Building With The In Win Mana 136
With a structural drive cage that runs from the floor to the optical bays, In Win’s Mana 136 limits maximum card length to 11.5”. There’s still enough room to hold our slightly-oversized motherboard, however.
A USB 2.0 double-row connector feeds only a single port, while the two USB 3.0 ports get the now-standard 19-pin connector. In Win supports both AC'97 and HD Audio from separate connectors on a single lead, similarly providing separate power LED connections on two-pin (standard) and three-pin (Asus) connectors.
Standoffs are pressed-into the Mana 136 motherboard tray, reducing the size of the hardware installation kit. A slot cover is included however, which might appear a little strange until we look at the back panel.
A single piece of sheet metal is intended to hold all cards in place, though each slot also supports a traditional mounting screw. Only one mounting screw is included, though, since all but one of the installed slot covers is a knock-out (the hallmark of less-expensive cases). The chassis doesn’t even include mounting screws, since drive screws of the same size have specially-shaped heads for use with keyhole-style installation slots.
Tabs at the end of those slots grab one screw of each drive. Since the casing of a 3.5” hard drive provides half the structure of the Mana 136’s hard drive mounting system, 2.5” drives are excluded from those bays. Up to two SSDs are instead screwed into eight holes of the bottom panel.
With no top hole to run our eight-pin ATX/EPS 12 V power cable and no space above the motherboard to even place a hole, we ran the CPU power cable around the motherboard’s perimeter. We were also forced to track down a straight SATA data cable for the SSD, since our motherboard only includes right-angle cables.
The quality of In Win’s Mana 136 is found in its sturdy plastic face panel and textured white paint. Blue LED backlighting adds even more flair to this stylish case.