For aesthetical reasons I’ve fallen in love with the Lian-Li S80.
For reference you can see it at the lian-li website:
http://www.lian-li.com/Product/Chassis/ ... PC-S80.htm
I realize it might be problematic.
The airflow concept of this case is very wierd: as far as I've understood the two intake fans (sitting classically in front fo of the harddrive does not pull in air from the front of the case, which is completely sealed, rather they pull it through the long vertical vent in the sidepanel of the case, then along the inner panel (the case has dual side panels, wonder if they start humming...) to the front where it's drawn over the drives and to the CPU and GFX.... Phew, that's complicated isn't it? - a lot of twists and turns to get any air through there, can that be done silently?
The opening that is normally an exhaust acts as an intake in this case (like in the PC-101 recently reviewed here), which I guess is ok (if a bit odd). But as far as I can see that means that the air from it will blow the directly opposite direction than the airflow from the other intake fans, can air coming in both from the 'front' and the back be a good thing for airflow? – I guess Lian-Li imagine that you use their patent guide-thing to direct the intake air from the back down over your CPU heat sink, but if you’re opting for a tower type sink, that won’t be the case.
With the back fan as an intake, the only exhaust is the power supply and that oddly placed 80 millimetre fan above it.
Some of these problems can be solved by turning around the back intake making it an exhaust. Theoretically I guess this would contribute to drawing air through the 'winding path' air has to travel to come through the intake in the side panel, but on the other hand you'd have to worry about the whole thing not getting enough fresh air even then...
One option I guess would be to remove the inner side panels opening directly to the vertical intake on the outer side-panel. Think that would work?
Now as said I’m pretty much in love with the case none the less. So my question is whether you believe it’s feasible to build a reasonable silent system in it (I can settle for quiet). My next build will consist of:
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
Core 2 Duo E600, 2,4 ghz, 4 MB l2 with Scythe Mine
Asus 7900 GT Top @ 520/1440 with Zalman CF900
2*1 gb DDR2-667-modules
Seasonic S12-430
Samsung P120 250 gb – I plan to mount this between two blocks of foam (I think there’s a nice space for it if I take out some of those HD-heatsinks)
NEC 3550 DVD-writer
I plan on over clocking as much as I can (which I expect is quite a bit from what I’ve heard of the Core 2 Duo and the given motherboard) but it’s not imperative to me that the system can sustain the overclock at silent noise levels.
Noise-wise it’s more important to me that I’ll be able to do non-intensive tasks like text-editing and web-browsing fairly silently. I imagine solving this with temperature controls of some kind, ideally shutting of most of the fans in the system when it’s not stressed.
But do you think the following is feasible in this case:
1. Cooling a fairly hot overclocked system under stress at reasonable noise levels?
2. Making the system quiet/silent under low-load situations without building up to much heat/frying the hdds/something worse?
Sorry about the long post, thanks for following so far. I hope you’ll take time to offer some opinions/suggestions because I’m a bit at a loss with this.
I plan on finalizing the order for my system pretty soon so quick responses will be especially appreciated!
The Lian-Li S80 - will this thing work?!
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Devonavar
I can see why you like the case; it's pretty good looking. There are two bad things that seem to be common to Lian Li cases.
1 - They are susceptible to hard drive vibration. Suspending the drive in their cases is mandatory to get a quiet, much less silent computer.
2 - Airflow is not good enough. They are trying to improve here.
I would suggest you give up the idea of laying the Samsung drive on foam. I have that same drive. Despite much of what is written about Samsung drives, it runs warmer than the Seagate it replaced. Before buying this case, I would make sure that you can suspend the drive so it can take advantage of those fans. I think the foam would prevent the heat from being removed.
One of the reviews on New Egg mentioned there is no motherboard tray. As much as this case costs, I would expect it to have both a removable motherboard tray, and drive cage(s).
Hopefully BlueFront will post his thoughts on the ducting scheme for this case. It looks promising, but I wonder if there are enough sources for outside air.
Keep us posted how the build goes.
1 - They are susceptible to hard drive vibration. Suspending the drive in their cases is mandatory to get a quiet, much less silent computer.
2 - Airflow is not good enough. They are trying to improve here.
I would suggest you give up the idea of laying the Samsung drive on foam. I have that same drive. Despite much of what is written about Samsung drives, it runs warmer than the Seagate it replaced. Before buying this case, I would make sure that you can suspend the drive so it can take advantage of those fans. I think the foam would prevent the heat from being removed.
One of the reviews on New Egg mentioned there is no motherboard tray. As much as this case costs, I would expect it to have both a removable motherboard tray, and drive cage(s).
Hopefully BlueFront will post his thoughts on the ducting scheme for this case. It looks promising, but I wonder if there are enough sources for outside air.
Keep us posted how the build goes.
A review/write up at Dan's Data.
An interesting case, especially the internal partition and Hdd aluminium tray. The front fans will probably have to work very hard though trying to pull air in from the back with a U-shape air path.
An interesting case, especially the internal partition and Hdd aluminium tray. The front fans will probably have to work very hard though trying to pull air in from the back with a U-shape air path.
Hmm, actually you all sound a little less pessimistic than I feel about the airflow in this case. I’ll take that as a good sign 
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=32614
Ultraboy
Thanks for the link, found that one already though. I'd appreciate it though if anyone know of any real test of this case.
Are you sure? I had the same thought but read this post and was cnovinced otherwise:acaurora wrote:I like that case too, but don't really know how to advise on your situation.
one comment though - I think you may want to step up to a 500W at least... granted a 7900GT doesn't use as much power as a 7900GTX, it still uses quite a bit.
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=32614
Hmm, I think there's some room to suspend the drive since there's already these 'HD heat sinks' (pretty stupid idea in my opinion btw) sitting there. They can be removed, and this should leave some space where A suspension can be installed... I'm not the graet DIY-type though, that's why I figured foam would be the least complicated.Beel wrote:I would suggest you give up the idea of laying the Samsung drive on foam. I have that same drive. Despite much of what is written about Samsung drives, it runs warmer than the Seagate it replaced. Before buying this case, I would make sure that you can suspend the drive so it can take advantage of those fans. I think the foam would prevent the heat from being removed.
Ultraboy
Thanks for the link, found that one already though. I'd appreciate it though if anyone know of any real test of this case.
