Lian Li PC-A17A ..Slight mod!

Mal X

Mal X

Mal X

Soldato
Joined
25 Jun 2009
Posts
7,711
well my Lian arrived this morning :D
but the fans haven't....maybe later or tomorrow.

well, it looks great from the outside; it's got a lovely brushed aluminium finish...... and it looks great on the inside too.

BUT, the front panel stack of removable grilles, attach ONLY to the internal panels, so these panels cant be removed :mad:

but the lower HDD CAGE comes out easily, leaving 2 horizontal panels that i can attach the fans too; so it'll still ventilate very well :D..the stock fans are rubbish...so dump them..enough said!

you have to be very careful working inside it... the Ally is very delicate and marks very easily, it is also way too thin.... the case rattles quite a lot, especially the rear panel PCI spare slots :mad:....... but i can correct all of this.........the internal panels look like about 0.6 mm and the outside panels about 1mm.....not sure........but these are way too thin, i'd have made these in 2mm all over....or even 3mm, because this case is as light as a feather and could easily be 4 times heavier and still be ok.

i would say internally, that it's not as good as my Thermaltake Armour, (the quality isn't as good) but it's a much nicer looking case.

i therefore cant mod it very much, ..... it's not strong enough, i dont even trust removing the side panels, they dont come off easily.....i'll be leaving mine off until i've finished it next July.... i'll just have to be bloody careful wont i !

but these faults i can live with.....because this case redeems itself by the fact that it looks so damned good on the outside
 
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i've installed the 3 case fans, the 4th is for the cooler next year....yes i'm a patient person, i have to be.

the clear Silocone Sealant was a bit messy, but it cleaned up alright with thinnners.......the case is now drying out in the back garden.

the wiring from the fans is hidden on the other side of the case and passes neatly through the far side panel........ this case will run cool, the fans look very impressive in the front....and there's nothing blocking the flow of air, unlike my Thermaltake!

i'm getting used to the case now..... it'll be fine and it does look tremendous :D.....and there's plenty or room around the back to hide all the wiring.

i'll upload some photos tomorrow.

these Xigmatek fans seem pretty good, they're spinning in the back garden and it's not even that breezy! they have white LEDs but they're not very bright, they produce a white ``S``shape..... but i'm not that keen on bright fans anyway so this is ok.

although the internal panels have to remain, there's still plenty of room for a GTX300 next year

there's no point getting the flashy looking OCZ PSU, because you wont see it, i'll get the Corsair instead
 
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zia said:
So the exterior alu isn't 2mm thick all round? do you plan on sound proofing it?


zia
Click to expand...

i dont think there's room for soundproofing, especially on the rear side panel, it's very close to the mobo tray; plus all the wires will all be there too. in any case; most of the noise will escape through the front grill which runs from top to bottom....the side panels are roughly 1mm thk

the main fans will be silent, but the fan on the GPU and the cooler might be noisy, i dont mind; as long as it's not too noisy.

because quite a lot of sound is generated, due to air rushing past metal at close range........so i've left off all the fan guards and mounted the front fans a good 1.5'' back from the front grill, but i cant do much about the CPU fan on the cooler, or the fan on the GTX 300. ..........because on my current rig the loudest noise is generated by the fan on the 8800GT and it's very loud :eek:

it's rattling that annoys me the most, but i think after i've sorted out the rear panel PCI slots it'll be ok.

there's quite a few cables hanging down from the USB ports on the roof, this and all the PSU cables around the back of the mobo means.....no room for soundproofing. ...........never mind

the clear sealant is very strong though, the front two fans are only attached to their base panels along the bottom edge...one side only, and i cant even bend them, it's like Araldite glue :eek:

i'm thinking of spraying the interior rear side panel and the mobo infront of it .............dark blue
 
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http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2116489270105369285MbloBR

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2195855040105369285wIJZBe

these show the fan installations, the Silicone sealant flashes off on the outside very quickly, but takes a very long time to cure right though...they're not totally cure yet and the front fans were installed 2 days ago :eek:
even so, it's a very strong bond...........i cant feel any vibrations at all on the case, it's dead silent...the idea is to not to adhere the fans to the metal, but to float them above with a gap of about 1mm....the rear fan is the same too.......BUT the fans are a bit noisy with the wire fan grills, so im leaving those off.

the clear sealant is a bit of a ******* to use, it leaves greasy smears on the brushed Ally, it took me 3 hours to clean off.:eek: ...you must not handle the case while installing, just install the fan..walk away and wash your hands thoroughly...or you'll get greasy fingerprints everywhere :D

as you can see, the fans sit nicely inside two tunnels, which is what's left after you gut the front end, i didn't have to mod it at all.

this case should ventilate very well and on nowhere near full power, because on half power, it's blasting too much air to the rear panel...it's like a flipping Hurricane inside.

next job is to build a platform for the Samsung SATA, which i will mount on the floor underneath the card, this thing will get blasted by that lower fan ............the PCI slot as discussed ?........no, i dont trust it, way too noisy, it'll rattle like mad. :D.............this SATA mustn't be too high, or i might not have enough room if i decide to fit twin cards

i dont want any cables anywhere near those tunnels either, so cable management is going to be quite interesting.

i'm still toying with the idea of spraying the MOB tray/panel behind it in a royal blue...........i think it needs a touch of colour.

i love playing around with this pc, it's great fun.... lol!
 
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your sir are mad haha,

This is a lot of reading, I think my Lian LI is better build then the Armour. The armour feels quite cheep and plasticy compared to my Lian LI.

I'll see what you end up doing to your case. Should be fun :)
 
domthecondom said:
your sir are mad haha,

This is a lot of reading, I think my Lian LI is better build then the Armour. The armour feels quite cheep and plasticy compared to my Lian LI.

I'll see what you end up doing to your case. Should be fun :)
Click to expand...

thanks mate

yes i am a bit crazy, it's great fun though..... but this pc wont be finished till next year... i cant afford to build it in one go :(

but i can customise the case right now.....the big problem is the brushed Ally, grease sticks to it, you cant wipe it off like glass :D:

yea the Lian is far better looking/ better quality on the outside too, but the Armour is better inside.......

i wanted the silver version of your case too, but i just couldn't afford it...............never mind
 
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EsaT said:
Mass loading panels doesn't need much space.
~2mm bitumen/vinyl mat is all what is needed for removing lot of vibration related noises.
Click to expand...

cheers, but i tell you what really does worry me, it's all the cabling from the roof USBs you can just about see it in the photos :eek:

they are about twice too long and way too bulky, it's going to be very hard to hide all of this, especially with the PSU wires as well...there's so little room to the side panel.

and i've no soddoing idea where these connect to the MOBO.........what a nightmare!

it might look nice with the bottom panel covered with a mirror.........or a piece of highly polished S.S, because the reflection in photoshop looks pretty cool.........it reminds me of the engine bay in one of those ``fast and furious`` Jap cars lol......just a thought!
 
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i've ripped out the front fans and redone it all :eek:......i've moved them towards the MOBO, by about 1.5 inches......the brushed aluminium platforms in front of the fans ( beside the front grill), i've managed to polish up to a mirror shine, bloody hell it took ages by hand.. 5 hours!

it looks awesome at night with the fan lights on, i really like the white LEDs, it has a very chilled out look..... i must take more photos soon.

but i'm not going to polish the rest of it, because you can still see fine scratches in the mirror finish, but this is ok, because the scratches are hidden behind the perforated grill, but on the rest of the case interior; i'd notice this big time and it would drive me flipping crazy. :mad::mad:

chrome plating/ mirror finish...only ever looks good if it's totally scratch free......we used to hate laser cutting shiny Stainless, because it always got scratched and the customer would refuse to pay, so we used to send it off to be polished.
 
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well, i've redone it all again :D:D

the fan grills were creating too much noise :eek: and the air flow was reduced compared to the rear fan (that has no grill), so i ripped it all out and redid it.

christ it took flipping ages to strip all the sealant off ..... it's like chewing gum, it just wont shift..

when you run all the fans, its very cold inside, the air flow is tremendous, it should overclock and run very cool..........it's miles cooler than my Thermaltake (with an open side) and that runs cool too..... i was fooling around inside the case late last night and my hands felt quite cold.

the top fan is in line with the RAM/ CPU and the lower fan the card, the lower fan is only 3 inches away from the card

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2349995440105369285wkenLE

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2627485300105369285pJSQDv
 
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