Lian Li PC-Q17 WX Mini-ITX Aluminum Enclosure Review

Interior and Build Process

The PC-Q17 features easy to remove side and top panels which are simply pressed into place using the familiar push-pin style mounts.

The shroud with the ASUS ROG logo hides the PSU from view, with the mini-ITX motherboard mount in a standard orientation to the left.

There are hard drive mounts on the inner wall of the PSU shroud

Looking in from the top of the enclosure we see the included 140 mm fan, along with the PSU mounting area on the right.

There is another hard drive mount location under the PSU, though this removable piece may need to come out to make way for longer PSUs (or my modular PSU, as I discovered).

And now a look at the other side:

Popping the front panel off is as easy as the rest of them, and we see a bracket already installed up front which can be populated with a slim optical drive.

This bracket, along with any hard drives you choose to install, is first fitted with four of the included rubber mounts, and then slides into place in the cutouts on the enclosure’s frame.

The pre-mounted slim ODD bracket can be removed for HDD installation

Build Process

Installation begins with the motherboard, naturally, and as I intended to use a full-length graphics card I next selected my compact 140 mm (fully modular) power supply.

Adding the power supply begins with connection to the PSU bracket, after which you simply slide it down into place.

This…did not fit all the way in with the under-PSU hard drive mounting bracket in place, so I removed it.

Even with this additional storage bracket removed I did not end up using the ATX PSU, due to the modular connectors still slightly impeding my GPU. Not having any short, non-modular PSU on hand, it was time to bring in an SFX power supply. (Lian Li provides a conversion bracket in the hardware kit if an SFX PSU is used.)

With my SFX-L (the slightly larger version with a 120 mm fan) power supply installed I had zero clearance issues, and I could still take advantage of the fully modular design to keep the build tidy.

It’s worth noting that the floor mounts and under-PSU mount for hard drives will possibly interfere with some GPUs and PSUs, but there is always the front storage mount and the mount found on the inside of the PSU shroud. Overall this enclosure does not boast a lot of storage room if you are fitting it with a full-length discrete GPU, but it’s worth pointing out that short options like AMD’s R9 Nano or any mini-ITX oriented GPU will free up room for more storage and longer power supplies.

I installed my SSD on the front mount, after removing the optical drive bracket. I could as easily have installed the SSD inside the case on the side of the PSU shroud (which I would have needed to do if I’d installed a slim ODD here), but this location keeps it – and its cables – out of view.

Finally I'll touch on liquid cooling support. This is handled via the top panel, as radiators are actually designed to mount on the top of the case. This worked out very well, and was made all the easier thanks to the push-pin top panel, though the look of an external radiator is hardly ideal.

An external radiator is not for everyone, but at least the support is there

With the components in place it was time to test out thermals and noise with the PC-Q17 WX.