The Official Cooling Thread!

True, although you can easily fit those yourself to most cases. To the 900, whilst you can still fit them, the process isn't exactly dead easy and straightforward. Pretty much any work that involves those drive cages in the 900 annoys me. A magnetic screwdriver is mandatory unless you have three hands, and the way the fan is mounted to the front of them leaves a lot to be desired. For starters it's very easy to rip off the wires to the fan, since the wires start to bend out and become exposed. I know that from personal experience, I'm now using an NZXT fan in one of those cages, the blue LEDs are nowhere near the same colour.

 

this case mounts your mobo NORMALLY. its not like the V2000 lian-li and some other cases where the window is on the right and the mobo is upside down so the CPU is at the bottom. it is normal.

and PSU of the antec 900 is at the bottom aswell. there is a good reason on the p182 why its at the bottom. firstly it is isolated, so any heat created from the PSU, will say at the bottom and out of the psu caus f the fan behind the psu. it cools the psu very well. also PSUs run less efficient when there is more heat because the heat causes electron to get "excited" and waste there energy by letting of heat. now normally you get excess heat due to the other component heat, which is this case is now non.

the isolation of the PSU was a brilliant idea and cable management on the p128 is SUPERB. also it is a very quiet case and runs cool.
IMO(which is really the position with cases -personal preference), it is one of the best cases, esp as it costs quite a bit under £100.

any corsair's psu cables will easily reach ro any other top end PSUs.

 

i completely forgot that 900 is a BTX( am i correct)...will the OCZ StealthXStream's cable long enough?

 

Wholeheartedly agreed, I too think the P182 is an excellent case.

 

Nope, the 900 is ATX. BTX is a completely different system and is very rarely used for retail cases.

 

yeah it is ATX, but dont dell use BTX? and armours come with a BTX upgrade kit.

 

Yes, hence why I said 'retail cases' not just any of them. Dell probably make up the majority of BTX cases.

 

ahhh. okay....maybe next time i should read

thank for the info sam.

 

sammorris,

I guess that's the difference between Steel and aluminum then because with everything running in my case, the hard drive is extremely quiet and vibration free. You have to put your ear right up to the case to hear the hard drive make any noise at all! You can hear a faint crinkling noise when the drive is doing something but only if you are less than a foot away from it You don't even hear it spin up after it's shut down by the power after 30 minutes.

As far as "Hotter than yours" goes, I was talking about your temps with the Freezer 7. I acknowledged that your new Thermalright cured that problem. It wasn't that long ago where you mentioned in a post that your CPU was hitting 60C after several hours of gaming. My temps have come down a bit since the AS5 has cured. Right now I'm looking at 27C for the CPU and 35C for the MB at 25C Ambient. I haven't load tested it recently, but my Encode temps are way down.

REAM,

Heats natural tendency is to rise! Even when they are top mounted, you can usually feel a hot spot above the PSU depending on how good the design of the PSU is.

Everyone,
I was asked for an opinion and I gave my reasons for not liking the P182 case. I would sincerely doubt that I could get as low a temperatures with mine if I was using that case. I don't like the lack of cooling for the video card and South bridge that I enjoy now. Especially since the video card(s) will be right above the PSU! I realize that the lower chamber is isolated from the MB but any heat in that chamber has to be evacuated by the PSU! Any heat below the CPU has to allow some of it to go through the CPU cooler. I just don't like the way the airflow goes! In my very dusty environment here in So Cal, it wouldn't work very well at all!

Best Regards,
theone :<)

 

That's the beauty of the P182, the only heat in the PSU chamber is from the power supply. No other heat gets in, so the PSU can run nice and quiet as it doesn't have to exhaust the heat of other components. As for lacking a side fan, while that's regrettable, as my PC shows, you don't exactly need a load of huge fans to cool a PC more than sufficiently. Antec fans aren't exactly the quietest in the world but they get the job done. The overall noise will be lower since the case has noise absorption foam in it, so essentially you could turn the fans up higher for the same amount of noise and get decent temps. The Antec fans do push a lot of air, so I think a decent low-temp system can be made of it.

 

so in the end P182 is acceptable then...maybe i should get that case...but i still love the design of 900

 

As does everybody. Trust me, it's not the only good case out there.

 

sammorris,

That and any drives in the lower bay! The metal above it will eventually absorb heat as well. Not all PSUs like to be run upsidedown either. Some cooling fans make strange noises in protest! LOL!!

Next time I'll just keep my opinions to myself! I didn't say it was a bad case, I just said I didn't like it and gave good reasons for me not to use one for my my computer and it's environment. It would have a full beard around the intake slots around the front edge in about a week and would be a PIA to clean every week or two! Now I don't even have to open the case. The 1/4" foam filters I made for my bottom air inlet keeps the inside of the case nice and clean! The side and rear fans blow out any air born dust brought in from the vents, as there's very little in the way to trap any dust. I was really surprised to see how little dust there was when I changed the MB. I may even go back to folding since dust is no longer an issue and my temps remain cool!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Those are indeed a pain in the backside, even in this country. However, I have to stress the "I made" part about your post. The filters you've got weren't exactly stock either...

 

sammorris,

The air inlet is a simple rectangle with a grille with holes in it. I got the idea seeing as how you can see right through the foam. I just cut a piece to fit the rectangle and it works real good! Just another one of my mods that works, and makes things a little better!

As far as your Thermalright cooler goes, It won't fit in my case and the fan mounting would have to be addressed as Thermalright's "Paper clip" method is totally un-acceptable to me!

Best Regards,
theone

 

That's really just an unfortunate byproduct of installing the cooler in cases too cramped for it. It's simple enough to do it properly if you can install the motherboard with the cooler attached, but cases like mine with support bars across the top render that impossible. Most normal midi-tower cases will support doing that though, so it's not like you always have to do it that way.

 

sammorris,
I can get it to fit if I remove the cover fan, but that would screw up all my nicely Choreographed air flow. I ran Orthos for about 1/2 hour and it ran between 50 & 52C. In the real world I rarely break 40 regardless of what I do with the computer.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Heh, you and your nice efficient E6750...

 

Actually know what's funny? My core temps are 25, and 23 degrees at idle, and that's with stock cooling and the CPU at 3.6 Ghz.

I love my new PC

 

abuzar1,
The file is on the way!

Knew you would! GigaByte Rocks!

Best Regards,
Russ :<) :>)