Please Help with P180 fan settings. Advice is helpful!!!!!!!

MarcusAurelius · Post by **MarcusAurelius** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 3:14 pm

I have ....

P180 Case
Video Card x1900xtx w/ Zalman VF900
Seasonic S12-500
e6600 Conroe
P5W DH Deluxe
2 GB G.skill

I am not shooting for the quietist PC either; I would like to compromise for a overclockable silent PC, so in order for this to happen, I realize I must make the system a little louder in order to move the extra heat...

I have all three of the stock P180 fans on High as well as my Zalman for the Video Card. Everything is on High in my system. I also have the Seasonic S12 Fan facing up in the PSU chamber.

Here are my questions. I would appreciated as much help on anything as possible..

1) Should I leave my PSU facing UP? or would DOWN be better

2) I am going to be getting a Scythe CPU heatsink (SCNJ-1000P or the SCNJ-1100P), should I go fanless?

3) Should I leave my fans in their stock locations? Or should I move and relocate the PSU fan to the upper chamber?

---Where are your fan locations?

4) Am I fine with all my fans on LOW?

---What are your fan settings at?

5) Will I notice anything replacing my fans to Nexus 120mm? Is Orange the only color? I sure would hate to give my comp a Halloween look : D (well the top fan anyway! )

6) Is there a way to rig my fans to hook up to the mobo as opposed to using the Molex? Is there any benefit to this than using the Molex. I thought It would be better because My motherboard will make adjustments to the fan speed based on heat (correct?)

***SORRY FOR ALL THE QUESTIONS! I HAVE LOOKED AND LOOKED ON THE FORUM AND STILL HAVE NOT RECEIVED A CONCRETE CONFORTABLE ANSWER; I GUESS I'M JUST PARANOID AS I DROPPED ABOUT $2000 ON THIS SYSTEM******

Please,
any advice would be much appreciated;

natethegreat · Post by **natethegreat** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 4:46 pm

I am not shooting for the quietist PC either; I would like to compromise for a overclockable silent PC, so in order for this to happen, I realize I must make the system a little louder in order to move the extra heat...

This was also my goal and I am very happy with how it turned out. I was able to get a 33% overclock out of my system and not have it sound like a jet. My opinion on your questions:

1.) I have my psu mounted upside down in my P180, works just fine for me

2.) Why not? You can always add a fan if you need more cooling.

3.) I have 2 hdd's in the lower bay and they stay cool enough with a 120mm Yate-Loon in the psu. Imho you should not need the lower chamber fan installed.

4.) I don't know, what are your temps? I run all my fans (3 Yate-Loon 120mm and a VF-900) on a fan controller, all fans are set to min (~6v) and that is very quiet. Hdd's are the main source of noise and you basically have to put your ear to the case to hear them.

5.)The Antec tri-cools were pretty dissapoining imho, Nexus would be a huge step up in terms of silence but may not provide enough cfm if you are running a heavy o/c. BTW you can get them in black/wite also.

6.) You would need to buy adapters but you should be able to run your tri-cool fans from your motherboard, but if you need to buy adapters why not just invest the money in some higher quality fans?

Shameless promotion of my P180: http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/518/dsc01587uh3.jpg

MarcusAurelius · Post by **MarcusAurelius** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 5:50 pm

Nate The Great,

I looked at the pic and I like how yours looks. I noticed you decided to not go with the PSU fan and you replaced all your fans with the Yate Loons. As far as overclocking, you stated that the Nexus fans are not the best in that area. Are the Yate Loons better? I noticed you have the same Zalman heatsink too; You have a very similiar system. What Fan Controller are you using and do you like it?

You provided alot of help for, but I have one question for you. If you could do it all over again, knowing what you know from doing it, would you buy the same things for cooling/quietness?

Thank you once again!

MarcusAurelius · Post by **MarcusAurelius** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 5:53 pm

Another thing,

After rereading your post I noticed you said you had a Yate Loon in the PSU. Did it come stock like that, or did you crack the PSU case to put it in there? I know you must be careful with the PSU due to the charge the capacitor could hold. Let me know, other than that, the system looks great!

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 7:38 pm

You are running with fans much faster than necessary.

Take a look at my DIY article to see how much slower and quieter you can reliably cool your system.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article672-page1.html

MarcusAurelius · Post by **MarcusAurelius** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 8:38 pm

Thank you for the response!!! It is a great guide! Almost like you wrote it just for me with my components!! Thank YOU!!! : )

natethegreat · Post by **natethegreat** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 7:33 pm

MarcusAurelius wrote:Nate The Great,

I looked at the pic and I like how yours looks. I noticed you decided to not go with the PSU fan and you replaced all your fans with the Yate Loons. As far as overclocking, you stated that the Nexus fans are not the best in that area. Are the Yate Loons better? I noticed you have the same Zalman heatsink too; You have a very similiar system. What Fan Controller are you using and do you like it?

You provided alot of help for, but I have one question for you. If you could do it all over again, knowing what you know from doing it, would you buy the same things for cooling/quietness?

Thank you once again!

Sorry it took so long to reply, it's been pretty busy over at my place

I should have listed my rigs specs in my first post:

Antec P180 Case
DFI Lanparty UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester (Thermalright SI-120)
2 x 1GB OCZ EB DDR PC-4000 Dual Channel Platinum
eVGA 256-P2-N515-AX GeForce 7800 GT (Zalman VF-900)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200KS 320GB
NEC ND-3550A Dual Layer DVDï¿½RW Writer
Sony DDU-1615 DVD-ROM
Cooler Master Real Power 550W
Zalman ZM-MFC1 Fan Controller
Windows XP Pro SP2

I'll try to answer alll of your questions 1 at a time:

The stock fan for my Coolermaster Real Power 550 was not quiet in the least and was overkill for the ammount of draw I would be able to put on the system so I swapped it out for a Yate-Loon 120mm. Yes I did break the warranty seal but only after the psu had run a week 24/7 at full load. I actually broke the seal to sleeve the cables and only months later swapped the stock fan for the Yate-Loon.

The reason I went with the Yate-Loon over the Nexus for the system fans was that the Nexus has a top rpm of 1000 compared to the top end of 1300 rpm's of the Yate-Loon. I knew I was going to be overclocking so I wanted a little more CFM for cooling. If silence is the main goal then Nexus Fans are a very popular choice. You can still overclock with a Nexus fan, I just wanted a little insurance against overheating (and the fact that you can get Yate-Loons for around $3.99 doesn't hurt either)

As far as the fan controller I'm using the Zalman ZM-MFC1 and have been very happy with it. It took a little fiddling to get it to fit just right in the P180 but I think that was the fault of the P180's rail system. I have the 3 sysem fans (intake, cpu, and exhaust) hooked up to the the variable speed channels and I have the VF-900 hoked up to 1 of the 0v/5v/12v switches. When I'm browsing I leave the intake/cpu/exhaust at the lowest setting (~6v) and the gpu is set a 5v. When I fire up Quake 4/Oblivion or whatever I just crank everything up to full until I'm done gaming.

I have 2 regrets about this build: 1 was the psu- it was not quiet at all, I bought it because at the time there was an issue with Seasonic and my DFI motherboard not working well together, and 2 was the NV Silencer- It was a total peice of junk! I eventually replaced it with the VF-900 in my system now. I will always be scouring SPCR for harware that has boh high performace and quiet operation, everything you have bought/picked out for your system (excluding the stock P180 fans) seems to fit under that category