Cooler Master Storm Sniper Black Mid-Tower Case Review

[Apoptosis]

Cooler Master Storm Sniper Black Mid-Tower Case Review

Today we get to get hands on with the new case from Cooler Master, the Storm Sniper Black Mid-Tower Case. The Cooler Master Storm Sniper Black Mid-Tower chassis is loaded with all the features that enthusiasts want - great airflow, 8 expansion slots and an all black interior. Read on to see if the Cooler Master Sniper will be your next case!

"I have very little (if anything) bad to say about the Cooler Master Storm Sniper Black Mid-Tower Case. This is one very nice case! It has loads of room and is relatively light. Gives the end user the ability to remove unwanted items, add in needed items, and reconfigure fan locations. As open as the case is it is very quiet, on low you don’t even know the system is running. I turned it off once by accident by hitting the power button because I had the LEDs off and I thought the system was off."

Article Title: Cooler Master Storm Sniper Black Mid-Tower Case Review
Article URL: http://legitreviews.com/article/919/1/
Pricing At Time of Print: $163.99 plus shipping

[Skippman]

I like that Cooler Master is now releasing cases with red LEDs to change up things from the ever pervasive blue ones. Wish the wire managment was a little better.

Not a bad little box but the price seems prohibitive.

[gwolfman]

Not really impressed. Though it's nice to see the cutout behind the processor socket area. I agree with Skippman and like the red. I wanted to go red the whole time but I couldn't find any red keyboards/mice at the time, they were all blue. Kinda lame.

[InspectahACE]

not a bad case there....wolfman..you can always get a Saitek Eclipse keyboard..it lights up 3 colors including red(and blue).Im sure you knew about it maybe..was $50 at Fry's might be cheaper online now since the Eclipse III came out(i have the Eclipse II)..not sure if you were lookin for red lighting or just red period...it also doesn't surprise me that the cpu cutout doesn't match up with the motherboard..my haf 932 didn't even match up with my motherboard either..pissed me off since it WAS one of the selling points for it

[Dragon_Cooler]

Hey if you dont have a home for the case let me know . I was actually looking at this case at frys a couple days ago. <3

[InspectahACE]

Hey if you dont have a home for the case let me know . I was actually looking at this case at frys a couple days ago. <3

hehe..I'm not THAT pissed lol..the funny thing is..the same issue also caused me to scrap TRI-SLI altogether since the 1/2 inch or so mount "misalignment" left the very top pci slot on the case useless since nothing lined up(on my motherboard anyway. I would imagine most if not all are affected somewhat) least it wont stop me from using a single slot gpu for physx in the future if wanted

I also got mine at Fry's...though the paper with the diagram for the mounts wasn't in there..no biggie..the tape to hold it was so I guess that's a C for effort..

[Dragon_Cooler]

BTW, nice
http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product ... ct_id=2882

[brian555]

Nice review. I've got this case and I like it EXCEPT for one thing -- the noise of the fans even at low speed! I'm running them at the slowest speed possible. The review said "As open as the case is it is very quiet, on low you don’t even know the system is running." This is absolutely not what I find. I'm going to try looking at disconnecting a fan or two or adding some sound dampening material. With all the "mesh" on the front, the one side and the back, it's like having an open case!

Now I'm not that familiar with "gaming cases" so maybe this is normal. I've had mainly Dells, that I've done some reasonable upgrades to, and they were much quieter than this.

[Skippman]

First, welcome to the forum!

Secondly, yes, mesh is becoming more and more common on the "gaming" cases like the HAF from Cooler Master to allow better air flow, unfortunatly this usually comes at the expense of dust getting in the machine and possibly clogging fans which is why you'll hear so much talk about dust filters.

If your fans are noisy you first need to find out whats causing the noise, dust or vibration. Remove the fan from the case leaving it's power lead attached. Run the fan while holding it BY THE SHROUD. If there is still noise try blowing it out with some compressed air. If that does not resolve the issue you just have a noisy fan, sorry. If the noise goes away by just holding it in your hand you're getting vibration from the case. A set of cheap rubber washers from your local hardware store can go a long way to correcting that issue. Install them between the case and the fan using your existing mounting screws.

I hope this helps.

[bubba]

Brian welcome to the forums

I have Dells as well, most in resent years Dell has used passive heat sinks and only turn on the CPU fans under heavy load. I can get my Dell pretty noisy but if you are used to passive cooling your ears are going to be a little more sensitive then mine. To me any fan running in the 20dBA (+/-5dBA) is pretty much dead silent to me with normal ambient noise conditions, most quiet bedrooms at night is ~30dBA

What do you have in the way of CPU cooler and Video card. These could be the fans you are hearing as well if it is loud no matter what speed the case fans are at.

[brian555]

Skippman and bubba,

Thank you both for your responses. I'm going to need to get in there and see if any of the case fans are particularly noisy. Maybe it's the video card. Or the PSU. Or one of the hard drives

My specs are:
CM Storm Sniper
Intel i7-920 2.66
MSI X58 Platinum motherboard
EVGA NVidia 9800 GT 512MB
Corsair DDR3 6GB 1600MHz
Samsung 20X DVDRW
HD SATA 500GB+250GB+1TB
Vista Ultimate x64
ThermalTake ToughPower 750W

. . . . Brian

[brian555]

I had emailed CoolerMaster a couple of days ago to see if they had any suggestions. Their Tech Support response was that that it could not be the fans on the case -- that it was probably my video card and I should try lowering the speed on that. I was sceptical but, as I don't really have the time to spend taking my PC apart and listening to the components (I am currently job-hunting ), I decided to try that.

I downloaded and installed the NVIDIA System Tool. I set my 9800 GT card to "Factory Default" -- there was an IMMEDIATE decrease in the noise! So I'll leave it like that until I have time to tune it some more. I need to check the card is not too slow now...

So it looks like the case will work out well for me after all!

[Apoptosis]

nice, glad to hear that it was the GPU and not the case fans... I was about to fire Shane, but you saved his job ;)

[brian555]

Please give Shane my regards!

[bubba]

WOO HOO! dodged the bullet on that one

glad you found the source of the noise, and good luck on the job hunt.