked in behind the HDD.  Other loose wires can be tucked behind here as well.

        

Here is an inside shot of the exposed 5.25" bays.  You will notice beside it that the FDD cage slides out.  It is held in place by drive rails that snap into place.

  

The X-SuperAlien comes with a drive rails to mount your 5.25" devices.  The rails are tucked in and hidden behind the drive bay covers.  Pretty tricky.

  

Finishing up inside the case is my typical USB beef.  The USB cables have their ends separated so you can be sure your tweezers won't get lonely as you cuss and plug each of the individual USB wires and Firewire lines in.  Wouldn't it be easier to attach them together like we used to see done?

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