Enermax Staray Case Review

Inside Staray

The left panel is attached to the chassis using black thumbscrews, but the right panel is attached to the case using regular screws. The interior from Staray isn’t painted black, as you may have already noticed from Figure 6.

Figure 7: Inside Staray.

The motherboard tray has no holes or windows, features found on more expensive units that help routing cables and replacing the CPU cooler back plate without the need of removing the motherboard from the case.

In Figure 8, you can see the rear panel from the case viewed from inside. Staray features a screwless mechanism for holding daughterboards based on a single metallic piece. The slot covers aren’t meshed and you need to literally break them to use the slots.

Figure 8: Rear panel.

Figure 9: Slots.

Depending on the version of Staray you choose (ECA-3170-BL or ECA-3171-BR-AP), the right panel will come or not with another two 120 mm Apollish fans, having the same specs published on the first page. In Figure 10, you can see one of these fans turned on outside the case, where you can see the really unique effect created by its 15 LEDs. On the bottom left corner from this picture you can see the on/off switch for the LEDs, which is the most significant weak point from Staray. When turned on, the fans have their LEDs turned off by default. If you want the LEDs from the side fans to be turned on, you have to open your case and manually press two switches, one for each fan, and then close your case. What a bummer! This doesn’t happen with the front fan, as its switch is already routed to the front panel.

Figure 10: Apollish fan turned on.

Figure 11: Staray with its side fans turned on.

Now let’s take an in-depth look at the disk drive options from the reviewed case.