A Closer Look - Inside

To gain access to the interior, simply remove the thumbscrews holding each side panel in place. Two things of note are the bumps in the motherboard tray, which take the place of traditional spacers, and the default-colored cables. While the bumps will work, I would tape over them before installing a motherboard, since they could short pins on the motherboard. The large opening in the motherboard tray should allow you to access the backside of the motherboard tray with ease, making swapping CPU coolers out a breeze. The roughly 25 mm worth of space behind the motherboard tray make hiding any unwanted cables there an option. Three openings with grommets help in further keeping things clean and tidy.


Aerocool equipped the external drive bays of the Mechatron with plastic locks. While this is a nice marketing gimmick, these type of contraptions generally do not have the strength to hold a drive in place as well as traditional screws. Four bays in the middle are exclusively for 2.5" drives, which frees up enough space to install graphics cards of up to 330 mm in length. Below these bays are the four trays for 3.5" drives, but all of those may also hold 2.5" drives.


Turning our focus to the rear of the chassis, the top holds the 120 mm exhaust fan. This unit does not come with any LEDs and looks pretty standard. It comes equipped with both a 3-pin and a Molex connector, so that you may choose how to power the cooling fan. Below that are the seven expansion bays, with each bay cover held in place by a thumbscrew. This method is also used to secure expansion cards within the Mechatron. The PSU bay with four little bumps to support your installed power supply is in the very bottom of the case. I prefer foam pads because they eliminate the possibility of vibrations being passed on to the frame while your system is up and running.


All the cables are of the standard variety, with the exception of the USB 3.0 lead. It also comes with an attached USB 2.0 header, which allows you to utilize the top I/O with a motherboard lacking the newer standard.