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HighSpeed PC Tech Station Review

August 24, 2005
Reviewer: Jedd
Category: Miscellaneous

Are you an avid upgrader? Always buying and installing the latest and greatest hardware? Maybe you are a chronic overclocker and are constantly tinkering with fans and water cooling accessories to keep your hardware nice and cool. Or maybe you are the weekend tech guy and are always building systems for friends and family or even as a prosperous side business. If any of these describe you, then you have probably had a computer running on your desk without a case or wish you had a safe secure place to run a system without a case. Whatever the reason for your need, HighSpeed PC has built the Tech Station just for you. It is an open air, fast-access computer case. Is it worthwhile to go this route? Let's find out...

Company:

HighSpeed PC www.highspeedpc.com

Price:

$80 USD for the small and $140 USD for the large station at HighSpeedPC.com

Ratings

Price:
Install/Setup:
Usability:
Support:
Average Rating:

Pros:

Open air setup gives you a cool system
Fast easy system setup
Easy to swap hardware out

Cons:

Dust can build up faster with the open setup

Getting Started

I have to admit, once I heard about the Tech Station from HighSpeed PC, I couldn't contact them fast enough. With all the hardware we are tinkering with, an open air, fast-access system like this is cadillac for us. We could use ten of them. But getting going with one of these for our test systems has made a huge difference in our productivity and hardware safety.

Setting up a system is fast and easy with the Tech Station. You put your power supply and optical drives on the top shelf, motherboard on the bottom, and harddrive on the rack mounted beneath the top shelf. Plug everything in and you are up and running. No tools. No headaches. I can't count the number of times where I've had to pull a motherboard out of a case for some reason or another. Even with a removable motherboard tray this isn't a fast easy task. But with the Tech Station that takes only as long as it takes you to unplug the drive and power cables.

One concern with having a system set up outside a case is safety for your hardware. Not only safety and stability in setting it up but also in potential ESD or electro static discharge issues. A case obviously gives your hardware a safe place to close it away from bumping or knocking components out of place. But the design of the Tech Station gives your PCI/AGP/PCI-E cards a secure brace for mounting and the sturdy shelf design should leave you with no worries in the safety of your hardware. The other reassuring factor of the design is the non-conductive material it is built with. When you have a motherboard or any hardware just lying on a desk, you have risks of a static discharge ruining components. Unless you are already using non-conducting mats or desktop materials, ESD is a huge concern that you should be aware of whenever you come in contact with computer hardware.

Click on picture to enlarge image

Usability

The first system we set up on the Tech Station took literally no more than 10 minutes to get up and running. It took me much longer to uninstall all the hardware from a desktop case. Connecting cables is easy and fast as you can access the motherboard from any direction. The non-slip surface on the top shelf and the mounting tabs for the motherboard made with a rubber standoff and nylon post make sure that everything sits in place.

With a case, you have a power button of sorts built into it. With an open air system, you usually don't have a power button. HighSpeed PC thoughtfully took this into consideration and provides on/off and reset switches, power and HDD LEDs, and even a system speaker to help you in powering up and detecting activity with your system. No more using a screwdriver or jumper to power up and down the system sitting on your desk or workbench.

The Tech Station is great if you are switching out hardware quite often. It's great for testing and troubleshooting hardware problems. One of our gaming systems was having issues. To help troubleshoot the problem, we loaded the motherboard and all the hardware on the Tech Station. We were swapping out memory, harddrives, power supplies, and video cards to help troubleshoot the problem. This would have been a time consuming task if it were mounted in the case, but on the Tech Station these changes took seconds.

Okay, but what if you don't need to test hardware all the time or troubleshoot systems. Why do you want a Tech Station? If you are a gamer that attends LANs quite often, then you are right, this isn't the case for you. But if you aren't on the go and want to overclock your system either using passive fans or even more active water cooling, this is the case you want. Temperature can be the difference between a stable smooth system and fried hardware. The open air system with the standard fans included and with your GPU and CPU fans, your system will run several degrees cooler right from the first power up. Water cooling is extremely easy to set up with the Tech Station. The easy access nature makes setting up and running hoses and position pumps and radiators simple and fast. Need to tweak that hose it a little or add a new water block, piece of cake.

Specifications and Features

Specifications
The Tech Station Includes:	- Two tier work bench - PCIe/AGP/PCI/ISA card brace with thumb screws - HDD Rails for storage/cooling for two hard drives - Secure rubberized motherboard standoff system - Dual 120mm fans and finger guards - Neoprene mat for non-slip/non-conductive top bench surface - Assembly & usage details - ATX Control Kit: on/off & reset switches power & HDD LED's system speaker
Features
A good home for your hardware:	Based on ATX form factor motherboard specifications providing a full 13x13” of surface area for total accommodation of even the large extended ATX (server) motherboards. The motherboard is perfectly secure in this version 2.0. A high friction rubberized standoff system supports the motherboard 1/4" off the bench surface (accommodates CPU cooler back plates and increases air circulation) and positions the motherboard perfectly on the Tech Station using two Nylon guide posts. AGP/PCI cards are securely locked in place with thumbscrews so the motherboard is safe yet available for hands-on work and easily removed.
Top shelf, load it up:	The upper shelf is for stacking the drives and power supply. Includes a neoprene mat to make the entire shelf a non-slip and non-conductive work surface! There is plenty of real estate here to hold optical, extra hard disks and floppy drives, and the top shelf protects the motherboard below from any possible impact from above.
Hard Drive Storage/Cooling Rail System:	Two standard 3.5" hard drives can be easily inserted, protected and cooled by rails suspended under the top shelf. One end of the HDD Rails open to catch air from the 120mm cooling fan. Slide the HDD's in/out on smooth non-conductive acrylic rails.
No loose AGP/PCI add-in cards!	The AGP/PCI support brace solves the problem of loose motherboard add-in cards, loose cards can damage circuitry. The brace offers universal support for all add-in cards - blocking no cables or connections, and has some lateral flexibility to make adding/removing cards easy. Nylon thumb screws twist into the top of the brace and are positioned at ATX form factor spec locations so the AGP card and six PCI cards can be locked in place. The support brace can also be removed, flipped over and turned to support BTX form factor.
Power the PC On/Off and monitor HDD activity:	Plugging directly onto the motherboard, The ATX Control Kit takes the place of the computer case power and reset switches, power and hard disk drive activity lights, and system warning speaker so that PC hardware can operate totally independent of a standard computer case.
Non-conductive materials:	The Tech Station is made of non-electrically conductive, scratch-resistant, high grade polymers. Metal screws and brackets are not exposed in sensitive areas, the motherboard rests on protective rubber standoffs, the top shelf has a neoprene work mat, and the test bench sits on non-slip thermoplastic rubber feet. No worries of frying your hardware like with a metal bench.
Keep things cool:	Dual 120mm 12v DC fans positioned on the left side forcing air over heat sensitive components including Hard Disk Drive(s) mounted under the top shelf.
Lots of room to work:	The height between shelves is 7” offering adequate room for hands to reach in and change components on the motherboard without having to remove the motherboard completely from the test bench. The bench can hold over 150 lbs!

Adding It All Up

The HighSpeed PC Tech Station is an open air, fast access case. If you are looking for simple upgrade options or if you want to run a cooler system, the Tech Station has obvious benefits for you. For a price about the same as a good case, you get a lot more convenience with a stable safe environment for your hardware. It has definitely found a home in our lab running test systems for some time to come. Now I just have to figure out how to put a handle on it and mount some UV lights to make it glow for the next LAN...

Because of the excellent quality and super-easy usability, we are awarding the HighSpeed PC Tech Station the UpgradAdvisor.com Recommended Upgrade Seal of Approval!!!

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