Page 4 - Installation and Conclusion
There's nothing much to discuss with regards to component installations, so we'll go over this in as little time as possible, while integrating as much detail as we possibly can. The 5.25" drive installation procedure is pretty standard -- remove the front blank, slide the drive in, and attach screws on both sides like you would on any standard chassis. Hard drive installation is a little more interesting haha. This internal bay is able to accommodate either an 2.5" drive or a 3.5" drive; where the 3.5" drive is attached to the side of the bracket with large thumbscrews and vibrational dampeners. For those who prefer 2.5" drives, I took one out for demonstration, as seen in the photo above. The drive is attached to the bottom of the case with four screws that flushes completely with the bottom surface. You won't get vibrational dampeners or anything like that with 2.5" drive installations, but that should be okay since laptop hard drives are usually quieter than their desktop counterparts.
Motherboard installation is very simple, as we've discussed this multiple times haha. All you need to do is attach four screws to the motherboard on your Lian-Li PC-Q07's right side panel, then reattach the side panel to the case, and that's about it. Clearance between the motherboard and vertically mounted power supply is approximately 8cm according to my measurements. This is important if you have a LGA775 mITX motherboard. While you won't be able to put in an 120mm tower heatsink/fan, an Intel stock heatsink or similar should have no problems at all.
Power supply installation is where we want to make things more interesting for you. Starting from the basics, all you need to do is detach four thumbscrews to remove the power supply bracket from the case. Attach the power supply bracket to your power supply via four standard screw holes, then slide in the power supply from the outside into the case. When the power supply is all the way in, simply put the four thumbscrews you have removed earlier back in.
Therefore, we took a Tagan TurboJet 1100W power supply from our storage -- a power supply measuring no less than 17.5cm in length -- along with several million uber thick cables to see if it fits in our Lian-Li PC-Q07 mini-ITX chassis.
And it did.
Actually, we did have a slight cabling problem, to say the least. While this kilowatt-plus power supply is one of the longer units you'd find in the market today, and he Lian-Li PC-Q07 is long enough to accommodate it with almost 3cm to spare, the sheer number of cables occupied pretty much the entire chassis interior. The stiff cables certainly did not help!
Of course, there's real reason at all why anyone should put a large 1100W power supply into an mITX chassis as we've demonstrated here, other than to prove a particular point haha. If you're going to put a standard ATX power supply into your Lian-Li PC-Q07, I would highly suggest you to put in a modular power supply. And one that is, well, you know, smaller. Overall, you'd be very surprised how well the Lian-Li PC-Q07 can accommodate standard PC components, as well as its excellent accessibility during installation.
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From the beautiful all-aluminum construction, to its incredible lightness, combined with Lian-Li levels of quality and refinement, the PC-Q07 is an excellent mini-ITX chassis. It is simple, yet functional. It is very light and has tons of ventilation openings, yet still incredibly solid. Its build quality is impeccable, as you'd expect from Lian-Li. It even has a removable motherboard tray! It even has all the room to accommodate a standard ATX power supply, an 5.25" drive, and an internal 2.5"/3.5" disk -- although one could argue that it is both a positive and a negative at the same time. For positives, you don't need to buy any specialized components for your mITX system. For negatives, the case cannot be potentially as small. But what the Lian-Li PC-Q07 features is surprising versatility and room to work with, despite physical space limitations -- it's actually pretty packed when everything is installed. What I would love to see improved for the PC-Q07 are more front panel connectors, and better internal cable management, and tool-free installation. Tool-free installation is not evident on the chassis other than a few thumbscrews in no more than a couple places. In fact, the side panels are actually quite challenging to remove attached by a whopping six screws. Other than that, it is a very simple yet elegant anodized aluminum case that upholds the values of what makes a Lian-Li product, a Lian-Li product!
Special thanks to Peter representing Lian-Li for making this review possible.
APH Review Focus Summary:
7/10 means Great product with many advantages and certain insignificant drawbacks; but should be considered before purchasing.
-- Final APH Numeric Rating is 7.0/10
Please note that the APH Numeric Rating system is based off our proprietary guidelines in the Review Focus, and should not be compared to other sites.
The Lian-Li PC-Q07 is a simple yet elegant all-aluminum mITX chassis with all the quality and refinement you'd expect from Lian-Li.
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Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
