Lian Li PC-6010
Reviewed by Shadrach 05.04.2003

Putting it together:

The first thing that you will notice about any Lian Li case is the generous use of thumb screws.  Thumb screws are used anywhere a fastener is needed.  Cases with removable hard drive trays always shine in the ease of installation category and this one is no different. The pc-6010 has a removable hardboard tray that make installing a mother board a cinch. The motherboard stand-offs are unique also. Lian Li has forgone the screw down copper stand offs for simpler snap in ones.  The snap in stand-offs were found to be a little less forgiving when trying to thread the screws but worked well.

Drive Installation:

Initially it appeared that installing the hard drives in the removable tray would be all too simple. However after installing the drives and sliding the tray back in place, it was discovered that it was impossible to get back to the screws that lock the tray in place, as illustrated below. So it was reverse order to get the hard drives out, screw the drive tray back down and remove the other side panel to gain access to the other side of the drive tray to re-install the hard drives.  This was not a well thought out design unfortunately.

*Arrow denotes screw location

Power Supply Installation:

Installing the power supply was a truly rare pleasure.  Normally a PSU has to be wedged in place from the inside.  Lian Li devised a removable plate with the appropriate holes to ease in installation.  Simply remove the plate (again, the thumbscrews make this effortless), attach it to your PSU slide the power supply into the now square hole from the outside of the case in, and re-attach the thumbscrews to lock down the plate.

Case cooling:

Cooling leaves a little something to be desired.  Only three fans come in this case with no room for expansion.  The fans are sufficient to keep the heat in a reasonable zone but any additional fans will require modding. The good news about the fans that do come with the case is the location. Two filtered fans blow over your hard drives for intake and an exhaust fan is situated directly behind your CPU.  A fan in the top panel of the case would have been well received, but sadly, was left out.  The cooling was satisfactory and left this XP1800 1.66 GHz CPU with a final temperature of 117 degrees.

The Bezel Dilemma:

Finally, something to complain about. Once installation was completed, everything was plugged in and the power button was depressed.. NOTHING happened.  Rechecking the cables did not shed light on any problems.  Rechecking the cables and reseating all the cards did nothing to alleviate the lack of life in the systems. Thinking it was a faulty power button on the case, the bezel was removed to discover that pressing the tiny post on the actual power switch brought the machine to life.  Disappointed is not an adequate word to define the feelings about the small post on the power button in the bezel trying to line up directly with the slim post on the actual switch. A small alignment problem and this mechanism failed. A minor misalignment caused much anxiety and grief.