When Intel introduced the Thin Mini-ITX form factor with the DH61AG board, we were impressed with the performance and potential of the platform; however, the innovative form factor lacked any accompanying chassis to take advantage of the extra thin profile. Fortunately, that situation is changing with the introduction of LIAN LI’s PC-Q05 which supports the new Thin Mini-ITX form factor.

Specifications

Test System

Packaging and Hardware

The LIAN LI PC-Q05 arrived on US shores from Taiwan inside a creased box, but the contents were adequately protected. The full package includes the following items:

1. PC-Q05 enclosure
2. Package of screws (eight drive + four motherboard), two zip ties, eight drive grommets, internal speaker
3. Two PC-Q05 stands (required for vertical orientation)
4. LIAN LI logo sticker

The PC-Q05 is suspended in foam inserts inside its cardboard box and easily removed from the packaging. Unveiling the chassis from its plastic wrap reveals an attractive anodized aluminum enclosure that imparts an essence of simple elegance and quality.

Two small holes in the right front of the chassis have stamped logos for the blue power and red hard disk drive activity LED indicators. The power switch is located on the right side of the chassis near the front and illuminates with a blue LED when powered. The rear of the chassis accepts the Thin Mini-ITX I/O shield insert provided by Intel in the DH61AG package. The bottom of the chassis has four machined aluminum feet. Overall, the chassis has a solid and rigid feeling when handling.

Removing the top lid of the enclosure is accomplished by unscrewing three #1 Phillips head screws. Inside, we can see the cross beam which explains the rigidity. The beam is held in by four #1 Phillips screws and must be removed when installing the motherboard or servicing anything below the beam.

Our handling of the chassis did leave behind traces of oil from our hands, which is a nuisance although the problem is easily remedied with a bit of isopropyl alcohol. This problem is in no way unexpected as anodized aluminum surfaces tend to show oil. Overall, the aesthetic qualities of the finish are well worth the tradeoff.

Build

Before placing the DH61AG into the LIAN LI PC-Q05, we installed the Intel HTS1155LP CPU cooler onto the board since it has a backplate that can only be accessed with the board outside of the chassis. The cooler is specifically designed for the Thin Mini-ITX profile and can accommodate up to 65W CPUs. The retail cooler package also includes the unique fan that draws air from the bottom and blows it through the cooling fins.

The I/O shield was easily placed and securely held by the chassis. When we slid the board in, there was some difficulty aligning the rear ports with the shield while simultaneously trying to slide the cooler under the square aluminum heat isolation cage. Success was achieved after several minutes of wrangling and finding the correct angle at which to slide the board and cooler. We next placed the cooler fan but found that there were no included screws to secure the fan and the screws provided by Intel in the HTS1155 package were of the incorrect size for the chassis. We found that M3 screws (typically used with optical drives) worked well.

While the Intel DH61AG offers an mSATA port that is ideal for an SSD system drive, mSATA drives tend to be higher-priced and not as ubiquitous in today’s market; thus, we chose to take full advantage of the PC-Q05’s drive mount by installing a 2.5” SSD system drive along with a 2.5” mechanical recording hard drive. LIAN LI provides grommets and screws allowing the drives to be easily slid into place. Installing SATA cables onto the bottom drive was a challenge due to the location of the cage with relation to a USB header on the DH61AG. In fact, some of the header pins ended up getting bent in the process. The drive cage does unscrew from the bottom and even though the instructions do not specify unscrewing the cage, we recommend this if the bottom drive location is to be utilized.

Unfortunately, LIAN LI completely neglected to provide a solution for an internal infrared receiver even though one of the main use cases of the DH61AG is for home theater PCs. Using a bit of trial and error along with a CIR header that we modified, we were able to cobble together a solution by using super glue to stick the CIR receiver directly behind the top hole in the lid. LIAN LI intended this location to make use of its included blue power LED, however, we found this LED to be redundant due to the blue power LED embedded into the power switch which is on the right front side. Additionally, the included power LED is of the three-pin variety which is not present on the DH61AG!

Instead of using the red HDD LED for its intended purpose, we chose to modify it for use with the DH61AG’s HTPC header recording LED in conjunction with the LCDWriter utility for controlling the LED. The proper connection simply involves placing the positive LED wire on pin 5 (+3.3V) and the negative LED wire on pin 1 (RECORDING_LED).