Cooler Xtreme : Coolers : Casing : Lian Li PC-31 Aluminium PC Case

Lian Li PC-31 Aluminium PC Case

The guided tour

The PC-31 is only about 370mm tall by 210mm wide (14.5 by 8.25 inches). And yet you can cram six 3.5 inch and two 5.25 inch devices into it, and still have room for a proper full-ATX motherboard.

The reason for this is simple enough - the case is a full 500mm deep (19.75 inches), if you count the sticky-out thumbscrews on the back panel.

Lian Li make three cases with this form factor.

The PC-30 has the same styling as the PC-60 - clean brushed aluminium, no front panel decoration to speak of. The PC-32 is a photo-negative of the PC-31 - it's brushed aluminium with black plastic for the front panel decoration, so wherever the PC-31 is silver, the PC-32 is black, and vice versa.

The PC-31's back panel. The Power Supply Unit (PSU) mounts vertically.

The PC-60 has a face-plate to which you screw the PSU, and then neatly slide it into the case; the PC-31 has the normal screw-it-straight-to-the-panel design.

The location of the PSU means that if you've got a motherboard that puts the CPU under the power supply - which most will - you can't use a really tall CPU cooler. Coolers like Thermaltake's giant Super Orb, for instance, are likely to foul the PSU.

You might not get a nifty PSU mount, but you do get a proper slide-out motherboard tray. Buy cheap steel cases and you generally have to get a pretty big one to get a motherboard tray - but smaller computers, with less room to move, arguably need a tray more than bigger ones.

The PC-31 tray has a total of 22 holes for you to choose from when you're inserting the neat little Lian Li snap-in screw receivers. This means it can accommodate practically any flavour of ATX motherboard.

Most motherboards these days use the Mini-ATX mounting holes, though they may not quite comply with the Mini-ATX form factor - some are a bit on the wide side. These boards can be a tight fit in some cases, especially if you're stacking the system with drives.

But the PC-31's deep design means it can fit fat Mini-ATX boards, full ATX boards, and microATX and flexATX boards as well, should you see no need to bother with more than a few expansion slots.

One corner of a full-ATX board may be shaded just slightly by the back of any hard drive you mount in the bottom bays - of which more in a moment - but I'd be surprised if you could come up with any ATX motherboard that didn't fit easily in the PC-31. Except, notably, for most current Pentium 4 motherboards, which need extra mounting points for the big heat sink on current P4 CPUs. The PC-31 lacks these holes.

The slide-off case sides and the tray are held in place with thumbscrews, so you don't need a screwdriver.

The inside view, with drive bays a-go-go.

At the bottom are three internal 3.5 inch bays. Like the PC-60, the PC-31's front fans blow cooling air right over these bays. Above them are three more 3.5s, in the normal drive-cage location. Two of those latter three bays have a front panel cut-out. At the top, there are two 5.25 inch bays, both with cut-outs.

The middle drive mount cage can easily be pulled out of the front of the case, as with the PC-60, and all of the bays have the same sharply bent sheet aluminium covers, not the click-in rattling plastic things that come with most cases.

Oh, and needless to say, there are none of those ghastly stamped metal inserts lurking behind the front bay covers, waiting for you to use roughly equal amounts of force and profanity to wiggle them free.

Another view of the lower bays and front fans. The little circuit board above and to the left of the fans is the speed control; you can set the fan speed using a switch hidden behind the front panel.

The first setting's about 40% power, for longer fan life and very little noise. Good if you're not packing your PC with drives. The middle, default, setting's about two-thirds power, and still quite quiet. The top, full power setting has the fans making as much noise as two 80mm fans can be expected to, and it's the only choice for the dedicated overclocker.

To get at the fan control switch, you just pop off the front panel...

...which is held on by some lovely zero-rattle plastic clips, better than the simple latch-clips used on the PC-60. Again, no tools are needed.

Most cases with decorative plastic on the front have the plastic held in place with squished-through melted-over pegs, or moulded clips. The PC-31 uses lots of screws, and all of the screws that would grind on the aluminium panel have a plastic washer to stop that from happening.

Here's the real front of the case...

Home

News

Coolers

Lian Li PC-31 Aluminium PC Case

The guided tour

The PC-31 is only about 370mm tall by 210mm wide (14.5 by 8.25 inches). And yet you can cram six 3.5 inch and two 5.25 inch devices into it, and still have room for a proper full-ATX motherboard.

The reason for this is simple enough - the case is a full 500mm deep (19.75 inches), if you count the sticky-out thumbscrews on the back panel.

Lian Li make three cases with this form factor.

The PC-30 has the same styling as the PC-60 - clean brushed aluminium, no front panel decoration to speak of. The PC-32 is a photo-negative of the PC-31 - it's brushed aluminium with black plastic for the front panel decoration, so wherever the PC-31 is silver, the PC-32 is black, and vice versa.

The PC-31's back panel. The Power Supply Unit (PSU) mounts vertically.

The PC-60 has a face-plate to which you screw the PSU, and then neatly slide it into the case; the PC-31 has the normal screw-it-straight-to-the-panel design.

The location of the PSU means that if you've got a motherboard that puts the CPU under the power supply - which most will - you can't use a really tall CPU cooler. Coolers like Thermaltake's giant Super Orb, for instance, are likely to foul the PSU.

You might not get a nifty PSU mount, but you do get a proper slide-out motherboard tray. Buy cheap steel cases and you generally have to get a pretty big one to get a motherboard tray - but smaller computers, with less room to move, arguably need a tray more than bigger ones.

The PC-31 tray has a total of 22 holes for you to choose from when you're inserting the neat little Lian Li snap-in screw receivers. This means it can accommodate practically any flavour of ATX motherboard.

Most motherboards these days use the Mini-ATX mounting holes, though they may not quite comply with the Mini-ATX form factor - some are a bit on the wide side. These boards can be a tight fit in some cases, especially if you're stacking the system with drives.

But the PC-31's deep design means it can fit fat Mini-ATX boards, full ATX boards, and microATX and flexATX boards as well, should you see no need to bother with more than a few expansion slots.

The slide-off case sides and the tray are held in place with thumbscrews, so you don't need a screwdriver.

The inside view, with drive bays a-go-go.

The middle drive mount cage can easily be pulled out of the front of the case, as with the PC-60, and all of the bays have the same sharply bent sheet aluminium covers, not the click-in rattling plastic things that come with most cases.

Oh, and needless to say, there are none of those ghastly stamped metal inserts lurking behind the front bay covers, waiting for you to use roughly equal amounts of force and profanity to wiggle them free.

Another view of the lower bays and front fans. The little circuit board above and to the left of the fans is the speed control; you can set the fan speed using a switch hidden behind the front panel.

To get at the fan control switch, you just pop off the front panel...

...which is held on by some lovely zero-rattle plastic clips, better than the simple latch-clips used on the PC-60. Again, no tools are needed.

Most cases with decorative plastic on the front have the plastic held in place with squished-through melted-over pegs, or moulded clips. The PC-31 uses lots of screws, and all of the screws that would grind on the aluminium panel have a plastic washer to stop that from happening.

Here's the real front of the case...