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The Innards

Despite having a familiar SFF shape, the approach that Kloss has taken internally with the KL-I915A is almost as unique as FIC's Condor. Instead of going with the drive tray approach like the majority of SFF boxes, Kloss does not have their mainboard lie on the bottom of the housing. Instead, the inside of the box is dual layered and is split between the mainboard level and the drive level. The only components that are up on the top are the processor and memory and there are no tricks in accessing either component. In fact, the top level looks incredibly clean and there is very little impeding airflow.

The heatsink fan unit is a hybrid heatsink/heatpipe solution. The top of the heatsink fan mounts to a cup on and draws in air directly from the outside through the vent on the top of the case. Previous tests with a case that uses a similar system has shown a significant decrease in processor temperature. Both the north and south bridge on the 915 are passively cooled.

Cabling on the board is extremely clean and is simply in a class of its own. In the middle of the board, there is but two wires, one for the processor and one for the fan at the back. Take a good look at the surface of the board, the ATX power cable has not been removed for aesthetic purposes, it is there. It cannot be seen from this angle because Kloss has inversed the ATX power connector and it sits into the underside of the board instead of the top.

With heat being a big concern in SFF (especially with toasty Prescotts), this is one of those design choices that are simple in hindsight, but is brilliant in implementation. The power supply unit is a longer unit like the ones found in Shuttles and in the KL-I915A it is a 250W model from Enhance that is included.

SATA, IDE, floppy, USB and the connector for the front panel are all located at the very edge of the board. Instead of having the drive connectors point upwards, every connector on the Kloss points towards the side of the case and folds neatly down into the bottom level. There are a total of three drive bays and the power supply on the bottom level with the PSU occupying the right side, the internal 3.5" drive bay in the back, an external 3.5" and an external 5.25" drive bay accessible through the front. The rear drive bay is perpendicular to the external drive bays and the installation method is clever as will be seen in the following section.