Installing components.

After removing the sides and front from the case, installing components into this case is pretty easy. To start with, the motherboard tray and entire back plane, including card guides, slide out - the tray is secured at the back of the case with 4 thumbscrews. Having removed them, the entire assembly just slides out - the slide is well made and doesn't catch or slide crookedly, and the tray itself is quite sturdy. Once the tray is removed, and you are ready to mount the motherboard, another of this case's negative points becomes apparent - the motherboard stand-offs suck. Considering all the thought that has gone into this case, even the regular screw-in brass stand-offs would be better than these. The stand-offs are shaped like a flat-topped capital A, and snap into rectangular holes in the tray - as long as you're careful that is, otherwise they slip (too easily) straight through the tray, and you have to try again. The legs of the stand-offs are also too easily squashed too close together, again leading to them sliding straight through the holes in the motherboard tray. And there's no prizes for guessing what happens if you push down on them a bit hard when they're installed…..

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Case with side and motherboard tray removed	Tray removed. Note the ribbon connector at lower left which means you don't have to disconnect and reconnect motherboard cables when removing tray.

Once you've gotten the stand-offs installed, the motherboard can be placed on them, and screwed into place. Unlike my KF-45A case (which had to be hammered outwards to let the motherboard sit straight), the I/O shield is well designed, and causes no problems at all. Once the motherboard is attached, adding AGP/PCI/ISA cards is a breeze - Lian-Li provides proper card-slot blanks, which are held in place with thumbscrews. Simply remove the thumbscrew for the card-slot blank you wish to replace with a card, remove the blank, install the card into the motherboard, and secure with a thumbscrew. About the only complaint I have here (again this is a really minor complaint, and once again it's not really Lian-Li's fault) is that the thumb screws can be a bit fiddly when they're this close together, especially if you've got largish hands with correspondingly sized fingers.

At this stage, the RPM sensing rear exhaust fan can be connected to your motherboard (I think this is a nice touch), and the LED/switch cables can be connected to the headers on the motherboard. This is the result of another really nice feature from Lian-Li - the cables for connecting the LEDs and system switches to the motherboards are not only made into a ribbon cable, but there's a nifty connector in the middle of it. This allows you to remove the motherboard from the case without having to unplug all the connectors from the motherboard headers. This feature is quite handy, and definitely a time saver if you take your motherboard out of your case even on a semi-regular basis.

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inside front, showing fans and motherboard cable connector
hdd bay shown below has been removed

Installing the power supply in this case is a bit unusual (at least I think it is). You basically screw the power supply to a back-plate, then slide the power supply into the case (from the outside), and secure the back-plate to the case with thumbscrews. I actually had a problem with my 400W Leadman PSU - the plastic socket for the monitor power cable is (well, was) too large, given it's position, to properly fit into the space the back-plate allows for external connectors. I had to take to it with my Dremel, and cut away some of the plastic to make it fit. Again, this is a small issue, and really not Lian-Li's fault - most ATX PSU's don't have a loopback connector, and the Leadman may well have it in a strange place.

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removable floppy cage and lower hdd bay behind fans

Drives are easily installed - and as I mentioned before, are some of the few things not secured with thumbscrews in this case. My DVD drive and floppy drive installed without any hassle at all - with both side panels removed, it is easy to secure the drives on both sides. Hard drives are installed in a special cage which sits right behind the intake fans in the bottom of the case - it is easily removable, and once again secured with thumbscrews. There is ample room in this cage for three hard drives - the cage is big enough to allow room for airflow between the drives.