As you know, I am Eli.

And today, as part of the A plus track, we are going to be talking about computer cases.

This is one of those components in a computer that, of course you need.

Of course, you need someplace toe.

Put the motherboard in the CPU and everything else, but many people forget that this is actually a very important component of the computer that you will be assembling or of the computer that you're going to be dealing with in the real world.

In the rial technical support world, you would be surprised how many issues come about Baze because of the computer case itself.

Ah, whether it's, ah, problems basically problem with the air flow problems with cooling.

Ah, and so that causes computers to freeze up or crash or simply problems of.

Somebody put basically created a computer in the wrong type of case, and then that come back to bite them in the butt later, when you're trying to troubleshoot it and deal with it and maintain it and all of that kind of stuff.

So today we're going to be talking about computer cases as far as the A plus a certification level goes.

And again, this is not something that you should ignore.

This is not something you should roll your eyes at because you don't know how many times you don't know how many times.

At the end of the day, the problem turns out to be that the computer has just the case that doesn't work for the function of whatever the computer is supposed to.

D'oh.

So with that, let's let's dive into this class and start talking about computer cases.

So the first thing that we need to take a look at is the type of case the computer is going to be with them.

Be clear.

This is not form factors.

When we talk about form factor, we'll talk about that in a minute.

Basically, that's the size of the components that go with in the case we're talking about right now is the type of case essentially, is it's gonna be a tower case.

There's gonna be a rack mounted case is gonna be a multimedia center case.

What type of case will the components of the computer be going into now?

It's very important that the form should match function so big problem that I see with a lot of Nubes is they think I want a professional computer.

So I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna buy a rack mounted case to put my professional computer components in because that's that's gonna be a professional computer.

Here's the thing, Right.

Rack amount of cases are built to get screwed into Ah, server racks.

So essentially you're gonna have 10 2030 servers, all tightly packed together within a server rack.

The rack mounted cases make a lot of sense.

If you're just gonna be putting all your components into this rack mounted case and then sitting out on your desk, you're sitting on the floor or something probably doesn't make a lot of sense.

Ah, it's not built for that.

I mean, something you have to be thinking about with the types of cases is things like air flow.

How is the air supposed to flow through the case?

And so, if you have a rack amount of case heiress supposed to flow from the front to the back because you have all of these servers compact it together, basically they're really tight together in the server rack, so that there's not a lot of airflow to up or down or left right has to go from front to back in the server rack.

That makes a lot of sense again on your in your desk or in a another environment that may not make a lot of sense.

So it's very important to be thinking about the type of case that you're going to need, Ah, for the function that you're going to be using the computer for.

Let's go over to ah to newegg dot com and take a look at some of the different types of cases that there are.

So this is the basic tower type case.

So if we look at this, we see a T X o A.

T X is the as a forum factor, basically a form factor for components, so you have a T X full towers, a TX mid tower's micro a TX towers.

Many I T X towers.

Basically, when you're taking a look at tower computers, these are essentially computers that stand vertically.

It's probably the standard type of computer used to nowadays.

Ah, and the idea with this is this is most likely going to be sitting on the floor beside your desk, you'll notice, like on this.

Ah, ate a TX tower.

This large one right here is that has a little feet on the bottom of it.

Well, the reason why you have little feet on the bottom of a tower like this is it keeps it off the ground a little bit.

So imagine if you have a big gulp.

Let's say you have a big soda and you accidentally drop the soda on the ground.

Well, if you have feet like this, then the soda drops on the ground.

It gets under your computer.

I mean, you've got you've got it disgusting mess to clean up.

But it's probably not going to cause any major problems for the computer.

On the other hand, imagine if you have a rack mounted computer that doesn't have those little feet on the bottom.

You have that sitting on the ground.

You spilled the soda, and then all of a sudden, that soda is now actually leaking into the case itself.

You run into problems, and so this is the type of thing you need to be thinking about about the type of case.

Then we talk about rack mounted cases.

Ah, this is like an eye star USA rack Mounted case.

I think this is a four you system called for you.

We'll talk about this later.

And maybe, like server hardware.

Something basically, this gets screwed into a server rack.

That's why you see, these little years on the side of the case, um, and again, it looks a little bit different.

So there's no feet on the bottom.

Basically, everything is built here again.

Airflow and suck is supposed to go from front to back, and basically this has its own little functions.

Again, you'll see things like here, like you see on the front.

Since this is supposed to be in a server room, there's actually a lock.

This is a key lock.

The idea is you can lock these front hot swappable doors so that nobody could just simply reach in and try to steal your hard drives.

If you're trying to deal with things like data security now, there are other types of cases out there.

Um, these are media center cases again when you start that time out form function.

So let's say you're going to have a media center computer that's going to be sitting by your 42 inch big screen TV.

Now, if you have something like that, you probably don't want a lot of RGB.

Don't want a lot of colors.

You don't want to rack mounted case.

You want something a little bit smaller, basically something that just sits there and does its job.

And so that's what we're dealing with with one of the media center cases Now, you also hear I talked about the many I T.

X cases.

So many I t.

X cases, these air the smaller cases.

Now these aren't there the really small cases.

These aren't nukes.

There's Intel New and Intel nukes.

They're like really small, like four inches by four inches or something.

Thes are the smaller cases that basically you're talking about like a foot by a foot.

Um, but basically, these could be good for building, you know, again like media center computers or smaller server smaller appliances.

That type of thing when you think about the I t.

X boards, I T X boards are the smaller square boards that you can use.

So these are the different types of cases or some of the different types of cases Ah, that you can use in order to build your computer or that you might be using for your computer.

And so this is something to be thinking about again.

You think about things like air flow.

So if you're gonna be putting into environment, how is their house air going to be flowing through this case?

Is it appropriate for the environment you're gonna be in again?

Is this a dirty environment?

Is it gonna be on the floor?

Is it going to be in a server rack that's gonna be on the floor?

It sounds stupid, but having little feet on the bottom of your your your your computer might might save it from again, soda or water or other crap.

And this is something that you need to be thinking about with the form and the function of the computer.

And so what type of case will you be using for whatever the computer is gonna be used for?

So the next thing that we need to talk about with cases is the form factor of the case.

So basically, when you go out there, obviously you know that you can get different sized computers, and obviously there are different size components within different sized computers.

But the thing is, by and large, those sizes have been standardized.

So you have full size a TX components.

You have micro a t x u have I t X.

All this all this means is different sizes.

Now it's got I Hopefully it's not gonna come as a shock.

Hopefully, it's not gonna come as a shock.

But if you have components, you need to have components that can actually fit within the case.

So if you have ah, full size 80 ex board and then you buy a micro a TX case to a little logic here two plus two full size board micro case, the board probably will not be able to fit inside the case.

So this is something I have to be thinking about.

Especially you're gonna be building computers or if you have to replace parts, making sure you get the right size for the form factor.

Now it's very important again.

Shouldn't be too complicated to understand.

But smaller components generally can go in larger cases.

So if you have a micro a TX board, a micro a TX board can get it go into an A T X case.

Obviously, a full 80 ex board most likely cannot go into a micro a TX case.

Sound sounds goofy.

Sounds funny, but this could really get you into trouble.

Now, whatever you're dealing with cases, especially if you're gonna be buying them.

Ah, the way to know what size boards can go into the case and what size components can go into the case.

It's pretty easy.

You can actually just go to the Web page wherever they're selling it or onto the to the manufacturers site.

Scroll down and you can see the details and you can see the different the different form factors for the devices that will go into it.

So you can see here, you know, power supply.

So you get a full full size A T X power supply.

So we go motherboard compatibility.

And so this shows you right here.

What motherboard sizes can go in so you can have a micro a T X.

Go to this particular case again.

I'm in a T X board or you can have a many I t export.

So it is very important understand as far as the motherboards, they're concerned that some of the other components are concerned that there's a different sizes, and so just making sure you, by their the right sizes, so everything fits together.

Now I will warn you that there are some issues with proprietary, um, computers whenever you buy them, especially from the big manufacturers.

So especially from companies like Dell Nowadays, thankfully, nowadays, everybody generally goes with the same types of boards.

But you will run into problems with things like power supplies through this particular desktop computer has a special sized power supply.

So if you're going to replace the power supply, that might run into trouble.

I've had this issue in the real world, you know, with HP or Lenovo that they'll have very specific won't use a standard a T X power supply.

They'll use their own weird size power supply, which, of course, supply surprises of costing about three times as much.

You're like, Well, I could have bought you a normal power supply for $50 but you have to have a custom power supply for for this particular case on, so that's gonna cost you $150 again, All we're talking about with a form factor is the sizes of the components that go with in the case.

Generally, everything is standardized off of a TX micro A T X or I T X.

But again, with any of these custom systems, sometimes you can run into specific components and you have to buy the specific replacements.

You can't just buy something off the shelf.

Now, one of the main functions they're gonna be need to be thinking about with your computer cases nowadays is the cooling components of being able to keep all the components within your computer.

Cool.

Now, this isn't the old days, right?

When I was young in my early twenties, my friends and I, we thought we were all being oh, nifty need by keeping the sides off of our cases to show how we need to keep our components, you know, as cool as possible, so so that they could really crunch some data.

And honestly, we had our heads up our butts.

Right?

You know, you go back to 4002.

You didn't have a lot of cooling problems with PCs.

Maybe some servers, if they're really chugging along.

But honestly, if you kept your computer in a room temperature, you know, environment, it had a couple of couple of events open on the computer case.

That's all you're really needed to worry about.

Well, the thing is, as computers that have evolved, they now really have gotten hot.

So when you start talking about these modern graphics cars and start talking about these modern CP, use these, these components get really hot, and it is no longer a cool thing to do to to worry about a ventilation of your computer.

If you don't get it right, your computer will just shut down and things will melt and you will have a very a bad day.

So you need to be thinking about cooling whenever you go would be building your computer.

One of the first things that you do need to think about is essentially, how hot is your computer?

Gotta run now.

To be clear.

If you build a little, you know, you get yourself a little light.

Five.

You use onboard video.

You throw in a solid state drive.

You're basically back to the 2002 era of worrying about heat problems with your your computer?

Yeah, you might run into him if you do something stupid, but probably not.