Let’s start with the two-digit LED readout on the front panel. Do you need it? Of course not. It’s linked to a PWM fan hub and shows the unit’s duty cycle (power proportion) for values below 100% and “HH” for full speed. Next to it are a Turbo button that simply overrides the PWM input signal to make connected fans operate at 100%, plus a Reset button, a key lock, and a red power button. Power, drive activity, and Turbo LEDs are lined up along the top of the same panel.
The power button looks like a switch, but, being momentary-contact, always appears to be in the “off” position when it’s not being depressed. The key locks out the power and reset buttons, even when the system is on, making it ideal for homes with young children, to prevent them from powering off or resetting power to your machine from the front panel. (Some old-school front-panel features are worth saving, not just as conversation pieces.)
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
A hinged panel at the top of the front face conceals the non-vintage Type-C USB port, the headset (headphone/microphone combo) jack, and two USB 3.x ports. The USB ports are color-coded black, as USB 2.0, in keeping with the theme. The door is magnetically latched.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
A look around the back is an easy tip-off that this is anything but a 1990s model, as models of that era glowed with the silvery light of unpainted steel in areas like the back panel and slot covers. Other less-than-vintage features include the bridgeless expansion panel and the incision of 140mm fan mounts.
Vertically oriented PCI Express slots were not really a thing yet, either, though they quickly became one as people sought more space to break out their onboard connectors. As motherboard makers added front-panel ports faster than case companies could accommodate, nothing is more 1990s than a slot panel filled with port-breakout plates!
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
Bottom-mounted power supplies were an uncommon but real option in the theme’s period. That said, we can’t recall if any had such a handy slide-out dust filter covering the air inlet as the one we pulled from under the FLP02.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
The top and front panels also feature filter mesh, though only the top panel’s filter can be removed from its panel. (The front panel’s mesh is glued on…boo.) Removing the top panel’s filter is way easier: squeeze both of its rear corner tabs toward the center and slide it backward. It takes strong, pointy fingers.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
Front fans are jammed tightly beneath the lowest 5.25-inch bay, leaving no room for the end caps of a 240mm-format radiator, even though a gap in the modern power supply shroud would have accommodated the added thickness.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
Can the FLP02 work with EATX boards? It’s complicated. The case has all the necessary mounting points to hold a 13-inch-deep motherboard. Using all those mounts, though, requires removing the inner panel from the 5.25-inch bays. There’s still enough room for an SSI-CEB board, though its 10.5-inch depth sacrifices access to the two rubber cable-passage holes behind its front edge. If you’re going through all that effort, we might as well include compatibility for the enthusiast-class 10.6-inch and 10.7-inch motherboards (even though they get the same “EATX” label as their non-fitting 13-inch kin of the same name).
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
Graphics cards up to 279mm long fit directly. Ours did not, so we removed the upper 3.5-inch drive tray to expand that space to approximately 380mm.
The only good way we can think of to make those drive trays sit square would be to mount a large chunk of machined aluminum in them…you know, an actual 3.5-inch hard drive. Above these, we see the FLP02’s powered PWM hub mounted to the back of its 5.25-inch front-panel bay device, and behind these, we see its adjustable graphics card brace.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
Moving up, we can see that the upper 5.25-inch drive bay is notched to support extended (280mm and 360mm format) radiators. The mounting kit includes a spacer to restore the bay’s functionality, but using it reduces radiator compatibility to 240mm.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
The front bay covers, which resemble the faces of 5.25-inch floppy drives, have a functional flip lever that operates the removal latch on one side. While it’s a nicely executed effort, our greatest logical concern is that we remember being unable to close the latch on our 5.25-inch drives unless a floppy disk was inserted. (Authenticity builds nostalgia, no?)
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
When SilverStone says the FLP02 has only three 5.25-inch external bays, and we say four (one of which is filled), it’s because the front-panel bay device (which houses the LED readout and the front ports) can be moved. Were you to add your own power button, you could even remove the thing entirely. We think it should stay, though we wish its designer had found a purpose for the giant empty space in its center.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
The hidden side of the chassis looks nothing but modern, as its pair of 2.5-inch drive trays, below the CPU-cooler cutout, wouldn’t appear in a desktop until post-Y2K. (Earlier builds required 3.5-to-2.5-inch bay adapters to hold what, back then, we called “laptop drives.”)
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
A removable cage at the front of the power supply bay is designed to hold two 3.5-inch hard drives on vibration-damping rubber grommets and shoulder screws. Above it, we can see that each of the motherboard compartment’s two drive trays has two rubber-sleeved mounting pins and a security screw that sticks through the back of the motherboard tray.
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(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
