Let’s start with the two-digit LED readout on the front panel. Do you need it? Absolutely not. It is connected to a PWM fan hub and displays the unit’s duty cycle (power ratio) for values below 100 for full speed and for values below “HH”. Next to that is a turbo button that overrides the PWM input signal only to operate the connected fans at 100° plus a reset button, a key lock, and a red power button. Power, drive activity, and turbo LEDs line the top of the same panel.
Power button It seems Like a switch, but, being a momentary contact, is always in the “off” position when not depressed. The key locks the power and reset buttons, even when the system is on, making it ideal for homes with small children, to prevent them from unplugging or resetting your machine from the front panel. (Some old-school front-panel features are worth saving, not just as conversation pieces.)
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
A hinged panel at the top of the front face hides a non-vintage Type-C USB port, a headset (headphone/microphone combo) jack, and two USB 3.x ports. In keeping with the theme, the USB ports are color-coded black, like USB 2.0. The door is magnetically latched.
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
A look at the back is an easy clue that it is Anything but A model from the 1990s, like many models from that era, areas like the back panel and slot covers shine with a silver sheen of unpainted steel. Other minor features of the Vintage include a bridgeless expansion panel and a notch for 140mm fan mounts.
Vertically oriented PCI Express slots weren’t really a thing yet, though they quickly became one as people looked for more space to break out their onboard connectors. Because motherboard manufacturers added front panel ports faster than case companies, there’s nothing more 1990s than a slot panel full of port breakout plates!
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
A down-mounted power supply was an unusual but real option in the theme period. That said, we can’t recall if anyone has a simple slide-out dust filter that covers the air inlet like the one we pulled from underneath the FLP02.
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
The top and front panels also include a filter mesh, although only the top panel filter can be removed from its panel. (The front panel is mesh On adhesion…bo.) Removing the top panel filter is easy: squeeze its two rear corner tabs toward the center and slide it back. It takes strong, index fingers.
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
The front fans are jammed firmly under the lowest 5.25-inch bay, with no room for the end caps of the 240mm format radiator, although the additional thickness can be accommodated in a gap in the modern power supply shroud.
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
Can FLP02 work with EATX boards? It’s complicated. The case has all the necessary mounting points to accommodate a 13-inch deep motherboard. Using all of these mounts, though, requires removing the inner panel from the 5.25-inch bays. There’s still plenty of room for the SSICB board, though its 10.5-inch depth sacrifices access to two rubber cable-passage holes behind its front edge. If you’re going through all that effort, we can also add compatibility for enthusiast-class 10.6-inch and 10.7-inch motherboards (although they get the same “EATX” label as their ill-fitting 13-inch relatives of the same name).
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
Graphics cards up to 279 mm tall fit directly. Ours didn’t, so we removed the upper 3.5-inch drive tray to increase the space to about 380mm.
only good The only way we can think of to get these drive trays to sit is to mount a huge chunk of machined aluminum into them… you know, an actual 3.5-inch hard drive. Above them, we see the FLP02’s powered PWM hub mounted on the back of its 5.25-inch front-panel bay device, and behind them, we see its adjustable graphics card brace.
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
Moving on, we can see that the upper 5.25-inch drive bay is marked to support extended (280mm and 360mm format) radiators. The mounting kit includes a spacer to restore the functionality of the bay, but its use reduces the compatibility of the radiator to 240 mm.
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
The front bay covers, which are similar to the faces of the 5.25-inch floppy drives, have an active flip lever that operates a side removal latch. While this is a well-executed effort, our biggest logical concern is that we remember being unable to close the latches on our 5.25-inch drives until a floppy disk is inserted. (Authenticity builds nostalgia, no?)
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
While Silverstone says the FLP02 only has three 5.25-inch external bays, and we say four (one of which is filled), that’s because the front-panel bay device (which houses the LED readouts and front ports) can do move. Should you add your own power button, you might as well remove that thing entirely. We think it should stay, though we wish its designer had found some purpose for the giant void at its center.
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
The hidden aspect of the chassis looks anything but modern, as its pair of 2.5-inch drive trays, below the CPU cooler cutout, wouldn’t appear in a desktop until after Y2K. (Earlier builds required a 3.5- to 2.5-inch bay adapter to accommodate what we called, at the time, “laptop drives.”)
(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
A removable cage in front of the power supply bay is designed to house two 3.5-inch hard drives with vibration-damping rubber grommets and shoulder screws. Above that, we can see that each of the two drive trays in the motherboard compartment has two rubber-sleeved mounting pins and a security screw that resides on the back of the motherboard tray.
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(Credit: Thomas Söderström)
