Well ,I had to improvise. I made a quick scheme in paint cose i tryed to take a photo but it's not visible.
Basicly ,the fan is mounted with the 2 screws and "rests" on the metal clips by presure ,and between the fan and clip i mounted a silicone pad on each side.

Good creative solution. Aside from the soft mounting, the increased distance between the fan blades and the grill probably helps reduce the noise a lot.

I woldn't say a lot ,but of course it helps.
But i will buy some realy silent fans.
What sould it be? Nexus or Noctua?
Noctua are overpriced here in Romania ,but Nexus are reasonably priced. But if Noctua is better ,i'll try to get 2 of those.
The Scythe Gentle Typhoons have a strange low frequency "whine" at low speeds ,like an engine supercharger so I'm not gonna get any more of those. They are siilent but that whine is kinda bugging me (or my ears are realy sensitive )

It's difficult to find a sleeve bearing fan that is as quiet blowing up as in the other positions, so if you can, try a hybrid sealed bearing or a super quiet ball bearing. The difference is sometimes very small, sometimes much bigger.

Try a Scythe S-FLEX

Could you measure the exact size of the metal clips (height etc.)? Maybe we could add a spacer ("homemade clips") to keep the fan aligned... something like this:

I was eagerly awaiting the P183 review here on SPCR; both because of your involvement in the original case design and because of your focus on silent computing.

Now, I've read the review and all the posts here in the forum. I have to admit even after reading your review I'm leaning more toward the P182. The P183 seems to be a step back in many regards.

Also, is it me or does a standard ATX PSU now get *less* air intake (unless it's a CP-850) than in a P180/182? Considering that most PSUs have one fan and it's positioned on the bottom of PSU there seems to be quite a lot less room with the lowered stand to take in "fresh" air.

One final pet peeve from me that I have with 99% of all front door cases (including all of Antec's Performance One series): Why can't the door be made reversible? For some reason every case manufacturer assumes we all have our PCs to our left and also on the floor (guess, where mine is and you'll know why I need a quiet case ). A few Lian-Li/LanCool cases allow for the door to be swapped, but that's about it. The only case in recent memory that bucks that trend is the new Gigabyte Cupio 6140. It looks pretty interesting. Perhaps you guys could swing a review of that case?

So p183 doors doesn´t fit the p182, how about the 5,25 covers on the p183 ? will those fit the p182 ?

It gets substantially more air than before by mounting it with the fan up (which is how I'd mount it in a P182 as well, to store excess cables underneath).

Cheers
Olle

The p183 would be a boring case if it didn't need any modification.
Thanks to Antec for providing the community with yet another splendid case that needs just a little bit of tweaking to accomodate the feinschmeckers amongst us.

On another note, is the CP-850 quiet and is it +80 approved?

It would have been nice with a mini review of the PSU, since it's proprietary and a potential benefit to a P183 system, providing it is indeed quiet and efficient.

I would mount a modular PSU with a 120/140mm fan downward, since hot air rises and it would thus get cooler air through the intake, than it would upside down.
A non-modular PSU with a big fan would still be better off, IMO, mounted with the fan down and the cables tucked away on top or to the side, maybe secured with gaffer tape.

One previously unconsidered but potentially important factor re the top vent/noise:

The P183 was acoustically analyzed in the anechoic chamber with new instrumentation; we can measure down to 11 dBA at any time of day. The chamber also makes it easier for us to hear differences at very low levels because the ambient is so low. The earlier cases were tested in a live room without the benefit of the above, and sounds below 20 dBA were often difficult to quantify accurately. We could get down to about 16-17 dBA but only in the dead of night.

Is it possible that the sonic difference between the top vent mounting and the back vent mount was there (perhaps to a lesser degree?) in the previous P18x cases but went unnoticed because it was not heard and/or verified by measurement?

It would have been very difficult to measure accurately before, because we would have considered only the Low setting (where measured SPLs were <20 dBA) and we may have attributed the perceived increased noise simply to the more direct-line-of-travel between the user and the fan in the top vent.

How to check whether the P180/182 also has the same characterstic? Retesting, certainly... but we don't actually have an unmodified one here to test.

Forum owners of these cases could give it a try if access to the vents/fans is not too difficult. Just use the same fan, drive it with a 9V battery and fan at Medium (or some other DC source with fan running at ~Low speed), and try it in one position and then the other, report back what you hear.

Because it could have been. If the top vent wasn’t a problem what parts of the case would you change to make it quieter?

Is the Xfire test system still in the case? Would it be possible to do a short test for the forum using alex230s’ mounting method? Having looked through the P183 threads it seems most are considering overclocked quad-cores with very high-end graphics cards. Hot systems that might benefit from a top fan – if it was quiet.

[size=84]In relation to my previous post: I was trying to show how easily the case could have been “perfectâ€

i am using the original fans but changed to 7v and set it to low, changed the top for intake to make pozitive presure and mounted a filter on it because its very dusty where i live.

I agree... so people could have an idea about the temperature difference with/without top fan.

Nope.

With 2 video cards, the front intake fan is a necessity; the top fan cannot replace it. It would be logical to expect the top fan to achieve lower temps, maybe not for the video cards, but for the CPU.

I think I'll wait P184 or P183v2. I don't like way the top exhaust attachment is done, albeit there is ways to put fan there soft mounted... other than already given in here.

I think I would bend the metal clips slightly myself and "sandwitch" fan edge with soft silicone and then bend clips back on again silicone securing the fan and use slicone gormets on screw side. The metal antec has used in P18x series traditionally has been sturdy, bendable but doesn't breake or crack easily.

I've got to ask, where exactly is the middle chamber fan described in the P183 specs? I can't tell where it is from the photos in the review, so i thought I'd ask

That statement hold true if two conditions are fulfilled:
1) The air speed through the lower chamber is low enough to allow the warmer air to rise. That should mean an air speed of about 1cm/s.
2) A good portion of the air passing the lower chamber does not pass through the PSU. (Requires a separate fan, much faster than the PSU fan, pushing air through the chamber (but still at a speed of 1cm/s)).

A quick calculation tells me that the total air flow through the chamber is then to be no more than 5 cfm, and the PSU should preferably use no more than 2 cfm of those.

As it is the air moves too fast for convection to work, and (ideally) all of it pass through the PSU. (Some air might pass next by the cables, in either direction.)
Thus it's simply a matter of providing the PSU easy access to the air.

Cheers
Olle

Last bullet under "Cooling system". It's also well described in the manual.

Cheers
Olle

It's the one that can be mounted on the upper HDD cage.

I mean back fan + front fan + top fan

Well... It's true P183 (differently from P182) only comes with 2 fans instead of 3... so an additional would be needed as it's not bundled.

I don't think that the absence of the bundled intake tricool fan(s) is a big problem. Tri-cool's are not that good ,too noisy for what they offer.
I'm droping the Nexus/Noctua idea that i had earlier ,and i'm getting 1000rpm NoiseBlockers BlackSilent XL1s for my entire case. Rated at 13dbs ,they are realy dead silent.

I would buy the p183 in a heartbeat if they instituted modular panels and then made one for an external 3x 120 radiator. As much as I love my stealth p180 with its externally mounted Thermochill, an opportunity to mount the fans inside the case would make me jump pretty quick.

BlackSilent's rating is underestimation. They are comparable with Nexus though in sound charasterics, noise and air flow, which is very well for fans of that price range.

Exactly. In Romania ,they are pretty cheap ,about $14 US but Nexus fans are aproximatly the same price (about $15). I'm planning to get 5 of them and replace the tri-cools and Gentle Typhoons plus one mounted in the 5.25" drive bay.

I fully agree with your idea. The improved airflow is beneficial for SLI/Crossfire occasions which are very rare to most people. But top fan is appropriate for the AMD cooler mounting occasion. In fact, a Coolermaster 120mm fan blowing air out of the case in my system does improve system/cpu temp without increasing noise if you choose a quiet, low vibrant fan.

Btw, will Antec discontinue P182 to welcome P183? I still prefer P182 to P183 anyway.

I like the internal changes, and they are what I did with my P180B already some time ago. The dividing wall at the bottom of the P18x is really becoming a huge annoyance to many would-be-customers as long, modular PSUs just won't fit.

But that's it. I don't like the new top vent, the new front bezel, or the door. But I see why they made the changes (except for the top-went), and I guess they had little choice, if they wanted to attract new buyers. The PSU-design seems OK. I have little trust on Antec PSUs, but the design itself makes sense. It's not standard, but so what? You can always just use a normal ATX PSU if you wish to.

The nit-picking about the switches and leds being behind the door seems just absurd to me, but also goes to show how many opinions and favors there are to be pleased. Personally I don't give rats ass about the position of the leds or reset, I don't connect them anyway. As for the power switch? I had no idea if it's behind the door or not, I just don't care.

Now, isn't this a contradiction in terms?

Antec CP-850 follows the CPX standard defined by Antec, while the "long, modular PSUs" don't comply with any standard! (The ATX/PS2 standard says PSUs are to be no more than 15cm long.)

Cheers
Olle

Yeah it's a bit confusing. Anyway there are "standards", "standards" and real standards. Anyway people are already used to long power supplies (mind it don't have to be enormous to hit the bottom fan), thus they've become something everyone's used to, "standard"And on the other hand the Antec CPX whatever PSU may follow Antec's own standard, which for about everyone is just some new humbug stating silly dimensions for a PSU.

...Or something. For me atleast a long ATX PSU seems more NORMAL than some Antec's own standard. Maybe standard is the wrong way and my English just sucks.