[Build Log] (case change) Lian Li PC65 to Lian Li PC-7FW (ESCADA)

[soundood]

Well I am getting a bit bored of my Lian Li PC65, over the years it has been drilled and modded to death, and really looking the worse for wear. it is also silver and at the moment it doesn't fit the colour scheme of things. here's a pic taken recently, but it has took a further beating since this was taken.



over the last few months my cable management has also took a nose dive so this is the perfect opportunity to sort that out too. now also let me stress here that will not be any super extreme mod going on, but more of a simple case change with a few touches.

I was on the lookout for a case that would fit the dimensions of the PC65 exactly as I have a custom built computer area that really needs the height to be spot on, so it sits flush with the top of the desk my monitor is on. and funny enough another Lian li case fits the bill, the PC-7FW. to be honest this case seems more like the same case a few generations on. so was really the perfect choice for me. it also suits my watercooling needs (external)


link: http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=668&page=1

my colour scheme is going to be black and blue, so a few minor mods need to be done, I also would like a couple more holes for cable routing, this will also be done. one thing I am disappointed in is that the interior is silver aluminium, would be great if it could have been black, but hey its £5.99 for a can of matt spray, so that is what is going to happen. the inside will be sprayed black with the exception of the hard disc cage. that will be blue /black.

I will also be replacing the black rear 120 mm fan with a blue led one to match the front, this will be a Yate loon D12 1350 rpm. various other parts have been ordered including the case, these are including the fan,

black braiding
black heatshrink
4 way manual fan controller
blue spray paint
black spray paint
new tubing and UV blue coils

now on to the internal hardware, this is all existing in present case, but will be changed over the coming months.

ASUS M4A79-Deluxe
Phenom 940
2 x 2 gig OCZ PC8500 Platinum's
Sound Blaster Fatality X-Fi (with front panel)
BFG GTX 260 OCX
OCZ 700W PSU
2 x WD Rapters 150 gig

CPU and VGA watercooled by a Zalman reserator XT (modded)

any suggestions at this point in time would be greatly appreciated, as will at any point in the build, about what I am trying to achieve here, I would like to make this as simple looking as possible to match the simple and elegant style of the case. and also show that maybe you don't need laser cutters and big machine tools to achieve a nice build.

in prep i have cleaned and sprayed the CD cover and fan controller, (i was getting new fan controller, but didnt)

here are some pics, you cant see it too well, but it has retained the 'brushed aluminium look' under the paint, this paint is great, two coats and its solid.

also here is a pic of the fan controller lit up, sry about quality, i will have another camera for finished build,





and done, although in old case,



well i also have been thinking of a name for the build, im like that, i like it to have a name, and have settled for 'ESCADA', the LIAN LI ESCADA to be exact

now i have also been thinking of what to do with the little 3.5 inch panel on the front panel, i was going to stick a card reader in there, but thought that might be boring, so i have opted for a name badge

this has just been ordered, it is made of acrylic and will be back lit, with either some blue LED's or a coupe of colour changing ones, we will see on that...literaly.

heres some pics of where its going and how it should look,




and heres a quik mock up, i think i will back light it in just blue



OK i was trying to source someone to make the plate for me that will sit on the front panel, after various quotes ranging from £75 to £135, i have found someone to do it.

Timpson shoe repairs...lol, they will do exactly what i want from 3 x 10mm acrylic sheets sandwiched together, with the text engraved to the reverse of one of the sheets, with frosted edges and back (for LED's)

cost? £14 +£4.95 postage lol

looking forward to how it looks

[soundood]

WORK COMPLETED

disasembled
cable routing holes cut
inside sprayed black
accent parts sprayed blue
rear fan changed from boring black to a Yate loon 120mm Blue LED
fancontroller, disasembled and sprayed
CD rom stealth bay sprayed

ok she has arrived, woopey, here are some pics of initial looks,



in this pic, you can see in the more recent cases they have dropped the slotted cpu area for one big square, we know how useful this can be, i will need it soon for a new cpu block,



ok lets get to work, i need some new holes in there for cables, one drill and chisel later, two new blow holes.



now on to the respray, as discussed black inards, with blue accent,



dont worry about the bench lol, thats going to the skip soon,


now the finished product,





it will now all be left to 'cure' in the shed (very warm in there) and i will resume the build tommorow, i am very happy with the results, cant wait to get the name badge in there !!!

[soundood]

WORK COMPLETED

Motherboard installed (inc ram/cpu/VGA and waterblocks)
Leak tested
HD and rest of internal hardware installed
cable routes worked out and run in
Power UP, and overclocking session
Finished cable routing, closed up case

hi guys,

well I have been hard at it over the last couple of days, so sorry for the delay, but I have now got to a point were I can sit down and posts some pics, all in all the build has went well so far, with no major problems.

I had to extend the 8 pin motherboard power connector, and that took a while, and to be honest I wish I had just bought an extension lead, I do this every time. then spend two days complaining about it lol.

well onto some pics, I installed the PSU/ motherboard/ram/cpu and graphics card into the case to set up the loop, I grabbed my old 300w PSU and linked it up to the WC set up, it was time to leak test it, this of course was given 24 hours to pass, and all was well,





after the 24 hours for the leak test I moved on the innards of the case installing the HD's and looking at and working on the cables routes and so on, at this point I am still trying to asses where these cables will go, a few people had said to me there was little room behind this case for this, and now I have got to agree. if they just moved the motherboard tray in to the case by say 30mm, it would make life much easier.





OK, here I am done, a mess behind the motherboard tray but what you can't see won't hurt, is my opinion, and please take note of the dying art of IDE cable folding in top left LOL,





well here we are mid build, still needing some work but thought it might be a good idea to take a snap to log it, nothing special here, just connected hard drives and most of the remaining cables,

then of course I hit the power button (love that moment) only problem I had was the PWM Fan not working (cables not connected correctly) shut down the computer, fixed it and I was good to go,





although I had previously overclocked this rig, I decided to have another go, while it was on the bench so to speak, I managed to gain a little more on it, settling on,

CPU: 3800 MHz @1.45vcore / NB 2600 MHz @ 1.3v /RAM 1066 MHz 5-5-5-15 @ 2.1v Prime Blend stable





now on to the teaser, I wont post full pics just yet, as it isn't finished, I am still waiting on the name badge for the front, and need to get it into place for some pics, but I think it's looking great, the little benching screen will be dumped and a Black 22" Dell will be in its place.

in the next post I will have the finished product, thanks for reading so far guys.



hi there guys,

well i am still waiting for the 'good' camera to apear, but i have taken some shots with my little point and shoot camera to show you the finished result,







thats all for now, but i will update the thread when i get the good pics done. hope you enjoyed this build.

[whuzabi]

for what ?!

[pingpong1455]

for what ?!

+1 for what ?

[Alec]

He reserved those posts because he will be writing up a log of how the modding process goes for him. It is likelly to spread over more than one post so he reserved 2 other posts to prevent his updates from appearing randomly throughout the thread.

@Soundood,

Looks like you have an interesting build on your hands. I am still using my Lian Li PC65B (black version of yours) and it too is showing some signs of wear and tear, still quite good nic on the outside though which is nice.

Am looking forward to seeing how the build goes man! Keep us posted.

Cheers and good luck!

Alec

[soundood]

thanks Alec, nice to see you have the black version of my old case, if it was black i migh have just modded it to suit my needs (again), and yes the above reserved post are for a tidy build log, this is something we do when reviewing too, it just saves someone time, maybe a couple of weeks from now sifting through maybe 5 pages of threads looking for updates. this way the whole build log is all in three posts,

ok i think i need an opinion as i am stuck with a decision, its the hard drive cage, all of the interiour is going to black with the exeption of the pci slot covers, they will be blue,

now i would like some blue in the HD cage area, for contrast, so heres the choice,

the cage black to match the interiour, and the tray's blue (retaining the black tray cover), or the cage blue with the trays black to match the tray covers?

or i suppose i could have a blue cage and blue trays? what you think guys?

i personaly think i should make the cage black and the trays blue,

heres some pics to help you,

cage



tray,



the cage is removable so no big deal with masking it or anything

[Alec]

I'd say black cage, blue trays. Should look nice.

[genERIC]

again any suggestions or constructive criticism would be great, maybe font to be used, got a favourite?

I think a simple san serif to match the font Lian Li uses would go well to match the LL aesthetic, but that's just me.

[soundood]

I think a simple san serif to match the font Lian Li uses would go well to match the LL aesthetic, but that's just me.

indeed a simple sans serif it is, thanks matey

I'd say black cage, blue trays. Should look nice.

i was thinking the same as i said, because the cage itself is is really part of the case, yeah black cage , blue trays it is.

ok quik update, i was having a look through some colours for the blue, and after a lot of messing around, i have settled on 'Rover Pageant Blue'

this seems to be the best mix to match my UV stuff, when lit (although not UV itself, i have tested it out on an old Lian Li HD rack to see how it would sit, this is two coats of primer and two of paint. the final job will have 5 coats of paint

heres a pic,



case should arrive tommorow (Monday) or tuesday, then i can get to work

[kev_b]

Nice case mod soundood, I have the same case but I removed my hard drive cage and powder coated the inside orange. You could say your case is damaged goods, its black and blue. But it sure looks cool.

[soundood]

Nice case mod soundood, I have the same case but I removed my hard drive cage and powder coated the inside orange. You could say your case is damaged goods, its black and blue. But it sure looks cool.

thats what my missus said, but i got to say that i love black and blue together

anyways, its had another update, check it out 1!

[Smartidiot89]

Just saw this buildlog. Nice work Soundood really impressive, how about a night-shot with the internals?
Also what material did you use for those cable-sleeving holes?

[soundood]

you know i thought i updated this post with the finish pics, i obviously havent

i will update the finish pics later, the edging round the holes, is the white stuff you got on the edges of older Lian Li cases to cover the sharp alu edges.

EDIT: UPDATED SEE ABOVE

yeah i inserted the finish post, and will have some night pron soon

[Smartidiot89]

you know i thought i updated this post with the finish pics, i obviously havent

i will update the finish pics later, the edging round the holes, is the white stuff you got on the edges of older Lian Li cases to cover the sharp alu edges.

EDIT: UPDATED SEE ABOVE

yeah i inserted the finish post, and will have some night pron soon

Ah really nice work there Was abit sceptical about that babyblue-ish stuff but it actually looks really nice. Now you need a MSI 790FX-GD70 the colorscheme would match perfectly

I really need to find something similar, would hate to cut myself when managing cables when I am done, I know myself to well...

[Anemic]

I really like the new colors, awsome build! How about a pic of the radiator?

[GJS1]

Hey I'm struggling to find owners of this case! Is there enough room to internally mount a rad on the top of the casE? I don't mind a squeeze!

[SnW]

Very nice, i like it