Lian Li PC-76 Server case Review

The 4 fans up front blow directly onto the 2 harddrive cages positioned at the front of the case.Each cage will hold 6 hard drives.The cages are held in with 3 thumb screws which makes quick work of removing them to install hard drives.The fans should be enough to keep and hard drive setup cool.However if you plan to stock the cages with 12 15k RPM SCSI drive you may want to upgrade to some high output fans just to make sure.

After pulling out one of the harddrive cages you can see where the wires for the 4 front fans come thru.3 small platics ties hold all the wires neatly in place.First thing I did was cut off the bulky molex connectors and connect them to a fanbus.

Installation of the mother board and power supply were pretty basic.The PC-76 does not have a removable motherboard tray,but with all the room inside there was no problems installing my VP6.As you can see even with the motherboard installed their is plenty of room to spare.The stand offs for the motherboard push thru the back and snap into place.

With the motherboard and powersupply installed all that was left is to install the various cards and drives.Mounting the CD-rom and CDR drives was just like any other case.The PC-76 has room for 6 5 1/2 drives up front.There is also room for a floppy and a zip drive.Being able to remove the harddrive cage made things a little easier.I encountered no sharp edges at all while installing everything.This was a nice change from other cases I have worked with.Nothing like loosing pints of blood while swapping a case.As you can see in the following pictures i still havent been able to tame the wire beast.

One of Lian Li's claims is that this case will run cooler than a normal steel/plastic case.I did not see any drastic changes in case temps.Of course this is comparing it to a case that had 8 80mm, and 1 92mm fan.The PC76 arrrived with only 6 80mm fans.So It is slightly quieter than the old case.

Conclusion

The Lian Li PC-76 is a monster case.Cooling should be adequate for any system you could throw at it.If you need more space than this case can provide then I would be afraid to see what your putting together.The case is well built and placement of the fans and drives cages seem to have been well thought out instead of throw in at random.

One thing I truly like about the case is its appearance.Nothing horribly fancy.Simple and square.The aluminum has a nice clean look to it.Taking the case apart requires only removing a couple of thumb screws which is a nice change.Now I don't have to search for a screw driver just to open my case.

Is the PC-76 the case to end all? No .If your looking for a huge aluminum case with space for all the drives you could possibly want and have the cash then this is your case.Priced around 350$ +shipping the PC-76 is not cheap.Other than being made out of aluminum there is nothing truly special about it.

For the cash I spent I expected more out of this case.Hinges on the side panels would have been nice.In the paper work that came with the case it shows 4 different powersupply brackets.1 for normal ATX and 3 for various redundant powersupplys.With the amount you pay for this case couldn't they have thrown all 4 in with it?The small plastic strip on the top of the case is disappointing too.For that kind of money couldn't they have used a real carbon fiber strip instead of plastic?

Out of 10 id have to give the PC-76 an 8.It's big and beautiful.Well built and actually has a decent internal design.Tho the price along with a few other small things definitely need to be improved.If your looking for a large aluminum case the PC-76 fits the bill.You just have to decide if it fits your budget.

Questions?Comments? york1@vp6-board.com