- Hold enough components including multiple hard drives and optical drives.
- Small enough to not take over a full a rack on my equipment shelving.
- Reasonably nice looking, but will not be visible anyways.
- Small cases are sexy but not worth the headache to me.
- MiniATX format for small size and to fit the Abit AN-M2HD board I chose
Sparse Instructions
The first thing I noticed was that the instruction sheet with the case is exceptionally sparse. It's a single double letter sized sheet, folded in the middle and into that area they put in several language versions of the instructions.
Power Supply Size
The second thing I noticed is that even though it's a MiniATX case, it has a full sized ATX power supply gap in the case back. Checking back, the Lian Li website has an icon that represents this fact, but nonetheless my MiniATX power supply would not fit into the cavernous area for the ATX power supply. On the sparse instructions, there's a bullet point that leads to the PSU area and says "removable PSU tray". Instead of tracking down the aforementioned tray, which is not included by the way, I just swapped to an ATX power supply.
Additional Contents
Tucked into the HD bays overhead and the Optical/Floppy trays are a few boxes with components such as screws, motherboard spacers, and a nut driver for the spacers. Also in there is a 5.25 to 3.5 adapter cover panel for the case. All in all, pretty decent.
Sturdy Case
I'm not a huge fan of all aluminum cases. Those I've had before often had a plethora of sharp edges and corners and tended to rattle a tad from any vibration whatsoever. So far the V350 is surprising me. It's sturdy, solid and quiet. I'm quite pleased with the overall feel of the case.
Slide-Out Motherboard Tray
I have large hands. To me, there's little more aggravating than working in small spaces with limited access to necessary points. This feature brought a smile to my face. After undoing a couple of thumb screws on the back of the case, a portion of the back of the case and the motherboard tray slides neatly out of the back. This made motherboard mounting, CPU insertion, heat sink setup and other tasks far easier than if I had to dig inside the case to gain access. Huge kudos to Lian Li for this.
Optical/Floppy Mounting Bays
These use a set of custom screws to slide in the drives and then fasten them with thumbscrews. It works, but I'd prefer if they had a more conventional arrangement as I'm not fond of tracking custom screws through the years that a case stays in service in my house. I'll wind up putting them in a mini ziplock bag and taping them to a solid interior spot in the case so that in 2009 or whenever I happen to need the screws, they will be easy to locate.
External Drive Bay Placement prevents securing with screws on both sides.
Hard Drive Bays
The two hard drive base are situated beside the power supply, above the motherboard. While this would normally give me some pause regarding heat buildup, the HD bays have their own fan at the back of the case.
The 2 internal hard drive base are behind the fan in the
upper right corner of this rear view of the case.
I'm unused to the type of drive mounting used in this system, so I'll reserve judgement until I get to know it. The hard drives do not screw into the cage. Instead, special screws come with the case, and a set of rubber "wheels". Put the wheels on the screws and the screws into the hard drive. Then you roll the drive into the rails in the HD bay and they gravity and a very slight bit of rubber traction to hold the drives in place.
For normal system usage, where it sits in a corner or on a rack for years at a time, this would seem to be fine. But if you move needed to move the case, it would not seem to take a lot to jostle a drive loose in the bay. The bay orientation prevents a loose drive from hitting any other components like the heatsink or motherboard, but still it seems odd. Maybe I'm just too old school where a drive isn't considered installed until it's rock solid mounted with every screw in place.
Fans
The case came with three fans in it, two 120mms at the front and one 80m at the back in the HD bay. Add in the power supply fan at the back and we'll have two intakes and two exits all aligned for a smooth, straight flow from front to back.
Dust
In about the only negative the case carries, the air intake areas on the front of the case have no dust protection. A fine mesh screen here would have been a smart idea. Luckily I'll be housing the system in a controlled room with the rest of my AV gear, but for living room use, especially for anyone with lots of dust or pets, the case interior would quickly become filled with dust. I can;t imagine it'll be good for the two large 120mm fans in the front either, as they have no filter to remove dust before it passes through them.
Connectors
Every connector dangling from the power button, reset, USB ports, audio ports, etc. are all clearly labeled with white lettering on the black connectors. Very nice and avoids any trial and error efforts to distinguish them from each other.
Side Panels
Both side panels come off with 6 small cosmetic screws. These are not thumb screws but are easy to remove and no hindrance. Since the motherboard sits on the bottom, this gives easy access to any connector you need to get close to. Never a need to reach across the motherboard during assembly.
Back IO Panel
The motherboard I chose comes with it's own panel for the rear IO area. The Lian Li came with a standard IO panel on back, but it is the modular kind that could be popped right out and the one from my motherboard maker popped right in. A pleasant surprise for me.
Overall Impressions
For the price, I'm quite pleased with this case. I've paid a lot more in the past and gotten less impressive results. If I had it to do over, I'd buy it again. The nice design elements overcome the few design issues.
What’s Going In?
Look here for a list of what is going into the case to begin with. More equipment will follow these after everything is up and running.
3 comments:
Thanks, a most helpful review.
It seems only possible to affix holding screws to the CD Rom etc from the rear side of the bay. I would have been happier to have been able to fix screws to the front side, as well. It looks as though the front panel ought to come off, but I can't figure out how.
Thanks mate, very nice review.
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