- Oct 13, 1999
- 22,377
- 2
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I have been using my Antec Solo case for a while and really like it. However, I wanted to upgrade the video card and none of the powerful ones (such as the GTX 260 Maxcore I choose) would fit inside the Solo. Thus, I spent several hours researching a replacement case. What was looking for in a case was that it needs to be mostly black, have great ventilation and have some "quiet" features. I've decided the new case can be "noisier" than the Antec Solo because now that I'm finished with school, more of my computing time will be of the noise producing variety (gaming, music) and less of the quiet studying variety.
I settled on the LIAN LI Lancool PC-K7B Aluminum/ SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
I got it from Newegg for $75.98 ("Special holiday savings from Lian Li, while supplies last") plus around $22 shipping. Couldn't find it cheaper elsewhere.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
The case is packed in a full color cardboard box with standard styrofoam and plastic bag around the case. This is unlike more expensive cases that have cushier or thicker padding. The cardboard box also had two straps around it.
I picked up the case and thought, "no way this cost Newegg $22 to ship it." It was so light! Probably less than half the weight of the Antec NSK3480 cases I got in the day before.
The Lancool PC-K7B is a smallish tower in that there is no wasted space inside the case. The case is as tall as the motherboard and power supply, and is as deep as a long video card, hard drive and front bezel. The removable motherboard tray is definately wider than a normal ATX board, but is just short of accepting an EATX board.
The Lancool series of cases is Lian Li's foray into using both aluminum and steel in case manufacturing. The exterior is finished in aluminum anodized in black, including the front bezel (which pops off like all other Lian Li cases). The aluminum panels are rather thin, maybe 0.8mm. This is reminiscent of the cheaper Lian Li all-aluminum cases such as the PC-7 series. The chassis itself is made of SECC, which is basically galvanized steel. I'm guessing the thickness is 0.7mm or 0.6mm because my Antec Solo case is 0.8mm and this is definately thinner/lighter.
AIRFLOW:
Airflow is a concern to anyone building a modern gaming rig. The Lancool does not disappoint. There are two 120mm fans for intake and a single 120mm fan for exhaust in a classic bottom-front to top-rear configuration. Besides what might exhaust through the power supply, the expansion slot blanks are all vented and there are vents next to the expansion slots. There are no vents on either side panel, nor top panel.
This may seem unbalanced, but is actually a smart design intended to give positive air pressure inside the case. This means all incoming air must go through the front, which of course has two filters (one per fan). This is the best way to have effective dust filtering.
The rear fan has a grill on the interior made out of stamped aluminum. I plan to remove that ASAP, because it is more restrictive than a wire finger guard. The chassis has a stamped out grill similar in design to those on Antec cases, meaning that they are really good as far as stamped out grills, but I'd rather have a complete opening with wire finger guard similar to other Lian Li cases and some Silverstone cases.
The front bezel is perforated for intake air. While it should be effective, I would have rather it be a more open design, or even side venting like in Antec cases (reduces noise). Once the bezel is off, the front fans can be seen through individual snap-on filters. These fans (plus the rear fan) have both 3 pin and 4 pin plugs. These fans are replaceable, but to do so you must unscrew them from the front after removing bezel and filters, and then remove them from the rear. Behind the fans are the five HDD bays. These bays will have to be removed via four screws from the bottom of the case and four from the front. Then you can remove the fans.
Speaking of the drive bays, these are the most "open" I've ever seen, meaning you'll have plenty of airflow.
FEATURES:
As already mentioned, the motherboard tray is removable. To do so, remove two thumbscrews in the back and slide the tray forward a bit, then tilt it and it comes loose. Not a complete tray including the rear expansion slots, but better than nothing for those who find it difficult to install a motherboard inside a case.
The motherboard tray has two open slots for cables to pass through (similar to Antec 900), plus two wire cable holders on the back.
The three optical drive bays have a toolless feature that might be the simplest as well as the best design I've seen. No twisting a flimsy plastic knob, or sliding a flimsy plastic lever like other toolless designs. This is simply a flexible plastic flap with two pins that go into the screw holes at one end of your drive. I wouldn't ship a computer with drives mounted this way, but it should be good otherwise.
Speaking of drives mounted, the hard drive bays use special screws and grommets mounted on your hard drive, and then your hard drive is slid into place. The grommets should help keep the case from vibrating too badly from HDD activity (worse on lightweight cases with thin panels like this) but they aren't as thick or soft as the excellent white silicone grommets found in recent Antec cases such as the Solo. Drives are mounted from the "rear" of the drive cage (motherboard tray side). There is also a hole for a screw, which would hard-mount the drive, but would be necessary if you ever decide to ship or even transport your system. The reason is that if the case is on its side or turned upside down, your hard drives can fall out. :Q Basically they seem to sit in there from gravity.
For those who use external water coolers like those from Koolance or Zalman, there are two punch-outs just above the rear fan for water tubes. Basic, but serviceable.
The front ports and power/reset buttons are located on the front top of the case, facing upwards just above the optical drives. This is a good configuration for those who keep the computer on the ground. One problem I've noticed for most cases like this is that some of the cables aren't long enough to reach headers on certain motherboards. I guess I'll find out once I put this together.
FINAL IMPRESSIONS:
IMO this is a good $75 case, though it would be merely mediocre at full price. On the plus side it is very compact for being able to hold really large components, has great airflow and the exterior looks great. On the down side, the case has a cheap, flimsy feel to it. Just handling the case made me cringe as I heard various bits of metal buzzing and resonating. All the rear expansion slot blanks buzz, and the motherboard tray does a bit since it is a slide in and isn't held except at the rear. I just hope that the HDD grommets are effective.
PICTURES:
picture of box and instructions
I've never seen a case come packed with such extensive installation instructions.
picture of back of motherboard tray
The slots are for cabling to go through and the wire clips can hold cabling down.
picture of front
I took off one of the fan filters. The pairs of screws on either side of the top fan are half of the screws holding the HDD bay in.
picture of rear
Lots of passive ventilation that's good for a positive air pressure setup. I was tapping the case here and there, and the ventilated expansion slot blanks are what causes almost all of the rattling noises.
picture of optical drive bays
Those plastic tabs are the "toolless" clips. Below is the top of the HDD bay. An extra HDD can fit there, though you would need to drill holes.
picture of rear fan & PSU tray
I plan to remove the fan grill as it doesn't serve much purpose IMO. The PSU tray is vented for the PSU fan.
PLANNED BUILD:
Lian Li Lancool PC-K7B case
BFG ES-800 power supply
some old Benq EIDE DVD burner
MSI P35 Neo2 motherboard
Core 2 Quad Q9450 with some random overclock
Scythe Ninja heatsink with 120mm fan
random 4GB RAM (got way too much to choose from, damn those hot deals)
BFG GTX 260 OC Maxcore (216 cores)
VelociRaptor 300GB
some random data drive or drives (1TB, 1.5TB, whatever)
I was originally thinking of doing two Raptor X in RAID, 8GB RAM and Vista 64, but my scanner (which I use pretty regularly) will not work with Vista.
I don't like the SATA port layout on the motherboard because half of the Southbridge ports will be blocked by the video card, but my other motherboard is an MSI P7N SLI Platinum and CPU overclocking was not anywhere close to the P35 board.
I have all the parts and will probably start building next week, as I will be leaving town in about two hours and won't be back until Sunday night.
picture of parts I have to choose from
11/11/08 EDIT:
PICTORIAL BUILD:
I like testing parts outside of case
Case with PSU installed
Motherboard side, starting to route cabling
Motherboard side, cabling routed
Motherboard installed
HDD with screw and grommet
HDD installed
Great pic of how HDD attaches
It actually holds the HDD more securely than I thought it would, but I still would be VERY careful when moving the system, and I would NEVER ship it this way.
Pretty much all together
Front and one side installed, everything inside hooked up
Here it is!
There's actually going to be one more drive in there, plus a couple temporary drives for data transferring from old machine.
The noise level isn't too terrible. Remember, I'm coming from an Antec Solo with passive cooling, suspended hard drives and undervolted Yate Loon fan. That build was completely inaudible when sitting at my desk with the system underneath the desk. The new build boots with a high pitched but not loud noise (coil whine?) from around the video card, which goes away in a few seconds. After that all I hear is the whoosh of 120mm fans. In fact, I think my 120mm CPU fan is the loudest part of the new system. It is only 3 pin, so the motherboard was unable to control the speed and thus it runs full speed.
I settled on the LIAN LI Lancool PC-K7B Aluminum/ SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
I got it from Newegg for $75.98 ("Special holiday savings from Lian Li, while supplies last") plus around $22 shipping. Couldn't find it cheaper elsewhere.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
The case is packed in a full color cardboard box with standard styrofoam and plastic bag around the case. This is unlike more expensive cases that have cushier or thicker padding. The cardboard box also had two straps around it.
I picked up the case and thought, "no way this cost Newegg $22 to ship it." It was so light! Probably less than half the weight of the Antec NSK3480 cases I got in the day before.
The Lancool PC-K7B is a smallish tower in that there is no wasted space inside the case. The case is as tall as the motherboard and power supply, and is as deep as a long video card, hard drive and front bezel. The removable motherboard tray is definately wider than a normal ATX board, but is just short of accepting an EATX board.
The Lancool series of cases is Lian Li's foray into using both aluminum and steel in case manufacturing. The exterior is finished in aluminum anodized in black, including the front bezel (which pops off like all other Lian Li cases). The aluminum panels are rather thin, maybe 0.8mm. This is reminiscent of the cheaper Lian Li all-aluminum cases such as the PC-7 series. The chassis itself is made of SECC, which is basically galvanized steel. I'm guessing the thickness is 0.7mm or 0.6mm because my Antec Solo case is 0.8mm and this is definately thinner/lighter.
AIRFLOW:
Airflow is a concern to anyone building a modern gaming rig. The Lancool does not disappoint. There are two 120mm fans for intake and a single 120mm fan for exhaust in a classic bottom-front to top-rear configuration. Besides what might exhaust through the power supply, the expansion slot blanks are all vented and there are vents next to the expansion slots. There are no vents on either side panel, nor top panel.
This may seem unbalanced, but is actually a smart design intended to give positive air pressure inside the case. This means all incoming air must go through the front, which of course has two filters (one per fan). This is the best way to have effective dust filtering.
The rear fan has a grill on the interior made out of stamped aluminum. I plan to remove that ASAP, because it is more restrictive than a wire finger guard. The chassis has a stamped out grill similar in design to those on Antec cases, meaning that they are really good as far as stamped out grills, but I'd rather have a complete opening with wire finger guard similar to other Lian Li cases and some Silverstone cases.
The front bezel is perforated for intake air. While it should be effective, I would have rather it be a more open design, or even side venting like in Antec cases (reduces noise). Once the bezel is off, the front fans can be seen through individual snap-on filters. These fans (plus the rear fan) have both 3 pin and 4 pin plugs. These fans are replaceable, but to do so you must unscrew them from the front after removing bezel and filters, and then remove them from the rear. Behind the fans are the five HDD bays. These bays will have to be removed via four screws from the bottom of the case and four from the front. Then you can remove the fans.
Speaking of the drive bays, these are the most "open" I've ever seen, meaning you'll have plenty of airflow.
FEATURES:
As already mentioned, the motherboard tray is removable. To do so, remove two thumbscrews in the back and slide the tray forward a bit, then tilt it and it comes loose. Not a complete tray including the rear expansion slots, but better than nothing for those who find it difficult to install a motherboard inside a case.
The motherboard tray has two open slots for cables to pass through (similar to Antec 900), plus two wire cable holders on the back.
The three optical drive bays have a toolless feature that might be the simplest as well as the best design I've seen. No twisting a flimsy plastic knob, or sliding a flimsy plastic lever like other toolless designs. This is simply a flexible plastic flap with two pins that go into the screw holes at one end of your drive. I wouldn't ship a computer with drives mounted this way, but it should be good otherwise.
Speaking of drives mounted, the hard drive bays use special screws and grommets mounted on your hard drive, and then your hard drive is slid into place. The grommets should help keep the case from vibrating too badly from HDD activity (worse on lightweight cases with thin panels like this) but they aren't as thick or soft as the excellent white silicone grommets found in recent Antec cases such as the Solo. Drives are mounted from the "rear" of the drive cage (motherboard tray side). There is also a hole for a screw, which would hard-mount the drive, but would be necessary if you ever decide to ship or even transport your system. The reason is that if the case is on its side or turned upside down, your hard drives can fall out. :Q Basically they seem to sit in there from gravity.
For those who use external water coolers like those from Koolance or Zalman, there are two punch-outs just above the rear fan for water tubes. Basic, but serviceable.
The front ports and power/reset buttons are located on the front top of the case, facing upwards just above the optical drives. This is a good configuration for those who keep the computer on the ground. One problem I've noticed for most cases like this is that some of the cables aren't long enough to reach headers on certain motherboards. I guess I'll find out once I put this together.
FINAL IMPRESSIONS:
IMO this is a good $75 case, though it would be merely mediocre at full price. On the plus side it is very compact for being able to hold really large components, has great airflow and the exterior looks great. On the down side, the case has a cheap, flimsy feel to it. Just handling the case made me cringe as I heard various bits of metal buzzing and resonating. All the rear expansion slot blanks buzz, and the motherboard tray does a bit since it is a slide in and isn't held except at the rear. I just hope that the HDD grommets are effective.
PICTURES:
picture of box and instructions
I've never seen a case come packed with such extensive installation instructions.
picture of back of motherboard tray
The slots are for cabling to go through and the wire clips can hold cabling down.
picture of front
I took off one of the fan filters. The pairs of screws on either side of the top fan are half of the screws holding the HDD bay in.
picture of rear
Lots of passive ventilation that's good for a positive air pressure setup. I was tapping the case here and there, and the ventilated expansion slot blanks are what causes almost all of the rattling noises.
picture of optical drive bays
Those plastic tabs are the "toolless" clips. Below is the top of the HDD bay. An extra HDD can fit there, though you would need to drill holes.
picture of rear fan & PSU tray
I plan to remove the fan grill as it doesn't serve much purpose IMO. The PSU tray is vented for the PSU fan.
PLANNED BUILD:
Lian Li Lancool PC-K7B case
BFG ES-800 power supply
some old Benq EIDE DVD burner
MSI P35 Neo2 motherboard
Core 2 Quad Q9450 with some random overclock
Scythe Ninja heatsink with 120mm fan
random 4GB RAM (got way too much to choose from, damn those hot deals)
BFG GTX 260 OC Maxcore (216 cores)
VelociRaptor 300GB
some random data drive or drives (1TB, 1.5TB, whatever)
I was originally thinking of doing two Raptor X in RAID, 8GB RAM and Vista 64, but my scanner (which I use pretty regularly) will not work with Vista.
I don't like the SATA port layout on the motherboard because half of the Southbridge ports will be blocked by the video card, but my other motherboard is an MSI P7N SLI Platinum and CPU overclocking was not anywhere close to the P35 board.
I have all the parts and will probably start building next week, as I will be leaving town in about two hours and won't be back until Sunday night.
picture of parts I have to choose from
11/11/08 EDIT:
PICTORIAL BUILD:
I like testing parts outside of case
Case with PSU installed
Motherboard side, starting to route cabling
Motherboard side, cabling routed
Motherboard installed
HDD with screw and grommet
HDD installed
Great pic of how HDD attaches
It actually holds the HDD more securely than I thought it would, but I still would be VERY careful when moving the system, and I would NEVER ship it this way.
Pretty much all together
Front and one side installed, everything inside hooked up
Here it is!
There's actually going to be one more drive in there, plus a couple temporary drives for data transferring from old machine.
The noise level isn't too terrible. Remember, I'm coming from an Antec Solo with passive cooling, suspended hard drives and undervolted Yate Loon fan. That build was completely inaudible when sitting at my desk with the system underneath the desk. The new build boots with a high pitched but not loud noise (coil whine?) from around the video card, which goes away in a few seconds. After that all I hear is the whoosh of 120mm fans. In fact, I think my 120mm CPU fan is the loudest part of the new system. It is only 3 pin, so the motherboard was unable to control the speed and thus it runs full speed.
My grandmother, rest her soul, was a student to the end. She had two PhD degrees! Unusual for women at the time (WWII era). Even in her 80s she took classes of interest at the local community college, though her most recent formal degree was from around 1940!
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