Lian Li PC343 ATX Case

Internal Appearance
 
This is again very simple. The case is split almost perfectly down the middle, one side for the motherboard and one side for the PSU. The dividing tray stands 36cm high, this still leaves a 10cm gap above it to house the 240mm radiator and some beefy fans if you so wish. There is a cut out in the dividing panel for cable routing, although due to the room available it not really an option for hose routing when installing your watercooling. There are some vent holes in the floor to allow the PSU to draw in cool air from outside the case.
 
Lian Li PC-343 Internals Right Lian Li PC-343 Inside Left

The front panel is also removable to gain access to the drive bays a bit easier. The roof is held on with 6 screws, at 1st it wasn’t thought this was going to be needed to be mentioned. But later on during installation is became apparent that this might actually be removed a lot more than you may have thought.

Lian Li PC-343 Front Removed
 
 
Installation
 
To start off with I fitted the accessories, the fan blinds do a nice job of tidying up the look of the back of the case. I decided to put both the HDD cage and the 120mm fan mount on the mobo side of the case to help with airflow over the motherboard.
 
Lian Li PC-343 Install Lian Li PC-343 Back Install
 
Lian Li PC-343 PSU Bay
 
Now the parts going in to this mammoth case:
 
CPU: Intel Q6600 @ 3.4ghz (1.45vcore)
CPU Heatsink: Stock!
Graphics Card: Gainward Bliss 8800GT
Motherboard: Asus P5K Premuim
Hard Drives: 37gb Raptor (system Drive)
2x 750gb Seagates (storage)
Nothing out of the ordinary in the parts list other than the fact that everything is on stock cooling to help test the airflow in the case. We also used 2 extra 750gb HDD for that extra bit of heat and to test how effective the hdd caddy airflow is when fully loaded.

The case comes with the usual Lian Li box of screws and fittings plus that handy tool to fit the motherboard stand off’s.

The motherboard was easy to fit, but the 1st problem came with my choice of placement for the HDD caddy. I fitted this before the motherboard due to the lack of space between the dividing plate and the drive bays. But now I needed to move it and I’m not taking all of the motherboard ect out (you wouldn’t do this day to day) so I had to remove the roof to get easy access. Its only 6 screws so not too much hassle. I swapped the cages round and the GPU issue was fixed.
 
Lian Li PC-343 Fully Installed
 
But something else caught my eye while the roof was off – the dividing plate does not sit perfectly in the middle. Now the mobo side you can just get your hand down with a thumb screw to fit the cages, the PSU side is a different matter all together! I couldn’t even get my hand down there let alone hold a thumb screw. On closer inspection after another cup of coffee to wake me up the drive bays have rails that run to the outside of the case. Then in a moment of inspiration I realised you can fit rubber grommets and mounting screws to the dvd drive ect and just slide it in place! Some thing I thought was so difficult just became very simple. Thank you Nescafe!
 
Lian Li PC-343 Divider
 
With the main components in the case I turned my attentions to what Aqua said on there website about this case and I quote:

“It’s the Ultimate case as it is able to take the highest performance pc with plenty of room to fit extreme cooling in there as well”

I set about trying to find a home for a second radiator. Extreme cooling to most is a well built custom water cooling set up. We already know this case can mount a 240mm radiator in the roof so I got the drive bay radiator mounts out and set about fitting a 360mm XSPC radiator to the drive bay. We only had a XSPC R120T radiator here and a Thermochill pa120.3 but sods law these are the only radiators that do not fit straight in. Pretty much every other 360mm radiator will fit straight in but if you do feel the need to have one of the larger rads then you can remove the roof support with 4 rivets, if you mount the radiator right up against the roof this can act as the missing roof support so you will have no structural issues. I didn’t want to start drilling the review sample but there are a few pictures for you to get the idea.

 
 Lian Li PC-343 Triple Rad 
 
Lian Li PC-343 Radiator Problem Lian Li PC-343 Radiator
 
Another issue for fitting a radiator in the drive bays is airflow. You would need to buy some perforated bezels to allow the rad fans to draw in cool air from the outside, even with the 240mm radiator that means 6 bezels which is another £30 to add to the shopping list. Could be a very clean and tidy way of getting a big rad internal if you want a smooth look.