Silent Lian Li PC-A04

[burgerkong]

A few quick pictures of my new system, will take better ones soon:

As you can see the Ninja 3 JUST fits under the sidepanel...

The Aux. power connector is located in a poor position, cannot use any fans thicker than 25mm.

The filters actually work, I was expecting them to do nothing because it's pretty much just screen door mesh.

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2213269

Specs:

-Intel 2500K @ 4.2Ghz
-16GB Corsair vengeance DDR3-1600
-OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD
-Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z Gen. 3
-Scythe Ninja 3 (hate the stupid tramp stamp tribal flame, will try to strip it)
-Corsair HX650W PSU
-Lian Li PC-A04
-Pioneer DVR-219
-Windows 7 Professional
-Dell U2412MB Ultrasharp IPS Rev. A02
-No graphics card yet (Intel HD3000), thinking of a 7xxx

Currently at 4.2Ghz, mild OC using the Asus CPU Level Up in BIOS, running at 40C on all four cores with fans at 500rpm (inaudible), full 100% load using Prime95 is around 65C. The Ninja is passive right now, probably won't feel the need to add a fan to it anytime soon. I will be changing out the top fan to a ball bearing or a Scythe Gentle Typhoon soon however, the sleeve bearing is driving me nuts with the whirring. Cable organization is a terrible in the case, the space in between the sidepanel and the mobo tray is too narrow for the ATX cable, couldn't even hide that. Thinking of swapping fans so the cables aren't tucked in yet. I cut down one of the SATA power cables and modified the length to make it fit better in the 5.25" bay area, have provisions for my Blu-Ray burner, as well as a 3.5" data drive.

Did I mention the SSD is FAST? Like holy crap fast. Before installing any programs (standard Windows installation), boot up was around 14 seconds (no optimization), currently it's at around 22 seconds, with 77 processes. Not too bad at all.

I wished I could get rid of the BIOS alarm at the beginning of each boot, I have the top fan plugged into the chassis connector instead of the CPU since the BIOS fan controller won't let me reduce my speeds below 1000 RPM.

Brendan

 

[cxd9615gb]

Not really silent as it still has moving parts.

I've currently got a quite similar setup, in terms of config at least. Whisper quiet as I imagine your PC is.

My CPU is a i3 2100T though, with a lapped TRUE strapped to it without a fan.

Stock fans pulling air into the case at 5v each and the exhaust fan is another stock fan at 5v. Using LinX my CPU loads at 40c. The PC is just used for net, IRC and sometimes 1080p video watching so integrated GPU is fine for me too.

Antec High Power Gamer 620W for PSU, bit overkill now though.

Nice build!

And my first post. Eep.

 

[burgerkong]

Bah I guess, going to omit the front fans and leave the top one in place, should cut down on alot of noise.

Thanks!

 

[AP2]

could the rear panel be flipped around? power supply on top?

 

[xDezor]

I like the tape.

All in all it looks good. Very clean build.

 

[burgerkong]

Nope, backpanel can't be flipped. Realized I haven't updated this in a while, here are some more pictures:

Ugh, 3 months of use

Simple mod for those pesky bright LEDs that leak light out of all the cracks in the case, some heatshrink covering the plastic light tubes:

32GB of ram!

Had to strip one of the Vengeance sticks of its heatspreader in order to fit underneath the massive Ninja (an easy task really)

Installed some vent filters behind all the standard filters

Another clearance picture

Finally installed one of two Lian Li C-02 bay covers (will install the other one when my blu-ray drive gets here), took a bit of adjustment for a satisfactory fit, still not pleased with it but that'd require modding and slight shaving of the bracket.

Brendan

 

[burgerkong]

Ingenious if I may say so, 30# test cable (believe it or not, temps did go down as the weight of the cooler was pulling the sink away from the cores on top):

Brendan

 

[ythe1300]

I do have to say it's kind of crazy that you would have to put extra support in for the weight of that cooler. Do you think that a different type of back plate could help?

From a counter point, I be it takes a good bit of stress off of the motherboard.

It looks good though you should be proud of it.

 

[xDezor]

I like your LED heatshrink idea. Brilliant. I'm gonna steal that idea for my PC-60.

 

[burgerkong]

Last upgrade for a while, the second bay cover.

Brendan

 

[burgerkong]

And then there were two...

Went to the NCIX warehouse sale and got a couple of things (can't believe no one picked these up, brand new unopened packages and over 50% off):

Brendan

 

[xDezor]

So how are you liking the cases? I assume pretty good, seeing as you bought a second one. Have any regrets? I'm seriously throwing around the idea of replacing my PC-60 with one of these.

 

[burgerkong]

Nope, especially for the price. Sure you COULD get a better case from Lian Li, but something like the PC-V700 (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112366) is almost TRIPLE the price, so absolutely no qualms about purchasing the A04. The side panels could be a little thicker, and maybe integrate better cable management, but I am extremely pleased. Maybe the next step would be to buy some aluminum feet to complete the case.

In short, unbeatable value. Let's not forget, aluminum is still worth more than steel by a fair amount per KG. I've built a system using the A05, and while cable management was better, the front mounted PSU got in the way and IMO the case wasn't as modular as the A04. You couldn't remove the HDD cage for instance without removing the front fan. While that may seem trivial, for people running SSD's, the HDD cage only serves to block airflow.

Brendan

 

[xDezor]

Well, the silver PC-A04 should be here on Monday. It was $89 shipped from newegg using a Lian-Li promocode that is going around. Money was never really an issue, but that's not a bad price at all. I've been waiting 8 years for a replacement case, and I think this might be the one.

Now I just need to finish choosing the rest of the components for my rebuild. I'm actually going to be using a lot of the same parts you are, but I came to my conclusions entirely independently, I swear. lol.

Going to buy Lian-Li case feet, and another DVD bezel. Other random tidbits are a nexus 80 to 120mm fan adapter so I can mount my Corsair H50 in the rear. The fans are eventually all going to be Sythe Gentle typhoon AP-15's, but I'm not sure what speed I want yet. I was thinking 1800rpm and using a fan controller.

The motherboard I was looking at was either an Asus ASUS Maximus V Gene, or the IV like you have, or some ASRock board. The memory I have is Corsair Vengance, like yours, and I need to pick up a modular PSU. Was also thinking of going corsair for this route aswell.

This is paired with a 2600K.

I also have a ninja cooler but I'm not going to be using that.

So excited!

 

[burgerkong]

Haha, I am also thinking of buying a Nexus 80/92mm to 120mm adapter. I am taking off one of the front fans and replacing the other one with a 110CFM San Ace I have in my parts bin, and replacing the top and rear exhaust with Gentle Typhoons as well. Will probably get at least the 1800RPM ones or higher as I'll be running them out of a fan controller.

 

[xDezor]

Great minds think alike! hehe

 

[xDezor]

The case arrived today, it's adorable! I was second guessing my purchase but the second I saw the tiny box I knew I made the right decision. Quality wise it's almost exactly the same as the old Lian-Li's. The only fault I see is near the bottom of the side panels there is a slight discoloration if you look at it from a very specific angle. It's as if the machine that folded over the sheet of aluminum needed more oil. It doesn't bother me though, since no one else can see it and I can't see it most of the time.

Here's a picture showing how small it is:

 

[burgerkong]

Yep, it's a pretty small case, I love the form factor of it, can't go back to mid or full towers anymore!

 

[xDezor]

Which DVD bezel did you buy? There are two versions and I noticed my old one doesn't have a rounded plastic button. I like the looks of yours more. Where did you buy it?

Also, now I'm not so sure about the Lian-Li case feet. I assumed that there would be holes in the case for the rubber feet but it appears that they're just glued on. I think I'll have to drill out some holes for the case feet to work.

 

[burgerkong]

Bought mine from NCIX, but I believe they discontinued the older one years ago, and all the old product should've been flushed out by now. You're looking for the C02, not the C01.

I agree with you with the case feet, will be drilling holes later on as well.

 

[burgerkong]

The Lian Li is an exceedingly hard case to work with as there's no room and I had the genius idea of removing every single obstruction between the front intakes and, well, anything else which means I can't really 'hide' anything per se.

Brendan

 

[radex7]

That is an interesting idea. Did it get noticeably quieter? Did your temperatures change because of this mod?

Nice, clean, and simple case. I like what you did.

 

[burgerkong]

Not particularly, my fans are running at 400 or so RPM, it's the dust that I hate lol, that's why everything is covered in filters.

 

[burgerkong]

Finally we have reached the penultimate update of the silent Lian Li! I got my Arctic Cooling S1 Plus heatsink at last and installed it a few nights ago. I thought their G1 thermal adhesive was going to be hard to work with as after I applied pressure and let go, the VRM sinks slid around, but luckily after curing for a few hours they didn't fall off and I was able to mount the actual VGA sink. First off, it's BIG, but not ginormously so, thus most cases will be able to swallow it. Secondly you really do have to check the heights of any capacitors on the board itself, as it JUST clears the tops of the capacitors on my MSI 7770:

View from the front intakes, relatively unimpeded, straight to the two passive sinks. I may build a duct for the bottom fan to channel air directly to the GPU and out the exhaust, but temps look fine at the moment, we'll see.

I used MSI's Kombustor to stress the GPU for an hour, and as you can see the max temps reported by Afterburner (and Hardware Monitor) was around 75C (it plateaued there and wouldn't go higher, and in fact started to drop).

View from bottom intake.

View from top intake.

I had some braided wire left over from suspending my Ninja and used it to brace the GPU sink as well. Instead of drooping down, it hangs perfectly parallel.

Close!

Brendan

 

[burgerkong]

Just picked up two 80GB Raptors for a measly $15, RAID 0 stripped setup! Never had Raptors before, couldn't justify the cost, so now since they're dirt cheap decided to buy a couple of them. Unfortunately, the performance simply isn't there when compared to my ancient Intel 330 SSD, even in RAID. In addition, there was indeed a high pitch whine (even after suspending them!) and some users on here pointed out stripping the Icepack helps alleviate this issue. You know what? It does! Right now they're pretty quiet, and I have them set to spin down after 5 minutes of inactivity, so no extra noise. I used four loops of thin fabric elastic (black of course) from the sewing section at Wal-Mart per section (think that's a lot of redundancy).

Had to redo all the cables to install the cage I took out unfortunately LOL.

Some pics (also included my first attempt which still had the Icepack installed):