Assembly

Installing the motherboard is done by traditional means. As you can see, the ribbon PCIe cable is quite stiff, so bending it around swallows up a lot of room. Though such a well-protected, stiff cable is by no means a bad thing as it simply cannot break during assembly. We used a183 mm long Radeon card since Lian Li advertises a maximum length of 190 mm.


You have to take the 3.5'' hard-drive cage out of the chassis to properly equip it with drives. Also make sure to place the unit into the very top if all you will do is install a single unit. Doing so will allow you to place the aluminum cover on top of it.


Once filled, put the cage back into place and secure it. It should now became apparent that the GPU's maximum allocated length of 190 mm should include the PCIe power connector. Considering that many cards of this size will have their plug facing outward, a maximum length of 175 mm would have been a better value to advertise. Luckily, there are lots of good, fast, and tiny cards out there these days.


Installing a PSU also starts outside the chassis. Simply attach the bracket to your PSU and put it back into the PC-O5S. The unit will sit on some plastic mounts, which will kill vibrations nicely. But you should not have to worry about such with SFX PSUs. You will also have to take the chassis' rear cover off to properly route all PSU cables as the plug won't fit otherwise.


The best spot for an SSD is the bracket behind the motherboard tray - it allows you to add such a drive easily and should not get in the way of any other components later on. Simply put the bracket back into place after screwing your SSD onto the bracket itself. Its positioning also protects the ribbon PCIe cable a bit.


To add an ODD drive, you will have to remove the tray first. Lian Li supplies the tiny screws required to hold such a slimline drive in place. The last step here consists of putting the whole contraption back into the PC-O5S.


With everything in place and after some good cable routing, the PC-05S' interior looks really clean, which is essential because of its unforgiving glass panel. You can also clearly see the white power cable that has been routed behind the motherboard.

Finished Looks

As mentioned in the beginning of the review, the PC-O5S looks best when placed upright with the help of the stand Lian Li included. Once turned on, the blue power LED inside will light up. It is actually so bright that you can clearly see it hitting the wall about a foot away in a well-lit room. To take this picture, I had to reduce the exposure time of my camera to darken it overall. I can only imagine the glare of it in a dark home-theater setting.


Luckily, the LED will not shine directly your way so long as you won't look at the glass panel directly, but looking at all the hardware up close and personal is pretty nifty - especially since the cables have been managed so well. All connectors, while recessed into the chassis by about an inch, are still readily accessible without the angled cutout getting in the way.