At 12:32 AM 8/19/99 -0400, Glen wrote: I believe the technical term for this would be crapitalism. Actually no, the costs aren't all that much different. At the volumes these things are produced the biggest factor on costs are (in order) labor, distribution, packaging, goods. The "margin" is a bit better on the fan than it is on the case but there is more competition on cases so they take less margin. The bottom line is it costs $20 to get _anything_ substantial People who try to sell good fans have to charge $35 - $40 for them. You and I might say, "Gee, that's a damn nice fan, here's your $35." but 90% of the people walk in and say "Hey man! Why are you tryin to rip me off with this fan price, I can buy a whole case including a fan for that price!" To which your only response, "Go buy it then and get out of my shop!" Guess what. You won't sell enough to stay in business. Its called crapitalism. So you have to buy them mail order and its a lot more difficult since you can't look at them up close. The weird thing is that sometimes good stuff comes through the pipe. Fry's had an $18/case deal that turned out to have a really nice PSU and case inside. Didn't last though :-(. --Chuck