I'm Getting Another 'New' PC Case .....
Thursday, January 9, 2025 by Jafo | Discussion: Personal Computing
Some people might recall 'back in the day' ...about 10 years ago .... Thermaltake joined forces with BMW Design and came out with the "Thermaltake Level 10" Limited Edition case.
It weighed a ton and was a silly price considering it didn't even come with a PSU ... $1299 AUD.
I ended up with No.221 of the world-wide 500.
Today, I saw on Ebay another for sale second hand [obviously] for $800 AUD - just "up the road" in South Australia .... No.21.
....and it comes with a MoBo and CPU.
Anyone who has had one knows how well they work being made from aluminium plate [not sheet] so are their own heat-sink and the sectioned compartments prevent heat transference as well.
A side effect of their huge weight and size..... no-one's likely to ever pinch it ....
My first one....No.221 ....
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Reply #23 Thursday, February 13, 2025 10:23 PM
Finally got it all as I wanted it...
Probably needs a little more panel beating, but as systems go it's up and running correctly.
6 Physical hard drives with the OS on a seventh - an M.2 - price on those has gone way down compared with my first one back in 2015 .... a tenth of the price.
So this is 021 of 500 ...
Reply #24 Thursday, February 13, 2025 10:31 PM
Finally got it all as I wanted it...
Probably needs a little more panel beating, but as systems go it's up and running correctly.
6 Physical hard drives with the OS on a seventh - an M.2 - price on those has gone way down compared with my first one back in 2015 .... a tenth of the price.
So this is 021 of 500 ...
Sweet! Glad you got it up and running. Now all you have to do is enjoy.
Reply #25 Friday, February 14, 2025 12:55 AM
Finally got it all as I wanted it...
Probably needs a little more panel beating, but as systems go it's up and running correctly.
6 Physical hard drives with the OS on a seventh - an M.2 - price on those has gone way down compared with my first one back in 2015 .... a tenth of the price.
So this is 021 of 500 ...
Congrats, indeed. 
Tiny suggestion...if you have one of those cylindrical pool floats (or the like) lying about, cutting an appropriate length and putting a slit in it can save your hand when you have to pick it up and move it.
Reply #26 Friday, February 14, 2025 7:10 AM
Tiny suggestion...if you have one of those cylindrical pool floats (or the like) lying about, cutting an appropriate length and putting a slit in it can save your hand when you have to pick it up and move it.
A forklift... the empty case weighs 50lb...and now it ain't empty...
Reply #27 Friday, February 14, 2025 7:15 AM
Number 021 is about 90% second hand. The only new bits are the PSU ... A 750watt MSI, the M.2 drive, 7 SATA cables and a PCIe-to-Sata card.... oh, and the CPU fan [Antec].
Everything else is second hand ...
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Reply #21 Tuesday, February 4, 2025 11:42 PM
Update...
Level 10 No. 021 is 'mostly' up and running.
It came complete with a MoBo, CPU and fan and various cables and was pretty 'dirty' ... the previous owner was clearly a smoker.
Yes, in the good old days of smoking on planes the service crews could always find cabin leaks from the nicotine stains [true story].
The MoBo was a Gigabyte GA-Z170X Gaming 7 LGA1151 MotherBoard, and the CPU was Intel i7 7700 3.60Ghz @3.50Ghz LGA1151 CPU, so not too scruffy.
I hunted down 4x16G DDR4 for it and things were going great with the 'old' Antec TruePower 1000w PSU I added....
Until I got around to hooking up a drive...then things went decidedly 'south'.
There's apparently a DO-NOT-EVER-DO rule with Modular PSUs....
NEVER EVER MIX CABLES
You'd kinda assume standardized pin setups on Modulars...but no.
I plugged in a blank SSD and the Sata data cable promptly went into meltdown...smoke everywhere while I yanked out the power lead.
Long story short... the 1000w Antec promptly fucked itself and became a book-end, but not before taking out 4 of the 8 SATA sockets on the MoBo.
So, the PSU has gone to God...along with every "not used" Modular cable [and the burnt Sata].
Not all a disaster as I have a nice new PSU [with all matched cables] and a PCIe to Sata card to replace the 4 dead sockets.
Total expenditure looks like a bit less than a quarter of the original's price [the No.221].
If you ever get a second hand computer simply dump any power leads it might have before you add a new PSU.