A Steam Locomotive Needs Lots of Air
A fan comes mounted between the tender and the locomotive. While Lian Li excels in many different market segments, alas, fans are not one of them. The bundled fan isn't a gratuitous noisemaker, but it is certainly audible and its sound level is greater than what you hear from the PSU's cooler. To solve this, either throttle the fan down to 7 V (you can buy an adapter to do this) or simply replace it with a quieter fan of similar dimensions. Nice and neat.
I replaced the fan with a Noiseblocker model from the eLoop series, which is currently state-of-the-art. Since this isn't a chassis for penny-pinchers anyway, a few bucks more for an excellent fan shouldn’t be a deal-breaker. The powerful model I chose is probably a little overkill for a small platform without a graphics card. But I thought it might help cool our initial processor choice, Intel's Core i7-3770K.
As a side note, you can forego the enclosed air filter if you mount the fan so that it blows air out of the case. Low-pressure cooling may even improve thermal performance. Try it.
- A Chassis That'll Start Conversations
- Packaging And Contents
- Power Supply And Wiring
- You'll Never Guess Where They Put The Optical Drive
- Mounting Our SSD
- Fun With A Fan
- Motherboard And CPU #1: Pulling Out The Stops
- Motherboard #2: Common Sense Prevails
- This Locomotive Needs Propulsion!
- Unboxing And Initial Thoughts
- Installing The Propulsion Module
- The Motor's Power Supply And Switch
- Wireless Communication
- Video And Audio Without Cables
- A Day At The Museum, Part 1
- A Day At The Museum, Part 2
- A Day At The Museum, Part 3
- Though Niche, Lian Li's PC-CK101 Is Certainly Cool



But since the PC era is coming to an end, who can blame Lian Li for having a little fun while they still can?
Taking the mobile computing theme further, and addressing the limitations on computing power, if you had a Dell Precision M6600 or 6700 laptop with a broken screen, how about mounting the components, motherboard , PSU, batteries, drives, Wifi and all? Then, there could be an i7 CPU and a Quadro 4000M, all very quiet and still getting more air than it's used to. And, appropriately, no power cord!
The idea of a serious, self- propelled workstation steam train model seems the best use possible of this fantastic enclosure idea. That the computer is itself the game is on the borderline of being art.
And congratulations to Igor Wallossek for an excellent description of something so wonderfully out of the ordinary.
Really enjoyable read, Igor! Also got to know about that Gigabyte wireless streamer, should prove useful!
Nice house btw
Great Article!
Possibly if even then yes like more go.
You both destroyed thousands of my brain cells processing that, lol.
My 4 year old son who loves Thomas the Train would have a fit over this, especially if you could get a thomas the tank version. I'll have to admit, I'd love it (and my wife) just as much watching him with it and I would have an excuse to work on computer stuff for a few hours. =D
I do see this as a possible future purchase! Great article and awesome product!
I'm using this mostly as HTPC now but I've programmed for him a special distance control and a small game to play with animals, colors etc. (like memory game). In this age he knows all basic colors (and pink
Now if you get to install a third rail and make it completely wireless, it would be absolutely amazing.