Aopen XC Cube AV (cont'd) Construction Click on images to enlarge. The construction of the XC Cube is first rate, with no sharp corners and a feel of durability. Aopen Xc Cube Av EditionAopen XC Cube AV Overview Aopen has been a long-time player in. We would like some sort of dial or software that would allow you to tune the intensity of the. AOpen XC Cube AV Edition. Today we take a look at AOpen's XC Cube AV Edition. Instant On capabilities for media playback and software to give. Centrafuse Auto is a completely agnostic Application Integration Framework that enables separate applications, content sources and devices to merge into a single user experience, achieving what we like to call 'Intelligent Convergence'. Centrafuse auto cracked. The cover is made of aluminum with ventilation holes punched in it, and the frame is a combination of steel, aluminum, and plastic. For added convenience, thumb screws are used to secure the cover and the hard drive mounting bracket, but other than that small concession, the case continues to require a screwdriver. The hard drive cage slide out easily once the thumb screw is removed, and it is just as easy to put the cage back in place. The sliding action is a lot smoother than many of the other drive cages, where you feel like you have to force the cage into place. The front panel is also well designed, and the fold-down flap that covers the front USB and other ports feels a lot more durable than on some other cases. It could still be damaged if you aren't careful, but it is made of a thicker plastic and does not feel like it will simply fall off if you bump it. There is a removable tray that houses the optical drive and flash card reader, and two screws hold it in place. Finally, we have the included CPU heat sink, a moderately-sized, all copper design with four heat pipes to help draw heat away from the CPU and up to the cooling fins. The fan on the HSF is mounted sideways and when installed, it will ventilate the warm air from the CPU through the holes in the side of the case. It's a well thought-out design. One of the areas where nearly all of the cases have some issues is with the add-in card mount. In typical desktop cases, this area is located within the chassis and you unscrew the slot cover, insert your card, and then secure your card in place with the screw. It's not a perfect system, but it works well enough. The Aopen case has the actual mount on the outside of the case, but their design is easier to work with than most of the other cases. You remove one screw and lift up the retention mechanism, and then you can remove the empty brackets and add in your card. No screws are required to secure the cards in place, as a slight protrusion on the bottom of the retention mechanism helps to hold them in place. We're not entirely convinced of the long-term durability of this design, however, and would prefer a longer metal piece to hold the cards in place. Still, we didn't encounter any major problems during our testing. ![]() Assembling the unit was relatively straightforward. As with most SFFs, the included HSF is installed in the case and needs to be removed. There is a drive tray that you have to remove in order to secure the optical drive with screws, and it will also give you more room when installing the CPU. Once the CPU is installed, you replace the HSF and secure it in place with four clamps, one on each corner. While the drive tray is removed, we also installed the RAM, and when using an IDE hard drive, you should install the motherboard connection. Once all that is done, you replace the drive tray, install the HDD into its cage and slide that back in, and you're ready to boot up the system. If you're not taking pictures of the whole process, it can be done in under 10 minutes. Once assembled, it's time to start installing the software. One key point to make here is that the InstantON software must be installed before you install Windows. In fact, it is best to have an empty hard drive (i.e. No partitions) before installing InstantON. Since we had previously used the same hard drive in another system, this caused the InstantON application to hang at the 100% complete mark and there was no information to explain what was wrong. We would like for Aopen to include a drive partition interface in the InstantON software that would allow you to wipe all partitions, and even better would be if the software could allow you to dynamically resize an existing partition to make room for InstantON. The software appeared to do this initially, but we couldn't get InstantON to work. Whatever the case, the software needs to provide better reports to explain what is going on with the installation and hopefully allow the user to deal with any problems. If you're not going to use InstantON, of course given our earlier comments, then this is a moot point. Once InstantON is installed, you install Windows.
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