The Vintage Lian-Li Thread

[root_user]

This thread is designed for fans of the vintage brushed aluminum Lian-Li chassis owners to share photos of their cases in use or reminisce of the "good old days" of Lian-Li before they moved to the steel/RGB world like the others.

I'll go first.

My main work machine is housed in a Lancool PC-K7 (was originally called the "Lancool Metal Boned PC-K7", odd.) It has an i3-9100 (don't need a high core count CPU for what I do) and 32GB of DDR4 3000. I originally had an RTX 2080 TI but one of the stock fans wore out and now have a GTX 1650 Super as a placeholder.

It's a 12 year old case and the stock fans still work, and they are quiet and move a lot of air. PSU is an EVGA G5 750W. Originally this system had an i7 980X, 24GB DDR3 1600MHz, and a GTX 480. Was a killer system at the time.

I also have 2 PC-A05 boxes that came as OEM hardware with a couple products from System76.


Feel free to drop pics or share your experiences with these cool, slightly vintage cases.

 

[quarlie]

About 10 years ago, I built a Windows Media Center HTPC in a PC-C37B, a low profile Micro-ATX case. It looked pretty sharp on the TV stand. It's no longer in use, but I would love to find another use for the case sometime.

 

[kibbler]

About 10 years ago when I was waist deep in aesthetics I finished a WC build in a red PC-P50. It was very pretty back to front and inside out but vibrated and resonated like crazy and turned me off of full aluminum cases. I used that build for about 6 years then went to a Corsair 750D steelie.

I'll have to remember to upload some photos.

10 years later and I'm back in Lian Li land with an O11 Dynamic.

 

[DaveB]

I had one of them and used it for quite a few builds over a 5-year or so period. Even built a dual Xeon with a Supermicro X7DAL-E ATX dual socket 771 motherboard. For that build I installed a fan adapter in the front bays to get airflow over the dual Xeons. I can't remember what the water cooled one was, but it looks like an old Asus motherboard. The one on the motherboard tray was some kind of Intel build with a giant Cooler Master HS/Fan and an Abit motherboard. There were more, but the photos are likely on an old SSD somewhere.

[/quote]

 

[root_user]

About 10 years ago, I built a Windows Media Center HTPC in a PC-C37B, a low profile Micro-ATX case. It looked pretty sharp on the TV stand. It's no longer in use, but I would love to find another use for the case sometime.

Ah, those are excellent cases. We had one of them as a simple NAS box and always joked about how it looked like a VCR.

 

[root_user]

I had one of them and used it for quite a few builds over a 5-year or so period. Even built a dual Xeon with a Supermicro X7DAL-E ATX dual socket 771 motherboard. For that build I installed a fan adapter in the front bays to get airflow over the dual Xeons. I can't remember what the water cooled one was, but it looks like an old Asus motherboard. The one on the motherboard tray was some kind of Intel build with a giant Cooler Master HS/Fan and an Abit motherboard. There were more, but the photos are likely on an old SSD somewhere.

[/quote]

Great box, I never had one that old. I had a dual-LGA771 box, but it was a prebuilt. I believe it was a Dell Precision 690. I remember the ECC DIMMS ran very hot.

 

[root_user]

About 10 years ago when I was waist deep in aesthetics I finished a WC build in a red PC-P50. It was very pretty back to front and inside out but vibrated and resonated like crazy and turned me off of full aluminum cases. I used that build for about 6 years then went to a Corsair 750D steelie.

I'll have to remember to upload some photos.

10 years later and I'm back in Lian Li land with an O11 Dynamic.

750D is a great case. I never had one but was envious of those that did. I suppose vintage Corsair cases almost deserve their own thread - Corsair had some great stuff before they moved to RGB-everything like Lian-Li. I always liked the Vengeance C70 in green but didn't buy one when it was relevant. Now if I want one I have to fight eBay people to get a second hand one for 300+ dollars.

 

[whoisit]

This is the Lian-Li I had back in 2003 with a Athlon XP 2500+ Barton core, Asus nForce2 mobo, various nVidia videocards (FX5900 and 6800GT are the ones I remember the most in that case/system), and Windows XP with a whopping 2 gigs of PC2700 ram. Played the hell out of Doom3, Quake 4, Half-Life 2, and various Q3 engine based games on that system.

The case looked nice for the time, but looking back now it wasn't great.

Cable management sucked. It's hard to ding the case much for this, as cable management in general wasn't great at that time.
The side panels rattled. Mostly mitigated by adjusting the tabs that held the panels in place.
The single 80mm exhaust fan had an extremely restrictive stamped metal grill.
The motherboard standoffs were an proprietary snap in, instead of the standard screw in type.
The case USB 2.0 connector was terminated in single pin connectors instead of a block. Those were a pain in the ass to deal with.
The fan mounting method was also a push pin thing. It was an easy way to initially mount a fan, but I always though it made removing the fans more difficult than it needed to be, vs. something like a screw.

It did however have a front bezel that was easy to remove, and it had two 80mm front intake fans with filtering for them. And internally it did have the hard drive cage positioned behind the intake fans, with the short side facing the fans so they weren't totally blocked.
It also had a bracket on the back of the case, so that you could always mount a PSU with an intake fan in the correct orientation. That was back when PSUs with intake fans were just starting to appear.

In other words, kind of a mixed bag. Cases have come a long way since then.

 

[Chito]

I have two Lian-Li cases under my desk. One is my old PC in a PCA10B, which is still a great case. Externally, I think it's still the best looking case I've owned. Internally, it's not a great builders case; lots of modern features are missing (grommeted passthroughs, tons of fan openings etc). It's a pretty tool-less design though which is nice. This example held at least 3 generations of computers starting back in the early 2010s (or maybe before?). I really have no use for it now, but am hanging on to it; it might be a fileserver someday.

The other case is a PC-Q25B, in which my TrueNAS system lives. It's a mini-ITX case with a 5 slot integrated SATA backplane/cage, with room for several more drives along the bottom. I've got 6 drives in there, and could easily put one or two more in. It's completely tool-less, and while it was a pain to build in (I spent a lot of time shortening power supply cables, etc.), it's a perfect small server case IMO. I just recently replaced a Nocuta fan that had died (a decade of 24x7 service), and gave it a good cleaning, and as always, was impressed with how easy it was to work on (given the setup I did a decade ago). I did have to quiet some rattling bits with tape/foam originally, but since the original build, it's just been sitting there holding my fileserver.

 

[DaveB]

Great box, I never had one that old. I had a dual-LGA771 box, but it was a prebuilt. I believe it was a Dell Precision 690. I remember the ECC DIMMS ran very hot.

The Supermicro X7DAL-E used FBDIMMs not regular ECC DIMMs. I built probably a half dozen systems with it, since it was ATX no need for huge expensive cases. FBDIMMs were registered and electrically and mechanically different than regular DDR2. Never had any issue with them. The Woodcrest, Clovertown and Harpertown socket 771 Xeons could all be overclocked with a tape mod, covering one or two of the FSB setting pads on the CPU. So a 1066 CPU could be set to 1333 to overclock a 1.6 GHz CPU to 2 GHz or a low powered 2.13 GHz Harpertown CPU to 2.67 GHz. There also was a tape mod to the 1600 FSB, which I used to overclock a 2.67 GHz/1333 FSB Harpertown Xeon to 3.2 GHz/1600. It would boot at 3.2 GHz but wasn't stable, so I set it back to 3 GHz where it was 100% stable. I used the 3.0 GHz X5450/1333 Hapertowns in a dual CPU micro ATX Supermicro X7DCA-L-O motherboard, installed in another Lian Li V351B cube case. The X7DCA-L-O had a different chipset and used regular DDR2 Reg/ECC DIMMs.

 

[root_user]

This is the Lian-Li I had back in 2003 with a Athlon XP 2500+ Barton core, Asus nForce2 mobo, various nVidia videocards (FX5900 and 6800GT are the ones I remember the most in that case/system), and Windows XP with a whopping 2 gigs of PC2700 ram. Played the hell out of Doom3, Quake 4, Half-Life 2, and various Q3 engine based games on that system.

The case looked nice for the time, but looking back now it wasn't great.

Cable management sucked. It's hard to ding the case much for this, as cable management in general wasn't great at that time.
The side panels rattled. Mostly mitigated by adjusting the tabs that held the panels in place.
The single 80mm exhaust fan had an extremely restrictive stamped metal grill.
The motherboard standoffs were an proprietary snap in, instead of the standard screw in type.
The case USB 2.0 connector was terminated in single pin connectors instead of a block. Those were a pain in the ass to deal with.
The fan mounting method was also a push pin thing. It was an easy way to initially mount a fan, but I always though it made removing the fans more difficult than it needed to be, vs. something like a screw.

It did however have a front bezel that was easy to remove, and it had two 80mm front intake fans with filtering for them. And internally it did have the hard drive cage positioned behind the intake fans, with the short side facing the fans so they weren't totally blocked.
It also had a bracket on the back of the case, so that you could always mount a PSU with an intake fan in the correct orientation. That was back when PSUs with intake fans were just starting to appear.

In other words, kind of a mixed bag. Cases have come a long way since then.

Yes - their fan grills went overboard sometimes. My PC-K7 came with a huge, thick grill over the rear case fan to which removing it essentially doubled the airflow. The USB 2.0 sounds horrendous... was that just a "special feature" of that case? I never dealt with that in other systems when it was relevant...

 

[root_user]

Great box, I never had one that old. I had a dual-LGA771 box, but it was a prebuilt. I believe it was a Dell Precision 690. I remember the ECC DIMMS ran very hot.

The Supermicro X7DAL-E used FBDIMMs not regular ECC DIMMs. I built probably a half dozen systems with it, since it was ATX no need for huge expensive cases. FBDIMMs were registered and electrically and mechanically different than regular DDR2. Never had any issue with them. The Woodcrest, Clovertown and Harpertown socket 771 Xeons could all be overclocked with a tape mod, covering one or two of the FSB setting pads on the CPU. So a 1066 CPU could be set to 1333 to overclock a 1.6 GHz CPU to 2 GHz or a low powered 2.13 GHz Harpertown CPU to 2.67 GHz. There also was a tape mod to the 1600 FSB, which I used to overclock a 2.67 GHz/1333 FSB Harpertown Xeon to 3.2 GHz/1600. It would boot at 3.2 GHz but wasn't stable, so I set it back to 3 GHz where it was 100% stable. I used the 3.0 GHz X5450/1333 Hapertowns in a dual CPU micro ATX Supermicro X7DCA-L-O motherboard, installed in another Lian Li V351B cube case. The X7DCA-L-O had a different chipset and used regular DDR2 Reg/ECC DIMMs.

That is a nice machine indeed. I was always particularly fond of the Lian-Li boxes because of their innovative layouts. They had some weird stuff, even my PC-A05 cases are inverted-ATX type which was certainly different at the time, mimicking the BTX layout which unfortunately never saw the light of day in modern hardware. I was quite fond of BTX.

 

[whoisit]

This is the Lian-Li I had back in 2003 with a Athlon XP 2500+ Barton core, Asus nForce2 mobo, various nVidia videocards (FX5900 and 6800GT are the ones I remember the most in that case/system), and Windows XP with a whopping 2 gigs of PC2700 ram. Played the hell out of Doom3, Quake 4, Half-Life 2, and various Q3 engine based games on that system.

The case looked nice for the time, but looking back now it wasn't great.

Cable management sucked. It's hard to ding the case much for this, as cable management in general wasn't great at that time.
The side panels rattled. Mostly mitigated by adjusting the tabs that held the panels in place.
The single 80mm exhaust fan had an extremely restrictive stamped metal grill.
The motherboard standoffs were an proprietary snap in, instead of the standard screw in type.
The case USB 2.0 connector was terminated in single pin connectors instead of a block. Those were a pain in the ass to deal with.
The fan mounting method was also a push pin thing. It was an easy way to initially mount a fan, but I always though it made removing the fans more difficult than it needed to be, vs. something like a screw.

It did however have a front bezel that was easy to remove, and it had two 80mm front intake fans with filtering for them. And internally it did have the hard drive cage positioned behind the intake fans, with the short side facing the fans so they weren't totally blocked.
It also had a bracket on the back of the case, so that you could always mount a PSU with an intake fan in the correct orientation. That was back when PSUs with intake fans were just starting to appear.

In other words, kind of a mixed bag. Cases have come a long way since then.

Yes - their fan grills went overboard sometimes. My PC-K7 came with a huge, thick grill over the rear case fan to which removing it essentially doubled the airflow. The USB 2.0 sounds horrendous... was that just a "special feature" of that case? I never dealt with that in other systems when it was relevant...

I think the USB thing was to give users compatibility if they had a motherboard with non-standard USB header pin outs.

 

[root_user]

Ah, I see. I suppose if I was Lian-Li I would have daisy-chained the standard block for the majority of users who's boards utilized the typical type-2.0 port, and had the individual pins for those that needed them.

A big frustration in my PC-A05 boxes (and a PC-V1000L I worked in once), the power LED header is using a 3-pin, 2-wire type header, which the modern boards (MSI Z390-A PRO) that I put in them don't support. Had to use the HDD LED as the power light since the boards only supported the newer 2-pin 2-wire version.

The MSI boards don't have a speaker header either so I can't enjoy the classic BEEP that so many machines had.

 

[continuum]

the power LED header is using a 3-pin, 2-wire type header,

De-pin the pins from the 3-wire block, move them (or replace the plastic block entirely) to the correct pin holes. Don't bend the plastic too much that locks the pins in the plastic block, just a tiny amount is usually enough.

 

[spiralscratch]

I've owned three Lian-Li cases. First was the classic PC-7 in silver, 2002. Housed a Pentium 4 2.53, an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, and 512 MB upgraded to 1 GB RAM on an Asus P4PE mainboard. I hacked out the internal and rear fan grilles and added a second 80 mm to the rear. I no longer have this one.




Second was a PC-7F in black, 2008. Held a C2D 8400, a GTX 260, and 8 GB RAM on an Asus P5Q-E. Cooling is better with a 140 mm in the front and a 120 mm in the back. Of the three I feel this is the best-looking. It's still in my garage somewhere.




Current (yup) is a PC-9F in black, 2012. i7-3770k, GTX 1070 (originally GTX 670), and 16 GB RAM on an Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe (the CPU doldrums of the 2010s and not running any hugely demanding games means I've gotten a lot of life out of this system). Cooling is again improved with two 120 mm fans up front and another in the rear, with the option for one up top. I removed the original 3.5" HDD rack and replaced it with a smaller one that wouldn't restrict the front fans so much. Build quality felt like it took a bit of a dip relative to the other two.




I'm looking to build a new system once this year's next-gen CPUs and GPUs are released and reviewed. I's been toying with the idea of reusing the PC-9F, possibly putting a 240 mm AIO in the front (maybe even hacking the frame to accept a 280 mm unit). But I think given the power/heat rumors that's a no-go. I'll probably just have to move the Blu-Ray drive (yeah, I still buy movies and CDs) to a USB enclosure. Unfortunately I'm not really seeing any current Lian Li cases that appeal to me.

 

[root_user]

Great selection, coincidentally my 2012 system happened to be a 3770, GTX 660 TI and 32GB of DDR3 in a silver PC-A05FN (not the A05, liked this one better because it wasn't inverted.)

That system worked for years and was just replaced this spring. All of the hardware still worked for the most part (fan in the 660TI died, did the "ziptie-the-80mm-fan" trick and it worked for the most part) and it's going to be commissioned as a local NAS for my work at some point.

The PC-7 is a classic for sure - glad to hear you could get a fan mod in. I always had issues with noise/heat levels with P4 systems. That's why I was so excited in 2007 when the socket 775 Pentium Dual-Core (not Pentium D) were released. (Much more efficient, less heat/noise)

The only modern Lian-Li I've seen that doesn't look completely bad is the 011 Air Mini, has glass windows (meh) but has a little tad of brushed aluminum on the right side (step in the right direction :bigdumbgrin

 

[whoisit]

This thread got me curious, so I looked through some old archives and found this pic of my old Lian Li system. For the time, and the case, that wasn't a terrible wiring job. That old A7N8X was a beast of a motherboard.

Compared to the wiring in a modern case. Disregard the RGB, most of it can be turned off.

 

[root_user]

Nice - what CPU were you using?

Can't tell what the case is... was it a PC-7?

 

[whoisit]

Nice - what CPU were you using?

Can't tell what the case is... was it a PC-7?

That would be the AthlonXP 2500+ system. I don't remember the exact model of the case. From the front/closed up, it looked exactly like the picture I posted earlier.

 

[DaveB]

This thread got me curious, so I looked through some old archives and found this pic of my old Lian Li system. For the time, and the case, that wasn't a terrible wiring job. That old A7N8X was a beast of a motherboard.

Yeah that was a great wiring job back in the day. Better than my first water cooled setup in the old Lian Li.

 

[spiralscratch]

The only modern Lian-Li I've seen that doesn't look completely bad is the 011 Air Mini, has glass windows (meh) but has a little tad of brushed aluminum on the right side (step in the right direction :bigdumbgrin

That's really the only current Lian Li case I've been considering. I like the size and layout, but I'm even less that "meh" about glass panels.

 

[root_user]

The only modern Lian-Li I've seen that doesn't look completely bad is the 011 Air Mini, has glass windows (meh) but has a little tad of brushed aluminum on the right side (step in the right direction :bigdumbgrin

That's really the only current Lian Li case I've been considering. I like the size and layout, but I'm even less that "meh" about glass panels.

Corsair went the same way... they had a lot of cool cases back in the day. I was envious of a friend's 750D and another's Vengeance C70. Now "how many rainbow unicorn fans can I cram in this box" determines the worth of a case. Disappointing :/

I would have bought more Lian-Li's when they were still relevant if I knew they would practically disappear off the face of the earth... or only on eBay for scalper prices. I could probably get 200-300 for my PC-K7 if I wanted to but I like it too much, same for the PC-A05's

 

[DaveB]

Corsair went the same way... they had a lot of cool cases back in the day. I was envious of a friend's 750D and another's Vengeance C70. Now "how many rainbow unicorn fans can I cram in this box" determines the worth of a case. Disappointing :/

I've been using a Corsair 400C for many years now for a bunch of Ryzen and Intel builds, along with several dual Xeon systems. While it has a window, it's easy to work in, has good airflow, and can even fit some eATX server boards. My current i7-12700F Alder Lake system is in it now but here's some of the builds I used it for including an old dual Xeon setup I had in it 6 or 7 years ago.

 

[root_user]

Very nice - glad to see someone getting so much use out of a case.

 

[continuum]

Corsair's current 4000D Airflow and 5000D Airflow are very well regarded.

My Chenbro SR107 has held several versions of my systems for a decade now.

But this is the vintage Lian-Li thread so I would prefer to keep this on topic. Sadly I actually have never owned a Lian-Li.

 

[root_user]

Corsair's current 4000D Airflow and 5000D Airflow are very well regarded.

My Chenbro SR107 has held several versions of my systems for a decade now.

But this is the vintage Lian-Li thread so I would prefer to keep this on topic. Sadly I actually have never owned a Lian-Li.

You missed out... but not that much. I like the concept of the 5000D a lot, but wish they offered a no-window option. I've always been a Lian-Li guy, the only Corsair case I've ever bought new was a Carbide 275Q.

 

[mnpctech]

Speaking of big cases, Lian Li's new $499 MONSTER tower just announced, the V3000


<fun fact>

Before they created the dynamic 011, Lian Li's sales were hurting in mid 2000's. They didn't embrace the DIY liquid cooling market and refused to send case samples to Youtube channel for review. In 2018, Lian Li's CEO retired and handed down the business to his son, Jameson Chen, who re-ignited the brand with the Dyanmic 011 chassis and Lian Li's modular RGB fans. Scroll "PC builds" on Instagram and it's all RGB aquariums that the Dynamic inspired. We're all sick of seeing them, but that revenue has given Lian LI confidence again to cater to niche big tower market. You only see Monster towers offered by manufacturers when the brand is doing well.

 

[Jehos]

Speaking of big cases, Lian Li's new MONSTER tower just announced, the V3000

their dynamic 011 sales have given them the confidence to cater to niche builders again, I love it.

Oh myyyyy.

That is HAWT!

 

[Nevarre]

Heh was reading all the specs of the V3000 and was like whoah that's got everything it must be a $400 case. I was wrong. $500.

 

[Jehos]

Heh was reading all the specs of the V3000 and was like whoah that's got everything it must be a $400 case. I was wrong. $500.

Yeah, but when will you need to buy another case?

 

[Paladin]

Yeah, but when will you need to buy another case?

Once the V3001 comes out.

 

[Nevarre]

Yeah, but when will you need to buy another case?

I dunno, I'd have to run more than 2 systems concurrently apparently. Maybe if I need a case for 3 computers?

 

[_GntlStone_]

Here's a wild Lian Li for $149
Odyssey at Microcenter

Lian Li site : https://lian-li.com/product/odyssey-x/

 

[continuum]

From the spec page, it's massive:

* Supports up to EEB/E-ATX motherboard with 8 expansion slots
⦁ Ample water-cooling mounting space: Support up to 480mm radiator,

 

[A. Reed]

This thread got me curious, so I looked through some old archives and found this pic of my old Lian Li system. For the time, and the case, that wasn't a terrible wiring job. That old A7N8X was a beast of a motherboard.

Oooooh this picture reminds me of the Lian-Li PC6070 I had circa 2003. Gorgeous case, but with terrible airflow and thermals if used to its full capacity.

 

[whoisit]

Oooooh this picture reminds me of the Lian-Li PC6070 I had circa 2003. Gorgeous case, but with terrible airflow and thermals if used to its full capacity.


View attachment 48966View attachment 48965

That closed front panel/door. Looks like it would be an EZ Bake oven for hardware.

 

[A. Reed]

That closed front panel/door. Looks like it would be an EZ Bake oven for hardware.

It was, I kept it 2 weeks and returned it

 

[U-99]

I used a Lian Li for a build of mine and a buddy's build (PC-K7 variants?). They looked great, but were pretty awful cases:

• The thin aluminum gave zero noise dampening, exacerbated by limited fan mounting options.
• It also meant that the cases were less sturdy than others, easily picking up dings and dents.
• Those builds drew more blood than any other I've done, with all the sharp internal edges.

Light to carry, though, which was nice.

 

[root_user]

Speaking of big cases, Lian Li's new $499 MONSTER tower just announced, the V3000


<fun fact>

Before they created the dynamic 011, Lian Li's sales were hurting in mid 2000's. They didn't embrace the DIY liquid cooling market and refused to send case samples to Youtube channel for review. In 2018, Lian Li's CEO retired and handed down the business to his son, Jameson Chen, who re-ignited the brand with the Dyanmic 011 chassis and Lian Li's modular RGB fans. Scroll "PC builds" on Instagram and it's all RGB aquariums that the Dynamic inspired. We're all sick of seeing them, but that revenue has given Lian LI confidence again to cater to niche big tower market. You only see Monster towers offered by manufacturers when the brand is doing well.

Have my eyes on that one, just wish they had a silver brushed aluminum version. I personally am not a huge fan of the tempered glass craze.