I'm looking at building a new computer this year. I'm planning on going water-cooled for the first time.
Right now, I'm looking at a Lian-Li PC-V1100 (black) case and an Asetek Waterchill kit (with a Black Ice Pro rad and the usb/software-controlled pump). Overall specs would be a new AMD socket AM2 (new DDR2 memory socket) mboard, dual-core CPU, 150GB Raptor + 400GB WD SE16, 7800 GT video (water-cooled), 2GB Ram. Gaming + general stuff driven by a power-user would be the soup of the day.
Has anyone mounted a Black Ice Pro radiator either on the inside or the outside of the back 120mm fan mount on a Lian-Li PC-V**00 series case before? Is there room to put the rad on the inside of the case (to keep all the tubing internal)? I don't particularly want to cut 120mm hole(s) out the top. Besides the hole out the top, I haven't been able to find any reviews with the rad on the back fan position.
The best dimensions on the rad that I could find were: 157 x 133 x 25 mm
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/Asetek12v/
I know that the worst-case scenario would be (inside) fan | rad (where the '|' is the back case wall), but optimal would be (inside) fan rad | or (inside) rad fan |.
Any shared expirience with this case and watercooling like this would be appreciated!
Can a Lian-Li PC-V1100 case fit a Black Ice Radiator?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
I built mine
It's been a while since I posted this.
Well, I bought this already and built it up. You can see pics here (about half-way down): http://forum.vapochill.com/showthread.php?t=11527
The problems are:
1) the inlet/outlet has to be put towards the front of the case, and that makes it so you lose the top 3 5 1/4 drive bays.
2) I had the whole cut in the middle (left to right) of the case. This only leaves about 1" for the case connections and top row of USB/serial port/etc connectors, as well as eating the top PCI slot. I can't do the CMOS clear jumper without remove the whole radiator and fan group.
Note: The PC-V1100B does NOT have a removeable mboard tray.
3) Since the PC-V series has the thermal zones, and it isn't one big cavity, you really don't have that much room for the pump/res/cabling. It's pretty tight all the way around.
If I were to do it again, I wouldn't not have gotten this case for watercooling. It's a beautiful case, but just doesn't lend itself to a dual 120mm rad out the top.
It might work very well though to put a single 120mm rad behind the back 120mm fan. But, it would still be very tight for all the tubes and such.
Well, I bought this already and built it up. You can see pics here (about half-way down): http://forum.vapochill.com/showthread.php?t=11527
The problems are:
1) the inlet/outlet has to be put towards the front of the case, and that makes it so you lose the top 3 5 1/4 drive bays.
2) I had the whole cut in the middle (left to right) of the case. This only leaves about 1" for the case connections and top row of USB/serial port/etc connectors, as well as eating the top PCI slot. I can't do the CMOS clear jumper without remove the whole radiator and fan group.
Note: The PC-V1100B does NOT have a removeable mboard tray.
3) Since the PC-V series has the thermal zones, and it isn't one big cavity, you really don't have that much room for the pump/res/cabling. It's pretty tight all the way around.
If I were to do it again, I wouldn't not have gotten this case for watercooling. It's a beautiful case, but just doesn't lend itself to a dual 120mm rad out the top.
It might work very well though to put a single 120mm rad behind the back 120mm fan. But, it would still be very tight for all the tubes and such.