My ideal case doesn't exist - I have high-level requirements

[Anubis]

MichaelID, you realize you can just change the direction of the fans in the LLv2000/2100 right

i have a V1100 same thing just smaller version, turned the fans around so they both exaust and modded a 120mm into the 5.25 bays no airflow issues

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Anubis
MichaelID, you realize you can just change the direction of the fans in the LLv2000/2100 right

i have a V1100 same thing just smaller version, turned the fans around so they both exaust and modded a 120mm into the 5.25 bays no airflow issues

Thanks for bringing that to my attention; my only issue with that series of cases is the airflow in the upper chamber. A case should have front to back airflow. All my cases (ever) have had this and I work with all sorts of servers (everything from 1U to 7U) and they ALL have front to back airflow.

I'd be very interested in pics of your mod.

 

[Anubis]

turning the rear and side fans around is really a no brainer, just on screw them and make them face the other direction, as for the front fan i just took off the 5.25 covers and mounted a 120mm fan in there ghetto style, blows straingh through doesnt look pretty but it works, i need to order some perferated 5.25 bay covers to clean it up

 

[jdkick]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
LianLi's got lots of great cases that have things wrong with them; some major problems. The V2100PlusII has the BEST HD layout ever...and a completely fuxored main chamber airflow. Rear intake and side exhaust? :laugh: I don't think so. So that's out.

Actually, the V2100B Plus II features front, side and rear 120mm fans. I don't see why you can't have a standard front intake/rear exhaust setup with that case. If you're that fond of the HDD layout, you might want to put it back on your list.

 

[MichaelD]

The V2100B Plus has no front intake fan in the UPPER chamber. The motherboard basically gets no air at all blown over it. You can make the side fan an intake and the rear the exhaust (the smartest way to go, IMO) but that means your CPU will get cooled at that's it.

A front intake fan ala what Anubis did works...but I'm not paying $250+ to have to make that kind of mod (no offense, Anubis...personal choice ) myself. The case should come that way.

The more I look, the more I'm leaning towards what Rubycon has; a Stacker with 5-in-3 SATA hotswap trays.

See pics of "new RC-810 here."

I just wish they showed if it has a vented SIDE PANEL or not! I would just cover the top 80mm (useless) blowhole with clear tape. One 120mm intake and 2 120mm exhausts is pretty much perfect.

Anyone know if it's got a vented side panel (like the old one) or not?

 

[Zepper]

Usually the pix on Newegg are pretty thorough. The 810 is just like the original except it allows for only one PSU - you get two 120mm fans instead of the place to put another PSU. The picture gallery on the 810 info pages shows the side panel and says it's a vent, probably a 120mm fan mount in there too, just like the T01.

.bh.

 

[aigomorla]

ROFL i found the best cooling for this kit.

However its kinda pricey, and its external, but the box should look neat on top of it because its about the simular size.

http://www.externalpccooling.net/


That should allow a B3 Quad OC'd to 3.6ghz goodness.

 

[narzy]

do you have any need for 3.5in bay drives? you just want straight through airflow as many Hd's as possible w/ good cable management, easy enough to sketch up and get custom made for not too much money.

 

[Zepper]

One other suggestion - check out the Ultra m998. You can get a very similar model (actually the OEM that the m998 and the Akasa Eclipse 62 are based on) for under $100. + shipping. If interested, I'll post the link.

.bh.

 

[MichaelD]

Thanks for the hint about the Ultra M998; I found it on TigerDirect.com and on a 3DGameman review. It's not my cup of tea though.

AFA designing my own case goes; I'd have no idea where to start and one-offs are expensive, I'm sure.

I've decided that I'm either going with a Stacker 810RC (trying to find the new version w/the two 120mm exhaust fans WITHOUT the power supply THIS ONE) or a 4U rackmount.

I don't have a rack and they are VERY expensive, even for a 16U unit! But I do have a few $20 Ikea end tables and could just plop it down on top of one.

The only thing this bad boy is missing is front IO ports...but my monitor has two USB2.0 ports so I could live without them.

I could get my 10 HDs and my two opticals AND a floppy in here...it's looking like my best choice at half the price of the above Stacker.

Thanks again to all that have replied. :beer:

 

[Zepper]

Man is that 4U DEEEEP - you could have an echo chamber in there. And you could always take up one of those bays with a ports panel/flash card reader...

Bill

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Man is that 4U DEEEEP - you could have an echo chamber in there. And you could always take up one of those bays with a ports panel/flash card reader...

Bill

Yep, it sure is! :laugh: Honestly, I figure it this way; if I'm going to go the rackmount route, I may as well ensure that the case can take ANYTHING I may do in the future. I.E. a true dual-socket board (8 cores of Xeon goodness, anyone?). Will it be loud? As stock, most probably. With three 120mm fans doing all the intake/exhaust work they are probably 4K RPM fans, easy. :shocked: But I figure I can put 3 Antec Tricools in there and run them on medium...or even high (2.5K rpm) and see what happens.

The biggest problem would be where to put the darn thing. I'd love a 16-24U rack in my room. But at $500 or so dollars, I can't afford it.

 

[MichaelD]

I said "Screw this crap!" I'm so tired of looking and looking....AND looking some more at every full tower ever made.

I bought the 4U rackmount.

I'm putting two of these SATA cages in there.

And two DVD burners. Should make for an interesting project.

Where I'm going to put it is a very good question. The wife's gonna kill me... :shocked:

 

[Fallen Kell]

I actually OWN and use a Lian Li PC-201B which has the same air flow design as the 2000. It works better then you think. My E6600 overclocked to 3.2GHz was only seeing temps of 34C idle, 46C load with a Tuniq Tower in this case on a Gigabyte 680i SLI motherboard. The northbridge was showing 57C on the heatsink/heatpipe (there is no temp sensor built in, so this was from an external).

I now have a EVGA 780i motherboard in there and the BIOS sensor for the northbridge shows 65C after I do a reboot with high load... so that seems to be about correct with what I was seeing on the 680i board since it is the same chip. And my EVGA 8800GT SSC only hits 68C during games (counter strike source, the witcher, oblivion). And the video card fan is the loudest fan in the system. See my sig for what I have in it, but basically I have 1x 150GB Raptor, 4x 500GB Seagates, on a PCI-E RAID controller. The wires are not ideally routed, but they are out of the way of the air flow, so it doesn't really matter.

PIC:

http://home.comcast.net/~fallenkell/case_insides.JPG

 

[MichaelD]

It's nice to see a first-hand, real opinion (as opposed to a Newegg review) on one of the "new aiflow" LianLi's. I came so close to buying one....

Nice job keeping the wires away from the MB, and NICE job with the foam blocks. You must read the SPCR forums.

I'm not looking forward to trying to quiet down the rackmount I bought; but to that end, I also bought 3 of the Antec 3-speed fans (same ones that come in the P182).

What I AM REALLY looking forward to is having ample room to work with. A midtower gets tiny real quick once you start installing components and even full towers can be cramped.

But an extra-deep (25") 4U case...I may just climb inside and install the stuff from within. :laugh:

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Wow, I really like that case. Are the rack tabs in the front removable? This thing would hum pretty nice with three tripple drive cages that each have a fan and the three fans right behind them. Throw six 1900rpm slipstreams in it. Or I coudl pick up another ZM-F3 and give them a go in this thing. Nice find. I'm on a really crappy monitor at work right now and I'll check when I get home but, someone may beat me to it, is that PSU backplate flipable, or if not which direction does it oreint the PSU?

 

[MichaelD]

If you look carefully at the left side of this picture you can see the four screws that appear to hold the front tabs on. The company's page for the case does not have a downloadable user manual, even though I'm not 100% sure they come off, I am 99.99% sure b/c as an option they say "Tower version/wheels available.

I bought three Antec 3-speed fans to replace the stock ones; I'm assuming the stockers are 5K rpm units. We'll see how the airflow is; I will have 8 of the 9 front bays occupied. Even though 6 of those bays will have "a fan" (the SATA HD cages) i'm not sure how much air will actually get thru them.

The case does have side ventilation though (a lot of it, too) so I'm not too worried about airflow. Dust will be another issue, though. :roll: I"ll just do a monthly maintenance vacuuming, that's all.

In this pic the PSU mounting plate does appear to have three screws holding it to the case, so it looks flippable. But that side of the case does NOT have any holes in the PS area so I don't know why I'd want to flip the PS. As stock, the case appears to orient the PS's fan (assuming the PS has a downward-facing 120mm fan) towards the motherboard (inside of the case) which isn't optimal, but we'll see how it goes.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
If you look carefully at the left side of this picture you can see the four screws that appear to hold the front tabs on. The company's page for the case does not have a downloadable user manual, even though I'm not 100% sure they come off, I am 99.99% sure b/c as an option they say "Tower version/wheels available.

I bought three Antec 3-speed fans to replace the stock ones; I'm assuming the stockers are 5K rpm units. We'll see how the airflow is; I will have 8 of the 9 front bays occupied. Even though 6 of those bays will have "a fan" (the SATA HD cages) i'm not sure how much air will actually get thru them.

The case does have side ventilation though (a lot of it, too) so I'm not too worried about airflow. Dust will be another issue, though. :roll: I"ll just do a monthly maintenance vacuuming, that's all.

In this pic the PSU mounting plate does appear to have three screws holding it to the case, so it looks flippable. But that side of the case does NOT have any holes in the PS area so I don't know why I'd want to flip the PS. As stock, the case appears to orient the PS's fan (assuming the PS has a downward-facing 120mm fan) towards the motherboard (inside of the case) which isn't optimal, but we'll see how it goes.

Hrm. Interesting. Thanks for the info, The only computer here with internet is a 15" CRT thats probably as old as some of the kids on here. I do most of my work on a pair of 22" LCDs but, no internet on that computer. I've got dual opty 185s, 16Gb of ram, 2TB of storage in raid5, a pair of SLI'd Quadro's and a direct fiber connection to the main router which gives me access to a 2 million dollar mainframe at speeds I really can't comprehend fully and yet no internet, BAH, the ammount of internet pron this thing could handle is mind boggling!

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12

Hrm. Interesting. Thanks for the info, The only computer here with internet is a 15" CRT thats probably as old as some of the kids on here. I do most of my work on a pair of 22" LCDs but, no internet on that computer. I've got dual opty 185s, 16Gb of ram, 2TB of storage in raid5, a pair of SLI'd Quadro's and a direct fiber connection to the main router which gives me access to a 2 million dollar mainframe at speeds I really can't comprehend fully and yet no internet, BAH, the ammount of internet pron this thing could handle is mind boggling!

:shocked: OMG, that's some setup!!! That's the workstation from hell, man. :evil: There's nothing you can't do on that box...except surf the net, of course. Bahahah! The irony there is delicious. What do you do w/such a setup? Makes my "uber system" look puny.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12

Hrm. Interesting. Thanks for the info, The only computer here with internet is a 15" CRT thats probably as old as some of the kids on here. I do most of my work on a pair of 22" LCDs but, no internet on that computer. I've got dual opty 185s, 16Gb of ram, 2TB of storage in raid5, a pair of SLI'd Quadro's and a direct fiber connection to the main router which gives me access to a 2 million dollar mainframe at speeds I really can't comprehend fully and yet no internet, BAH, the ammount of internet pron this thing could handle is mind boggling!

:shocked: OMG, that's some setup!!! That's the workstation from hell, man. :evil: There's nothing you can't do on that box...except surf the net, of course. Bahahah! The irony there is delicious. What do you do w/such a setup? Makes my "uber system" look puny.

Um, let me just say that I spend all night, in a big faraday cage, about 12 stories underground doing things that a lot of colonels with full codeword clearance have no clue is going on. I have to leave my office and swipe/flash my badge three times to use the jon, the internet is actually easier to get to than the jon as I only have to go into the next room where there is an armed guard monitoring what I type who thinks this post is actually funny because I've forgotten my badge on the desk and not made it to jon more than once.

 

[Ozzy55]

I agree with the problems with the Lian Li V series (for instance you can only mount the bigger heatsinks at the bottom facing down because of the inverted mainboard). I just replaced a V1200 PlusII with the A70B and I am much happier with that. An unexpected benefit was about a 15c decrease in temps for my hard drives with the two fans blowing into the HD cage.

You mentioned a drawback with the mounting of the HDs, but you can use screws to secure them if you want that security. The rubber mounts seem to be keeping my six drives in place just fine though.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Ozzy55
I agree with the problems with the Lian Li V series (for instance you can only mount the bigger heatsinks at the bottom facing down because of the inverted mainboard). I just replaced a V1200 PlusII with the A70B and I am much happier with that. An unexpected benefit was about a 15c decrease in temps for my hard drives with the two fans blowing into the HD cage.

You mentioned a drawback with the mounting of the HDs, but you can use screws to secure them if you want that security. The rubber mounts seem to be keeping my six drives in place just fine though.

I was this close to buying either an A70 or an A71. I really liked the 4-fan setup where the HDs mount. The A70/71 are as close to perfect as it gets for me. But they are pricey (you do get what you pay for, I know that). I was worried about the drive mounting setup though...that kind of pushed me to not get one. I figured I'd try something different for a change, ergo the 4U rackmount. We'll see how it goes.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: Ozzy55
I agree with the problems with the Lian Li V series (for instance you can only mount the bigger heatsinks at the bottom facing down because of the inverted mainboard). I just replaced a V1200 PlusII with the A70B and I am much happier with that. An unexpected benefit was about a 15c decrease in temps for my hard drives with the two fans blowing into the HD cage.

You mentioned a drawback with the mounting of the HDs, but you can use screws to secure them if you want that security. The rubber mounts seem to be keeping my six drives in place just fine though.

I was this close to buying either an A70 or an A71. I really liked the 4-fan setup where the HDs mount. The A70/71 are as close to perfect as it gets for me. But they are pricey (you do get what you pay for, I know that). I was worried about the drive mounting setup though...that kind of pushed me to not get one. I figured I'd try something different for a change, ergo the 4U rackmount. We'll see how it goes.

Please keep us up to date on this case, i'm a little excited.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: Ozzy55
I agree with the problems with the Lian Li V series (for instance you can only mount the bigger heatsinks at the bottom facing down because of the inverted mainboard). I just replaced a V1200 PlusII with the A70B and I am much happier with that. An unexpected benefit was about a 15c decrease in temps for my hard drives with the two fans blowing into the HD cage.

You mentioned a drawback with the mounting of the HDs, but you can use screws to secure them if you want that security. The rubber mounts seem to be keeping my six drives in place just fine though.

I was this close to buying either an A70 or an A71. I really liked the 4-fan setup where the HDs mount. The A70/71 are as close to perfect as it gets for me. But they are pricey (you do get what you pay for, I know that). I was worried about the drive mounting setup though...that kind of pushed me to not get one. I figured I'd try something different for a change, ergo the 4U rackmount. We'll see how it goes.

Please keep us up to date on this case, i'm a little excited.

Will do. :thumbsup: As is typical with them, I'm waiting (4 days now) for Directron to either ship my order or email to say "Out of stock." With the latter also being typical for them. :roll: I could've ordered it from Newegg, but it would've been $58 more, shipped.

If I don't hear from them by noon-ish tomorrow, I'll email them.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: Ozzy55
I agree with the problems with the Lian Li V series (for instance you can only mount the bigger heatsinks at the bottom facing down because of the inverted mainboard). I just replaced a V1200 PlusII with the A70B and I am much happier with that. An unexpected benefit was about a 15c decrease in temps for my hard drives with the two fans blowing into the HD cage.

You mentioned a drawback with the mounting of the HDs, but you can use screws to secure them if you want that security. The rubber mounts seem to be keeping my six drives in place just fine though.

I was this close to buying either an A70 or an A71. I really liked the 4-fan setup where the HDs mount. The A70/71 are as close to perfect as it gets for me. But they are pricey (you do get what you pay for, I know that). I was worried about the drive mounting setup though...that kind of pushed me to not get one. I figured I'd try something different for a change, ergo the 4U rackmount. We'll see how it goes.

Please keep us up to date on this case, i'm a little excited.

Will do. :thumbsup: As is typical with them, I'm waiting (4 days now) for Directron to either ship my order or email to say "Out of stock." With the latter also being typical for them. :roll: I could've ordered it from Newegg, but it would've been $58 more, shipped.

If I don't hear from them by noon-ish tomorrow, I'll email them.

I'll usually pay a little more to get from Newegg but, $58 warrants a decent ammount of patience. $58 more shipped, that means you only paid about $125 plus shipping, nice. thats a lot of case for $125+ shipping.