Cooler Xtreme : Coolers
: Casing : Lian Li PC-60 Aluminium ATX Computer Case
Lian Li PC-60 Aluminium ATX Computer
Case
Motherboard mounting
Like a lot of better cases,
the PC-60 has a slide-out motherboard tray. It lets you slide the motherboard,
complete with CPU and cards and RAM, out for servicing.
Unlike a lot of better cases,
the PC-60 also has a connector in the middle of its motherboard hookup cable
bundle, so you can slide the motherboard tray out without having to unplug
all of the fiddly little LED and switch leads.
The motherboard standoffs pop
through square holes in the tray and clip in place. It's possible to squeeze
them in without using pliers, but it's somewhat painful.
The advantage of the clip-through
standoffs, as opposed to the usual threaded hexagonal brass screw-in jobbies,
is that clip-in standoffs can't come loose on the other side when you're
trying to remove a screw, and possibly damage the motherboard as you unwittingly
attempt to unscrew the standoff through the board.
A lot of cases these days have
back panel slot covers that are retained by a bit of bent metal, and work
perfectly well. You pop 'em out with a screwdriver. Cheap cases have die-cut
stamped metal covers, which have to be removed in much the same way as the
similar stamped metal drive bay covers.
After removal, the edges of
the mangled covers may prove useful should your local penitentiary run short
of razor-wire.
The Lian Li has mirror finish
steel slot covers, retained with more thumbscrews. Yummy.
In no more time than it takes
that nice young man Igor to nip down to the village and fetch one a brain,
one can have all of the bits of one's computer with the highest value per
gram installed on the tray.
The case connector cable's two-part
design makes hooking up the LEDs and switches about as simple as it can
be, since you can do it out in the open without fossicking around when you've
already put the motherboard in the case.
Drive time
A couple of ordinary screws
retain the lower 3.5 inch drive cage. Take it out, and you reveal the speaker.
Which, by the way, has some holes to shout through on the bottom of the
case, so it's not completely muffled.
But this bay's a trap. Install
a drive in its bottom bay, and the drive will foul the screwdriver when
you try to put the cage back in the case.
It's easy to access the cage
without removing it, anyway; there's easy screwdriver access to all three
possible mounting screw locations on each side.
These lower bays are the ones
to choose for your hottest drives, since they're right in front of the twin
intake fans. There's also an unusually large gap between the drives, so
the front fans can get a decent breeze going all around them.
The higher 3.5 inch bays have
normal spacing between the drives - in other words, not much. This is not
good for warm-running 7200RPM drives, and is frankly awful for 10,000RPM
speedsters.
The 5.25 inch bays have normal
spacing, too, but they lack the usual shelf supports that make it easy to
slide drives in and out. It's still not exactly tricky to line drives up,
but it's a bit odd given the otherwise excellent quality of the PC-60.
