The PC as a train – A very special kind of mobile Computing with the Lian Li PC-CK101

1 - The train story begins 2 - Unboxing and Accessory 3 - Power Supply Unit 4 - Optical drive in the stomach 5 - How to implement a SSD? 6 - Playing with fans for the best airflow 7 - Mainboard and CPU maximized 8 - Mainboard in green mode for a HTPC 9 - First run and conclusion

Summary

If you’ve always wanted to play with a train, you can now fully live out your play instinct and even use it to surf the Internet and much more. The case of a different kind stands out from the crowd and is worth every euro for the fun and eye-catching factor alone. However, you won’t be able to install a powerful gaming PC, even though my small experiment with the Core i7-3770K was quite successful. Unfortunately, it lacks the option to still install a proper graphics card. In the mobile version, the battery pack is located where an opening would be needed.

If I find the necessary time, I will also give a larger AMD APU and Socket FM2 another chance. While cooling is not yet problematic in this TDP class, it is unfortunately associated with quite a bit of noise, as only a few CPU coolers really fit in this case. However, if you use it as an HTPC, a small APU solution like the one I implemented second will suffice.

The conclusion is a very positive impression, which even turned into a kind of enthusiasm for me in the end. However, a potential customer should not regard the manual as a dogma, because sometimes you can reach your goal faster in other ways. The only tiny drawbacks are the issue with the optical drive and the possibly jammed tray as well as the lack of information about the restrictions when purchasing an additional drive. You definitely have to rely on an SSD as a total solution here.

What happens in part 2? A little teaser and preview

So far, the whole thing is still quite location-bound and the locomotive is only an extra. But what happens if you give the project an electric drive and 3 meters of rail?

First of all, there is of course cable clutter at its finest, because where are all the connections supposed to go? I show in the second part how to assemble the drive and its controller, where the SSD then finds its new place and how you can run the monitor without cables even with FullHD and sound without problems. Keyboard and mouse are of course also wireless and even a WLAN on 5 GHz and an HD webcam are on board. There’s even a video of a Skype session from the moving train at the end.

So we’ll see you again tomorrow in part 2 of the retro article 🙂