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Installation

As far as getting board components in, the Kloss is about as easy as it can get with SFFs. With no messy drive cage, the processor and memory is immediately and easily accessible. The Kloss heatsink fan unit installs in the same fashion as the stock Intel heatsink fan unit but due to some of the extruding portions, it may be easier to lock/unlock the push pins with a flat screw driver. The memory banks are parallel to the x16 PCIe slot so there are absolutely no installation issues with the memory while other components are in place. A single screw holds down a metal piece which in turn holds expansion cards in place. We've seen versions of this where the metal piece flips upwards and while this is more slick, it does make installation of cards a little bit more awkward as they have to be angled in instead of being dropped straight down. This is especially an issue with longer cards so while having the metal piece separate is a bit tacky, it makes up for that by ultimately being more user friendly. The placement of the x16 PCIe slot is interesting because the heatsink fan unit faces the inside of the case so thicker fans will not impede the single PCI slot. Unfortunately, dual slot cards will not automatically fit there as there is no place for the extra PCI bracket. Those that want to embark on a bit of adventure with modding the card should be able to cram it into the KL-I915A as there is a bit of space to play around with.

There is a lot of space in front of the main area of the video card

The only other real consideration is the processor heatsink fan unit gets very close to the video card. In the picture, the point of the heatpipe is actually making contact with the capacitor on the 6600GT. Adjusting the card slightly avoids this but there is less than a millimeter of clearance there. On the right edge of the motherboard is another 4 pin header. In another stroke of foresight, Kloss intends this to power video cards so cables do not have to be routed from the bottom level of the case. Included in the packaging is a floppy power connector that goes to a molex/floppy connector combo. Seeing as how this is a 915/PCIe board, it would have probably been better to include a floppy to 6-pin video connector instead.

The capacitor on the 6600GT comes very close to the heatsink/fan unit

Drive installation is fairly unique. While it is not screw less, it does rely on a system of locks to keep the drives in place for the most part. With all the drives, the data and power cables go on and the drive is slid into the case. The external 3.5" drive is simply two screws accessible from the left side of the case. For the optical drive and the internal 3.5" bay, the chassis relies on notches to catch onto exposed screws and mechanisms are provided to then lock the drive down in place. Again this is a clever method of securing the drives but the installation was on the difficult side as it is hard to where the notches are, especially in the case of the hard drive. The provided cables are long but they can be tucked neatly into the drive bays. I still think the FIC Condor has a slight edge with regards to ease of installation but the Kloss does make efficient use of space as well and the lock down mechanisms enable the split level design to work as it does.

Protruding screws slide into the two notches pictured above

Included with the Kloss is Cyberlink's PowerCinema and software for the remote control unit. We've outlined some of our gripes with the PowerCinema application in a review of Powecolor's Theater550 Pro. Although it is an all in one media application that is arguably well suited for something like the Kloss, we found that versatility was sacrificed for simplicity and that the application itself was just too slow. One of the quirks in driver installation that we have noticed on other Azalia motherboards is that the built in install routines never seem to complete properly and a trip to Device Manager is required to get it up and going. It was also disappointing that remote and LAN drivers also had to be installed through device manager and not through a wizard of some sort. While that should not be a problem for the more adept users, convergence to us, means ease of use and not having to deal with install issues.