Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower Case
Installation and Use
The best way to truly get to "know" a case is to use it, and by use it, we of course mean install a system in it. And that's just what we did. Below, you will find a list of the components we installed in the HAF 932.
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- Motherboard: EVGA nForce 790i SLI FTW Digital PWM
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 (3 GHz)
- CPU Cooler: Retail Intel cooler
- Video Card: ASUS EN9800GTX TOP
- Hard Drive 1: Western Digital 74GB Raptor
- Hard Drive 2: Maxtor 120GB SATA
- CD/DVD Drive 1: Lite-On DVD ROM
- CD/DVD Drive 2: Plextor SATA DVD+/-RW
- PSU: Enermax Liberty 680W
As we stated earlier, the HAF 932 is quite spacious. We suspected that it would be very easy to work inside the case to install all of our components because of its size, and our suspicion proved to be true. When installing your system in this case, the first thing you should do is get out the included poster/guide and lay it inside the case, which is exactly what we did in the image below. This will help you install the motherboard stand-offs in the correct locations, and it will help you get familiar with the case's cable management options. Most of you will find this poster/guide to be useful.
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After installing the motherboard, we moved on to the other components. We were pleasantly surprised by how well all of the tool-less features worked. When we installed the 9800 GTX, which utilizes two slots, we were worried the holes weren't lining up correctly for the tool-less expansion card holder, but it worked just fine. The card was secured without a hitch. The hard drives were about as easy to install as we have ever experienced. You can see a hard drive in one of the rails below. The optical drives were also a cinch to install. We simply slid the drives into place and then pressed the buttons to secure the drives.
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The final component we installed was the power supply, and we opted to use the bottom position. The power supply didn't go in as easily as we had hoped, mainly because of the fan grill on the bottom of our unit. The grill caused the fan to sit up on the case's power supply shelf a bit higher than required. In other words, the holes didn't line up very well. This made it a little more difficult to get the screws in, but we managed without too much extra effort. Our next challenge was to utilize the cable management system to route all our cables and plug everything in. In the picture below, you can see the result of some of our effort. We pulled most cables through the various openings in the motherboard tray.
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One area that we want to point out is the square cut-out that exploses the motherboard. Cooler Master did this so that you could install coolers without having to remove the motherboard. Many high-end coolers require a backplate to be installed on the bottom of a motherboard for proper installation, and this usually leads to the user having to waste a bunch of time removing and then re-installing his motherboard in his system. Not so with the HAF 932, that is as long as the CPU socket is located where that square cut-out is, which will be the case with many desktop boards available today. Kudos on that touch, Cooler Master!
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The final picture shows the entire system installed in the HAF 932. We didn't get a chance to come up with the best organization yet, but with a little more time and planning, we know it could look a lot better. One thing to keep in mind with a case this big and for cable management is that some power supplies don't have very long cables. During our installation, we discovered that our 8-pin power connector was too short to go through any of the cable management openings, so we had to string it over the video card and other components. Still, we freely admit that many of you could probably come up with a great solution and do an awesome job organizing the cables in the HAF 932. Thankfully, Cooler Master took steps to make that process easier for you.
We wish we could show you a picture to represent the HAF 932's airflow and noise level. If we could, it would be a pretty picture. We felt a ton of air being sucked into and flowing out of the case, and this was achieved with very little noise.
