AMK LAN-0334 ATX Mid Tower

Power Supply & Cooling

Despite the other problems we ran into with the AMK LAN-0334, by far the most disappointing comes with the power supply. The Sunny Technologies ATX-250 is a 250W unit that was the first to crash the test bed we use for case testing. This system is not particularly demanding of the power supply, so this is very disappointing. Don't even consider this case for a power hungry Athlon system. We were able to confirm that the power supply was the source of the problem by swapping in a known good unit.

While it's always possible that we simply received a bad unit, we lost a great deal of faith in that theory as soon as we removed the power supply and could feel just how little it weighed. This prompted us to open up the unit and take a look inside, where we found very small heatsinks and overall poor build quality. Take a look at the pictures below of the power supply internals, and compare those to the high quality units from Part 4 of our AMD Athlon Buyer's Guide, which focuses specifically on power supplies.

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The Sunny Technologies unit does feature a physical power switch on the back, which can come in quite handy when troubleshooting a system. Just like almost any other current ATX power supply, this one featured a 80 mm exhaust fan.

Of course, cooling is the big focus of AMK's modifications to the original case design. The biggie is the 4.75" exhaust fan that is mounted in the left side panel. This is easily the biggest fan we've seen installed in a case that has made its way into the AnandTech lab. We'll also note again that the left side panel, the one you'll need to remove most of the time, has a fan attached to it, which in turn has a power cable attached to it. This makes removing the panel a slightly trickier proposition than in a traditional case.

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A 3.25" fan is mounted to the top panel in a configuration that has become known as a "blow hole" and also exhausts air out of the case. Like the fan mounted in the side panel, the blow hole fan also features a guard to protect your fingers. It is still possible that stuff can fall through the guard and into your system, especially spilled liquids so be careful.

The left side panel features a monstrous 4.75", also with its own finger guard. This is the biggest fan we've seen to date in any case and it moves some serious air. Another 3.25" fan is included in the bottom front of the case and is configured as an intake fan. This completes the "0334" part of the model number, which refers to the two 3.25" fans and the one 4.75" fan. The LAN-3334 model includes an additional 3.25" fan mounted underneath the power supply as an exhaust fan.

The downside to all these fans is noise - at 68db, the LAN-0334 is the loudest case we've tested to date. The thin sheet metal of the side panels and main case body don't help mute the sound much at all, not to mention contribute to an overall cheap feel to the case.