PC-70 > V2120...a Lian Li Story

[Kinsy]

Over 10 years ago I bought my Lian Li PC-70 and my adventure in watercooling began.

Starting with a pump/res combo that lasted 6 months, a radiator that lasted 5 years, and a CPU block barely more advanced than a block of cooper with an inlet & outlet, it's safe to say things have moved on.

Over the years I've upgraded 6 times, rebuilt the loop with new components, had some scares (copper/alu electrolysis being one!), but never once had any leaks and never lost a single component. To water damage anyway!

Here's how it looks today.

After that long I feel it's time to retire this noisy, ridiculously massive box of aluminium that's travelled around with me...

And replace it with an even bigger one. Silly me, right?

My search began with a friend of mine who has a more modern Lian Li with quiet fans. I knew I wanted another one immediately after looking at some of the more modern cases - they have too much going on! I wanted simple, clean design, preferrably in Midi ATX format, with modern considerations. However even Lian Li's current generation doesn't have the well thought out design of the latest Corsairs, opting for massive drive capacity when the case world has moved to massive radiator support, and drives have moved to the NAS and SAN. So, I had to bite the bullet and look at their full tower range if I wanted to have Lian Li design, and resort to some modification where necessary.

I have gone for the V2120B over the X despite preferring the all black as £60 for a paint job seems steep - plus I have plans for the bare alu left inside. In the meantime the design is going around the current component fit:-

PC
i7 4770k
Asus Maximus Extreme IV Hero
16GB Adata 2133mhz RAM
Gainward GTX770 4GB
2xSamsung 840 SSD RAID-0
2xSeagate 250GB RAID-0
Samsung Blu-Ray DVD-RW

Watercooling
EK Supremacy CSQ
EK GTX680 CSQ
Thermochill 120.3
Laing DDC Ultra
XSPC Bayres
Masterkleer UV Red tubing
Phobya Compression fittings

Case
Nesteq MaxZero Fan Controller
4x Corsair SP120 High Performance 120mm fans (3 on Thermochill, 1 side intake)

Since the Asus board is a red/black combo, this will be my theme for the new build. I'll be adding the following to it:-

PC
(2nd) Gainward GTX770 4GB
Seagate Barracuda 1TB

Watercooling
Black Ice GT Stealth 240mm (front mount)
(2nd) EK GTX680 CSQ
EK FC-Link Parrallel
Primochill 13/10mm Tubing

Case
2x140mm BitFenix Spectre 140mm (front)
2x120mm BitFenix Spectre 120mm (Rear, Side)
120mm Corsair SP120 (plus existing for the 240mm rad)

The rest of the components will be kept and refurbished as necessary.

Wish me luck!

 

[Kinsy]

Case arrived and the strip began!

Side by side and it's a monster!

One of many reasons to replace - marks like this all over the PC-70.

Horrible cable management, random colours everywhere, scratches and cuts in the structure for fittings and pumps over the years!

Testing the 2nd GTX770 before dismantling - pretty much doubled my FPS in BF4 so exactly what I was looking for! Temps were 43 on the watercooled 770 and 85 on the air cooled 770 - just as well it's getting a waterblock too then!

Drained the system from the GPU.

Fitted the Bitfenix fans. Realised I'd bought the 140mm PWM versions by mistake for the front. I'll make use of these later in the build.

The drive cage bracket gets in the way of a 280mm rad, so I was planning on using the 240 Stealth I had lying around, and attach it to one of the 140mm fans using a 140>120mm adapter:-

This does work but then I took out the Thermochill PA 120.3 and realised the fan spacing was all wrong! Plus it was way too deep - this is without any fans, just the Thermochill shroud. There is about 70mm clearance from the top of the case to the motherboard, and the rad + shroud was 80mm deep on it's own. As you can see you've got no chance with it covering the 8pin connector and hitting the motherboard MOSFET heatsinks.

So bit the bullet and ordered:-

XSPC AX360 Rad - it's 40mm thick so with the SP120's the whole package will be 65mm - plenty of clearance and the maximum radiator for the space.

EK Coolstream 280mm Rad
- 55mm deep so able to use all of the space created by removing the drive cage. I will need to drill out the rivets holding the bottom drive cage bracket, but this isn't a big deal as the end of the rivets are accessible from the bottom of the case.
- End tank to fan mount is about 15mm so perfect as needs to be shallow here to stop fouling the bottom of the case.
- Cutout between the inlet/outlet leaves plenty of room for the power & reset button to poke into the case.

So this is as far as I've got!

 

[CharlieRich]

Looks awesome can't wait to see some more

 

[Roady]

Was using my PC-70 until recently too! It had been through a DD Maze4 Athlon XP 1800, air P4 2.4/3.0 and finally an air Q6600!

Amazing to see another one still being used until recently... When I bought mine I didn't use it for a few years so not actually sure when I got it!

I downsized (opposite to you!) and colour changed to White with a Fractal Design Define R4

Pics of mine (with new build for comparison):

Spoiler

 

[Kinsy]

Handles! Remember putting them on the bottom of an old case once to make it 'portable'! Can't remember what it was called but it was the one OcUK used to sell stuffed with noisy 120mm fans!

 

[Kinsy]

I had to get a move on and get the PC powered up again to grab some files off of the SSDs, so didn't take as many pics as I'd like!

EK Coolstream 280mm Rad - perfect fit with very little room to spare! Had to use 4 rubber mounts case > fan and 4 fans > rad as none of the screws I had were long enough. Also picked up a couple of white 140s for the front

XSPC AX360 fits perfectly with 5mm clearance - just enough room for the 8pin cables. I bought a BitFenix extension anyway as it was only just reaching from the PSU.

Plumbing up. Can you see the silly mistake I've made here?

Leak tested at this point. Drip drip drip straight on the SSDs! Was coming from the EK FC-Bridge. Had to drain the system, pull the cards out, reassemble and reconnect. Think I was just nicking an O ring as after doing this the leaks cleared up.

SSDs needed flat end connectors, and the power connectors needed to be end only. So I bought some Bitfenix cables - both were pretty short hence the path across the board!

Ready to power up!

Running!

Soon as I booted I ran Prime/Heaven to load CPU/GPU a bit. FPS was down. Could've sworn I'd read the 2 bottom PCI-E slots were the one to use, plus the FC-Bridge I'm using is the 2-slot spacing. Yep, I've got the wrong bridge! Right one is on it's way along with some other cable extensions. - after that I need to think about a side intake and a Window. Picked up some light tint acrylic for this. I won't be taking a dremel to this one so looking to see where I can get laser or waterjet cutting done near me now.

 

[Tom Newham]

Fantastic looking case isn't it! Had a Lian Li PC7 and loved it....would like a big case like yours....

 

[Uncle_Gravy]

That thing is massive and stunning, Well done mate.

 

[Kinsy]

3-Slot FC-Bridge, LED strips & Red LEDs for the front turned up today, after a late night at work I got cracking. Still definitely a WIP. Waiting for fittings to turn up (EK black along with some EK 45deg adapters) to replace the Phobya gear, along with some more Bitfenix cables - at the moment I can't close up the right side as it's cable city and with the foam lining there's less room back there than you think. Will probably redo the rad > cpu plumbing when it turns up as not too happy with it.

 

[Freddie1980]

Thats pretty impressive! Last year I built a full waterloop in a Lian Li pc-50r case and it suffers from the same drawbacks as yours -poor cable routing holes (not to mention how butchery went on so I could fit the rads but sincenit was 3 years old I was to concerned). This my biggest gripe with Lian Li is that during the the 00's they were a leading luxury brand for cases but its as if they have struggled to move with the times and their designs just feel out dated these days.

 

[Tom Newham]

Looks good. Anything you can do with your GPU cabling going through the bottom panel? If they were hidden that would look spot on

 

[Kinsy]

Looks good. Anything you can do with your GPU cabling going through the bottom panel? If they were hidden that would look spot on

I've got some extensions on the way so they're just temporary. At the moment cable space is restricted at the back so they may have to come in from the bottom.

 

[Kinsy]

1 Year update...

Still going strong. No need to upgrade. Nothing on the horizon worth changing really!

De-lidded my 4770k as the temps were, well, awful under load. Hitting 100deg when running Intel Burn-In test and clocks topping out at 4.5Ghz. Haswell has been pants for clocking.

Changed the Phobya barbs for EK-PSC fittings. MUCH higher quality and nicer to use. Some replumbing and...

Added some PCI-E extensions too - much nicer. Now to finally get the window cut!!!

 

[Yulaw]

Very nice

Any ideas to wrap the inside in the future, would look great with a bit of carbon in there.

 

[Ucof]

Looks good

 

[Helios1234]

Very nice! Got a V1020 myself and love it. The V2120 looks enormous but handy for water cooling as you've demonstrated!

 

[shanestatham]

What temps are you getting now then? TBH you shouldnt have been getting anywhere near 100 degrees....