Introduction
The home theater PC (HTPC) market has really exploded over the past few years. As more and more people have switched from dial-up connections to broadband and more people have learned to convert their media into electronic files, the amount of data stored on personal computers is getting to be quite large. Because of the desire to have all of this media accessible on the family TV set, as opposed to locked into an office on a computer monitor, more consumers are choosing to place a fully functional PC right in the living room.

Of course, the considerations that go into an HTPC are different than those governing an office or gaming system. The system should be quiet, so as not to disrupt the audio experience. As part of this it should be cool, so that limited fans are needed, and its looks should blend in with the typical entertainment center.

Most HTPC cases on the market today are built around the micro-ATX form factor. This is often because space can be limited around the TV, and any reduction in size of the PC is nice. There is a reasonable selection of micro boards on the market, so it's definitely possible to satisfy most needs with this system. Of course, there are always some people who might not want to use a small board for whatever reason, be it expandability, available parts, or hardware space requirements (such as mounting a bunch of drives). For these people, CoolerMaster has made the full ATX CMmedia 282 case. Let's take a look and see how it performs.

Construction and Hardware Installation
The case arrived in a fairly standard CoolerMaster box, with a picture of the Chassis, specifications, and the familiar decorations that CM is known for. Mine took a little beating from the delivery company, but the case was completely unharmed.

The case itself is very attractive, if somewhat bland. It's a matte black, and the front panel is plastic with lots of doors hiding things away and giving it a clean look. There is also an intriguing LCD panel on the front, which I'll go into later.

As you can probably tell from the last picture above, the motherboard mounting position, and therefore the side panel, are flipped from the standard ATX setup.

Depending on the layout of your motherboard, this might mean that the fans are closer to the hot components like the CPU and memory.

The case is very sturdy and well-constructed. All of the edges are rolled and blunt, so it's going to be hard to get any cuts working in here. There are a lot of nice little details of workmanship that I appreciated as well; for instance if a screw needs to be accessed behind a rolled edge, there is a cutout so you could get the screwdriver in easily. These might be little things, but it shows that the company has put some thought into their product.

One of the great features about the CMmedia 282 is that it can be used in either a standard standing position, or laid down on its "side" into a more typical HTPC orientation. The case feet can be relocated easily (each is held in by a screw). The front LCD panel rotates by means of a set of tabs holding it into the front panel. Simply pop the tabs out, rotate the entire LCD/power/port panel, and snap it back in. It's really a nice little option, and very well implemented.

So now that we've gotten a look at the case, let's put some components in it! I installed two systems into this case (the specs are below). The case has plenty of room for hard drives, with a cage capable of holding 5. Each mounting point is protected by rubber grommets, to lessen the noise. Being a full ATX case, it's quite roomy, and I had no trouble fitting my hardware in. I think that this case might even work well with a watercooling setup, for those wanting an ultra-quiet system.

Here are just a few shots of the HTPC components inside the case. Just one note: yes, that PSU is sleeved in electrical tape. We were all young and stupid once. There is a reason that this PSU is doing HTPC duty inside a case with no windows!

I do have several complaints about hardware installation. First of all, this is yet another case that prints the "toolless" claim on the outside of the box. I've griped before about how this is never true, but the CMmedia takes fudging the facts to a whole new level. The case didn't even come with thumbscrews!! I guess what they mean is "no tools needed if you can use your fingernails as screwdrivers". Secondly, the LCD panel was cracked down the middle when it arrived. I'm not sure if this was a result of the mishandling during shipping or not, but it does indicate that this piece may be fragile. CoolerMaster was great about shipping out a replacement unit. Installing the optical drive was a bit of a pain as well. You have to remove the front panel and slide the drive in. In my case, their were some protruding bits of metal that made it very hard to get the drive in or out. I almost had to break out the mallet. That front panel was also a pain in the butt to get back on the right way. It seemed like the tabs holding it to the case were just a bit too short. Finally, my DFI board has a Karajan audio module near the I/O ports on the motherboard. In the CMmedia, this module bumped with the single 120mm exhaust fan on the back. This meant that I had to move that fan to the bottom/side of the case (depending on the configuration). Also, the back fan mount can only accept 120mm fans, so I didn't have the option of swapping it with something smaller. Another thing I noticed later while using the case is that there is a door which hides the optical drive. Well whenever I tried to close the drive, it got stuck on this door and I had to jiggle it loose.

It seemed like there were a lot of little annoyances, especially considering what I've come to expect from CoolerMaster. Regardless, all the parts made it where they belonged and it was time for some tests.

Thermal Testing Setup and Results
Temperature testing:

• Motherboard: DFI LanParty NF4-D
• Processor: AMD 3500+, stock speed
• Cooling: Thermaltake TM2 AG
• Memory: 1GB Corsair XMS DDR
• Video: Gigabyte 7600GT (passive cooling)
• Drives: 200GB Maxtor SATA, Lite-On DVD-RW SATA
• Other: Northbridge also has a passive cooler (Zalman ZM-NBF47)

Temperature measurements were made using the onboard thermal sensor, as reported by MotherboardMonitor 5. For idle measurements, the system was left alone for 1 hour. For load measurements, an instance of the Prime95 torture test was run for 1 hour. For comparison, I also took measurements from my current case, an Antec SLK2650BQE with a 90mm intake and a 120mm exhaust. I should note that because of the fan issue mentioned above, the CMmedia was in the "HTPC" orientation

The CMmedia was a few degrees warmer than the Antec in idle mode, but a few cooler under load. This is a little surprising, since the Antec has an extra fan. It might be worth noting that in this orientation and with this hardware, the CMmedia has three vents (one of which has the fan) right near the CPU and memory. This might allow the hardware to stay a bit cooler. Regardless, I think it's clear that this case has what it takes to keep the components running, even in a cramped entertainment center.

HTPC hardware and testing:

• Motherboard: ASRock K7S8X
• Processor: AMD Palomino 1800+, stock speed
• Cooling: Stock
• Memory: 768 MB random DDR sticks
• Video: ATI 9200SE
• Drives: 200GB Seagate IDE, Sony DVD drive

To test out the case's HTPC capabilities, I installed my utilitarian but functional hardware into the case, wiped the drive, and loaded it with a fresh copy of Windows and my media files. Finally I installed the software that came with the computer, two apps called iMedian and iMon. As far as I can tell, iMon is the remote control software, and iMedia is the actual HTPC app that you use to access your media files. That reminds me, I haven't shown you the remote yet! It's pretty no-frills, and a bit cheap-looking. Quite a few buttons, but not exactly the most ergonomic design I've seen. It seems to get the job done, although it's very picky about having line-of sight on the sensor (near the LCD panel).

Populating the iMedian database with media files is a breeze. When you run the program for the first time, it asks you what folders have videos, pictures, and music, and automatically creates the databases for each. This actually took less time than I thought, maybe 5-10 minutes for my audio library with about 6000 tracks (and much less time for the smaller video and picture libraries). Once the database population is done, you're ready to start using the system.

The software is pretty intuitive, with decent graphics, and ran pretty stable for me. I have to say that I didn't expect much, considering this is software being produced by a hardware company. iMedian definitely exceeded my expectations. The remote has dedicated buttons for "My Movie", "My Music", etc, so navigation is quick. There are a few shortcomings to the software that I'll mention. First of all, it needs one more edit to clean up some of the English. There isn't anything that's impossible to understand, but it just isn't perfect, and it makes the product seem slightly less professional. The organization of the files is pretty much left as-is; however you have it stored on your drive is how you will access it in iMedian. This is OK for people who keep all of their media files nicely cataloged, but I am not one of those people. As far as I could tell, there was no way to search for a file, for instance by album, song, or artist name. You have to manually click through to find the file you want to play. On the whole, however, it's a functional system. Just a few shots of the iMedian software and we can wrap this review up.

The LCD panel on the front of the case is nice as well. When the computer is off, this shows the clock. When the computer is on, the panel can show a news headline scroll, system information, or an equalizer. It's easy to read from across the room. When running, the system is a bit on the loud side for me. The optical drive is most noticeable (it could really use some dampening), followed by the CPU cooler. Since my HTPC uses the stock cooler, I'm sure some noise reductions could be made in that area.

Conclusions
All in all, the CMMedia 282 is a well-rounded HTPC chassis. The larger ATX form factor allows for the installation of more components, as well as opens the door to more exotic cooling systems. The case looks nice and performs well, although there were some minor flaws. I think that when all is said and done, this is a fine case, although the price point is just a bit high. I'd like to see this at $125 or even $100, rather than the $150 or so it retails for.

The Good

• A full ATX HTPC case that looks good
• Very nice thermal performance, even with only one fan
• iMEDIAN software gets the job done

The Not Good

• Both construction and software need some polish
• Price is a little high

In conclusion, I give the Cooler Master CMmedia 282 a score of 7/10, and a HardwareHell Silver Award