The Cavalier is advertised as a tool-free enclosure and short of actually bolting the motherboard onto the enclosure's motherboard tray, that statement holds true enough. The side panel is secured by thumb screws, which also have Philips head taps in the screw head in case you wrench them to tightly and can't get them to loosen with your bare hands. The other case panel and the provided 350 watt power supply are held in place regular Philips head screws that will need a screwdriver to remove. The power supply isn't held to the enclosure with an adapter plate that we are accustomed to seeing on the high end enthusiast cases, but this shouldn't be an area of concern as the holes are fixed to accept typical ATX power supplies anyway. The small beige tabs that are pictured to the left of the expansion port are locking tabs that will fasten the PCI or AGP card without using a screw. The very top expansion port has the audio pass-through cable which is required if you intend to use the analog Vu meter on the front of the enclosure. As usual, the color coded ATX I/O panel is removable if you use a motherboard that doesn't conform to the PC97 Standards way of thinking.

     From this angle we can see how the clips hold the expansion cards dust cover a little better. There is a slot on the motherboard tray that will hold the bottom of the expansion card to keep it from sliding around while the plastic clip holds the top. This picture also shows us the backside of the pass-through adapter for the Vu meter.

     Here we can see the simple yet elaborate method of tool-free drive installation. Each 5¼ bay has its own locking mechanism to snug down the installed drive. Once the front bezel of the drive is lined up to the leading edge of the faceplate you simply slide a lever rearward and then snap a lock into place to prevent the slide from inadvertently letting go of the installed drive. It really is that quick and easy.

     The 3½" drive bays are treated equally well with the locking system. Though this picture doesn't show it too well, there is a nice gap between the 3½" drive bays frame and the far side chassis structure. This offers a very convenient place to stow extra long power cords and ribbon cables. Since the Cavalier does not have a removable motherboard tray there has been no effort to use any type of quick disconnects on the USB, Firewire, Audio or complex header I/O wires. This leads to the mess of necessity which is present in just about every enclosure. Referring back to that nice gap in the drive bay frame and the case chassis, stowing the extra cable length is a piece of cake.