Assembly

Installing the motherboard turned out to be a bit tricky. The measurements are so tight that the rear fan collided with the large CPU cooler. This forced me to remove the rear fan before dropping the board into place. Once in, there was still enough space above the cooler to use all the included fans. Lian Li chose to move the mounting of the expansion cards to the exterior of the case, which makes the chassis another centimeter shorter.


Installing the 2.5" drives onto the hard drive cage is quite easy and uses rubber-ring-equipped screws. Once attached, simply slide the drive into the appropriate holes. You may also install two 2.5" drives to the floor of the case by using the appropriate screws.


You have to follow the same principle with the larger hard drive, as it is also held in place with rubber-ring-equipped screws. Once ready, simply slide the drive into place before sliding the lock down to prevent the drive from wiggling. Make sure to use the outermost mounting holes on the hard drive to keep it from moving, though.


To install an optical drive within the PC-V650, you need to remove the entire front cover first before sliding the drive in way past the case's shell. Replace the front cover and slide it back towards the front until the eject button can be utilized through the cover. Traditional screws are used to hold the drive in place. While this is a bit more complicated than with other cases, it works flawlessly.


Once all the parts are in place, you should be ready to install the PSU. Watch out if you are using a large CPU cooler as it may block your PSU bay. I was lucky enough with the Phanteks cooler; it allowed me to move the fan up slightly to make the large Hale90 V2 PSU fit in properly.


With everything installed, the case is quite messy, especially considering that I use a fully modular PSU with flat, black cables. This was to be expected and those wanting to fully utilize all seven drive bays will end up having to cram all the cables into even less space. On top of that, the cutout of the motherboard tray is way too small—just what I was afraid of at the very beginning of this review. This makes the hole useless to most users.

Finished Looks

You can clearly hear the fans turning once all the side panels are back in place and the system has been turned on. It would have been nice if Lian Li had included a fan controller because many boards don't offer four fan headers, which would force the user to run them off the power supply at full speed.


The drive bay cover allows you to use any type of drive, regardless of color. In the rear, everything is accessible and where you would expect it to be.


As with all modern Lian Li cases, the power LED is built right into the button itself and emits a cool, blue light. I was a bit skeptical about the drop down cover of the optical drive bay, but it did not get in the way of the tray, so you should not end up with it getting stuck while sliding it in or out.