From the picture, it looks like if it fits, it will only do so barely. Why not look for the similar passively cooled Asus cards with the heatsink on the backl of the card rather than the top?

I'll post a picture when I get back from vacation.

Yes, there's a significant risk of destroying the heat pipes. I got the heatsink for $18 and felt it'd be worth the risk. I used a small pair of channel locks to squeeze and bend. The copper is so thin that it requires very little effort to do the procedure. The heatpipes still seem very effective.

Hi all,

I recently got an NSK2400 and built it lovingly with loads of hints/tips/etc from everyone here. However, I've come across one huge problem. I have a Samsung SP 250gb hdd and it makes huge amounts of noise. I used to have it in another comp (sonata case) suspended on elastic and had no real complaints. When I mount with the usual mountings in the nsk it's totally unacceptable. While I've managed to suspend it (sort of - it still touches in one spot) it's a pretty dodgy solution. Does anyone have any hints how I can mount it better (can the normal mountings be removed without doing too much damage to allow better suspension)? Has anyone put noise dampening material in the front of the case to block the noise?

I really need help on this b/c apart from this one problem I love this case and more importantly so does the keeper of the $$$ (my gf).

Oops should have mentioned sooner I use it as a htpc.

Garmpe

Does anyone know if they can fit 2 more 3.5" HDDs somehow in that space between the 2 HDD mounts and the 5.25" cage?

Remove the bottom HDD guides and rubber grommets. Flip the top HDD bracket. You will find that you can now run two loops of elastic cord from top bracket to bottom vent holes, and mount the drives in the same position as stock, but suspended. The drives will run as cool as before, but seek noise will be much diminished.

-- 2 more 3.5" drives? Why would you want to even try? Any system with more than a couple 3.5" drives is not going to be quiet. Given the high capacities available, there's really no need for more than a couple anyway, in a HTPC. You can always use external storage if necessary.

In all due respect, I understand that having more than a few HDDs only will increase noise. But I am transplanting all of my main computer into this so that when I transfer into the dorms @ UC Merced (yay!), I wont have to lug my huge P180 around. It will occupy less space too. I would rather nto have to spend the extra money for USB enclosures or for higher capacity hard drives.

Here's what I did - but I think I like MikeC's idea even better. Mine does run a little warm.

I'm using the 1/8" round elastic, and I've come up with what I believe is a new way to attach the drives. It uses heat-shrink tubing to attach regular HD mounting screws to the ends of the elastic. Pic=1000 words.





This seems more elegant and more secure than other methods I've seen, although it is a lot more difficult to remove / replace the drives.

I thought the drive bay cover would be a noise leak so I lined it with a small piece of Acoustipack.



DE

Thanks to MikeC and spaceman_spiff.

For the moment I've done what MikeC suggested. I'm a little embarassed that I didn't notice you could simply unscrew the supports at the bottom of the case (I thought they were riveted - oops).

spaceman_spiff I've seen what you've done before and think it's a great idea. I've got an old laptop that's having some problems keeping up so If I can't fix it I'm going to salvage the hdd from that and do something similar to what you've done.

I think a lot of the problem with the hdd noise is the open area beneath the hdd area. Having said that I'm happy to trade off a little (and it really is only a little) noise for all the other benefits this case has.

spaceman_spiff how did your temps go with the 3.5 hdd? I'm thinking about trading off the noise/heat thing again by using a zalman hdd heatpipe cooler if I move in to the spare 5.25 spot.

I just got one of the new WD5000 drives and it's running at 53 - 54C.

I would like to try the "MikeC method" and see just what difference that makes in the temps. I've got another project going right now, but I'll try to get to it soon...

DE

I just got two of those new WD 500GB drives, too. Mine also run significantly hotter than other drives. This may be real heat or it may just be a difference in calibration or location of the sensor.

with nothing in it. Okay, I'm a first time builder, I ordered this case a little while ago. I saw it pop on newegg and at the time they were running a free S&H special with a $15 mail in-rebate, and although I hadn't read anything about the case just reading the description (on newegg) made me poop my pants and order it. So the plan is for an HTPC and I'm not PARTICULARLY concerned when it comes to noise, becuase I leave in a city with an apartment right on a street corner, so I'm guessing compared to the most HTPC builders my average ambient noise levels are pretty high. Nonetheless I had intended on replacing the PSU that comes with this thing because that is what everyone seems to recommend for any case/PSU combo (with a few exceptions) and I'm thinking that at some point this machine might have to pull double duty as a light gaming machine AND that I might be tempted to experiment with some mild OC'ng SO I had a 500W PSU in mind. But after snooping around this forum and after reading the article I'm getting the idea that this PSU might be able to handle let's say:

Biostar TForce 6100-939
Athlon 64 X2 3800
XFX 7300GT
Seagate 7200.10 320GB
1GB ram
(2) optical drives
PowerColor T55E-P03 PCI-e x1
Audigy 2 ZS (SPIDF to the receiver)

So here's my question for the aforementioned build would the 380W Antec PSU be able to handle things? would it be able to handle that set-up w/ a slight OC? a modest OC (let's say 2.4GHz)? should I get the 500W (thinking of the Silverstone SST-ST50EF) PSU and forego the video card until a later date? I realize there's plenty of pontential for me to have overlooked things (both directly regarding my questions and otherwise) and any guidance or assistance would be appreciated, and I understand that even more likely than that is I have rambled on in the worst possible way...

Power shouldn't be a problem for your setup. Sizing a power supply is really must a matter of determining how much power your CPU/GPU need. You should be able to guesstimate the amount of power a 2.4 GHz X2 consumes by looking up power consumption for the appropriate chip (4800+?). It shouldn't come to more than 100W worst case. Your GPU is passive, so it's not likely to draw more than 20~30W, although I can't find power figures for it anywhere. The rest of your system won't draw more than 50W, and you're still under 200W. Long story short: the setup you're proposing will barely tax half of the capacity, even at full tilt.

By the way, you should check up on the Audigy's compatibility with DTS / Dolby Digital receivers. IIRC, it may not be able to pass the signal through correctly, or may do so only with special software. Depending on how picky you are / how good your speakers are, you may also find that you lose some audio quality to resampling as well.

Devonavar,

Thank you, you just made my day... As far as the Audigy 2 goes I'm glad you've mentioned that, because I have read a few things that eluded to something along those lines, but now that you've said that I'll definitely invest some time looking into it. For the time being it'll be what I use just because I already have the card. Thanks again.

Just picked up an NSK2400 yesterday, for CAD$99, and all I have to say is: "GO MIKEC!"

One quick note, for unsuspecting consumers: the dimension specifications on Antec's site are wrong. Well, actually, they're close. The metric values are correct, while the Imperial values have the depth and width switched. Having only a measuring tape in inches, I just looked at Imperial, only to find out now that the case won't fit in the space I have with proper ventilation. Oh well -- great case so I'll find another use for it!

Correct values:
- 5.5" (H) x 17.5" (W) x 16.3" (D)
- 14cm (H) x 44.5cm (W) x 41.4cm (D)

Correct values including punch-outs for side fans, feet, and thumscrew on the back:
- 5.75" (H) x 17.75" (W) x 17" (D)

Don't forget that both sides will need adequate breathing room.

When I picked up this case, the included PSU was screwed in 'upside down', ie, with the circuit board top and the heatsinks pointing downwards. Is this the preferred orientation?

That's the normal position in most cases. Doesn't really matter for traditional 80mm fan straight-through airflow PSU designs.

I never really paid any attention, what with there not usually being an option anyway. Thinking about it, I would expect that for the very-low-airflow ultra-silent-est designs, you'd want the electronics at the bottom, so the heat can rise to the top by convection and you would only need to move the more or less free air at the top with very low pressure, rather than necessarily force-cooling everything by pushing air through the rather complex structures on there.

Alternatively, I'm thinking of it as the fact that particularly if airflow becomes very low, then there'll be heat trapped above the PCB and just under it, in the lee of all the components, which'll find it hard to get away, so reversing the whole thing might allow minor convection effects to contribute to keeping the components a few degrees cooler for any given amount of power and airflow.

One option that occurred to me for modding would be to remove the existing fan and cut a great big gaping hole in the cover (covering the rear intake vents), and then softmount an ultra-low-speed (500-800 rpm or so) 120 mm fan on there (outside the PSU). On the plus side, bigger fan, same cfm, less rpm. On the minus side, the air path will be not at all straight, and so turbulence ahoy, high backpressure, and all that stuff you don't want.

Maybe if you take the cover and most of the rear off completely and mount a 120 mm fan and baffles such that it replaces the 80 mm more 'naturally'. On the minus side, you'd also need to find a new intake vent, as the side ones wouldn't work very well anymore.

More trouble than it's worth to mod this one, I guess.


On a complete sidenote: I want to put my MCE remote receiver somewhere in the case, where can I get that dark plastic stuff they use to cover up IR-transparent holes?

First post here, hi everyone!

I read thru the review article posted on the site about this case and eventually bought it. I had a few questions about it.

Another poster - MikeM - mentioned that a 70mm Acousti DustFree Fan can be mounted right below where the air flow baffles can be attached. Has anyone actually done this and is it effective? The reason I ask is because I am using a MSI K8ngm2-fid mobo in this case, and the northbridge gets too hot for my liking. Installing a 70mm fan sounds intriguing because the air would flow towards the northbridge hsf and out via the bottom right tri-cool fan.

One poster on Anandtech forums pointed out that he was using a 30mm fan ( EVERCOOL EC3010 ) on his northbridge and I was curious to see if anyone else has experience with this fan in regards to it's noise signature. Is there a more quiet 30mm fan available? I would prefer to go the 70mm fan because of the whine associated with smaller fans, but if there is a more quiet 30mm fan, then I'd rather pursue that option.

I really want to lower the rpms on the panaflo fan attached to my thermalright xp90 hsf but doing so, however, keeps any air from going over the northbridge, thus leaving the northbridge hsf really hot. I have the panaflo fan oriented downwards. Any suggestions/help appreciated!

(I apologize if there's too many item overlaps in this post)

Welcome to SPCR, gxshockwav!

I have been experimenting with putting a 70mm fan in the "intake" at the rear of the case. (Because the website dimensions were off, I realized after I got it that the case can only fit into its intended location if both sides, including the 120 fan grilles, are completely pressed against flat surfaces.) My experiment failed (not enough intake area for the PSU... or any for that matter), but it did prove that you can mount a fan there.

I used the 70mm fan that came with the AMD A64 stock cooler at 7V, and it was quieter than one TriCool at its lowest setting, and actually moved some worthwhile air. Used as an exhaust, it was in fact enough to keep my CPU temperature stable at below 60 degrees Celsius (Folding) with the side vents blocked off (all significant air coming from the top vent and the front bottom vent). If it weren't for the PSU being blocked off, I would have been moderately satisfied with this setup.

That paragraph doesn't really help you though. As for your situation, I don't think adding a fan there as an intake is going to improve your situation all that much. It does not add any airflow to the case (the 120mm fans running together, even at low speeds, surely pull more air than the 70mm fan, thus effectively negating the 70mm fan's airflow in the equation). Adding it as an exhaust would decrease the pressure in the system (probably adding noise to all exhaust fans as a result, and decreasing each fan's effectiveness) but cause more case airflow, thereby increasing your cooling. I would venture to say that it would be a better gain (taking noise into account) than increasing the speeds of other exhaust fans.

Sorry if it was hard to follow that paragraph. It's been a long, hot, tiring day.

Thanks for the reply (I would insert your handle here, but that would be a tad insulting) !

I wasn't intending on adding the 70mm fan as an exhaust. As you mentioned, it would kind of decrease pressure in the case...

What I really considered was adding the 70mm as an intake fan (above the PCI slots and towards the IO plate) just to blow some air over the northbridge heatsink on my Msi K8ngm2-fid mobo since it gets real hot. The idea was sort of to get some active intake going over the northbridge and then out via the 120mm Antec exhaust fan by the harddrive in the back of the case. It'd probably be better if I had some photos to illustrate what I intend to do though. The only problem is that the airflow pathway would be obstructed somewhat by the Thermalright XP90 HS...I realize adding the 70mm fan may not add much in terms of airflow, but if it allows me to throttle down the panaflo, while maintaining relatively good case temps, then I'm all for it.

The other option is to mount a 30mm fan on top of the northbridge HSF to cool it down, so that I can lower the speed of the 92mm Panaflo fan (FBA09A12L1BX) on my HSF as it is the noisiest thing in my system at full speed. I have it currently set at full speed since the air goes over the northbridge keeping it slightly cooler than when it's not at full speed. So ultimately, what I want is lower noise, but if anyone has experience with a quiet 30mm fan, besides ones of the evercool variety, it would be extremely helpful since I may end up getting one to strap onto the northbridge hs. The evercool is rated at about less than 21-23 dba on newegg...I doubt it's a dead-on fact, however, since all small fans will exhibit some sort of whine (just from personal experience).

I know it sounds like I reiterated a lot of what I wrote in the previous post, but hopefully it's a little more clear in regards to what I want to do. In terms of how I should proceed, any additional advice would be appreciated.

My system is currently up and running in the case: NSK2400, MSI K8NGM2-FID, 3200+ Venice, 2x256 PC3200, DVD-ROM, Barracuda V 120G (temporarily). Cable routing is fantastic, especially for a relatively small micro-ATX case. The ATX12V and ATX bundles run to the front of the case, along the 2 provided large cable ties, and then into the hole. The fan and power connectors are all clicked together and plug into the middle end of a 2-molex PSU cable, with the other end in the HD. The Tricool switches I have routed so that they fall into the recess that is provided by the top mounting holes in between the two fans, close together and easily reachable.

Just one thing missing, namely a strap that will hold the 'large bundle of left over PSU wires' (which we all know and love) in place in the right of the space above the PSU, where it does not interfere with airflow in any way. It's being held there with a piece of sticky tape, but not an awesome solution, that. With the PSU flipped over so that the bundle-o'-wires exits on the right, the configuration does work very well.

The little hole in the long bulkhead at the bottom left of the HD chamber, leading to the space under the CD cage is absolutely brilliant, it allows you to neatly tuck away excess wire from the front connector/button/light constellation, or even excess bits of ide cable etc, without interfering with any airflow.

A ZM-NBF47J will *not* mount to the GF6150 northbridge, because the hole spacing used is too small. At least I've not figured out how it'd go, yet.

The CPU cooler in my system is a passive modified Ninja (Arctic Silver 5). I removed the little 'bolthead' decoration on the heatpipes, removed 8 out of the 23 fins, and then bent the heatpipes around a screwdriver shaft as mandrel, the ones that were close to the fin edge to the inside and the other ones to the outside. It seems to be keeping my CPU cool very well with the Tricools on L, more data once I have a running system on it.

The layout of this case and the cable routing it makes possible are totally excellent. Antec may well be getting more of my custom next time I need a case.

Wow, I definitely want to see more about this -- passive Sempy, here I come. Would be interesting to see some photos inside your case!

In my build, I wound up running the main ATX power cable through the HDD/PSU divider's oval opening (under the optical drives tray). It worked wonders for my cable roouting, as I have rather tall sound card and hardware modem card in the bottom 2 PCI slots. I'm also a bit tempted to tape over the rear 70mm square vent and the HDD chamber vents that are not directly under the hard disks in order to force more airflow over them and through the VGA card vent slots on the top. Has anyone tried this?

Are you sure those boltheads are purely decorative? I'm not sure how bending the heatpipes is intended to improve heat transfer? A simple diagram or pic would help.

Yes. They're hollow chromed caps held on with hot-glue that cover over the ugly ends of the heatpipes themselves. Some gentle twisting action will break most of the bond, and then they twist-and-pull off fairly well.



Well, it's not supposed to help, but the Ninja as it stands is nearly two inches too high to fit in the NSK2400/Fusion case (unless you cut a big-ass hole in the top cover, of course), so the objective was essentially to cut the top third of the heatsink off. Getting the fins removed is basically a matter of using pliers to grip the fins (next to the heatpipes, as far in as your pliers go, is what works best for me) and gently work them upward, off the heatpipes, but then you still have the heatpipes themselves trying to stick their heads through your top cover, and bending them out of the way will allow you to put the top cover on.

The trick is bending them without making the bends too sharp, which might allow a pinprick hole to develop and the Magic Smoke that's inside to evaporate. Bending them without much pressure on the heatsink, mainly the screwdriver shaft used as mandrel with the upper heatpipe end, delivers reasonable looking bends.

If you could find a similar heatsink that fits as standard, that would obviously be a much better choice, but due to a size-and-processor-socket-compatibility mixup on my part I had ordered a Ninja a while back that I couldn't use anywhere for now, so I decided to try modifying that for my current purposes. Helped by the fact that other semi-passive heatsinks recommended in this thread, the Thermaltake Si-120/XP120 (I think they are called) are quite a bit more expensive than the Ninja Plus[1][2], I figured it was worth a shot.


[1] The Plus is the version including a 120 mm Scythe fan, otherwise much the same.
[2] The Ninja Plus was 35 euros, the Thermaltakes were 50-55.

Well, semi-passive, I suppose. The cut-down Ninja is still big enough to fill almost 1/4 of the volume of the motherboard chamber, and it ended up about half way between the first and the second 120mm Tricool exhaust, which means there's a lot of airflow going through it even without directly mounting a fan to it.

I'll try to make some photos tomorrow when the big yellow lightbulb out in that strange big blue room is turned on again, I've only got a 1.3 Mpix cameraphone available at the moment, which is utter crap at low-light and not that great at other times, so still don't expect the quality to be stellar.



Going through that side is a good idea. I'll have to check whether my MCE150s will fit as it is, but a longish PCI card is definitely blocked in the last slot position as I have it now. Taping up vents to force a longer airflow path sounds like it will probably work, but you'll create a lower pressure inside the case so the exhaust fans will have slightly more work to do and might get a bit noisier, and/or need to be set a bit higher for adequate cooling.

I think I *may* have found a way to fit the NBF-47 on the motherboard, although the positioning will be a bit awkward. But the stock heatsink is *so* small, and gets so hot[4], that I think it might well be worth it. One thing that bothers me is that the northbridge is an old-fashioned flip-chip design with the silicon slab exposed, and I've destroyed enough old Athlons to be leery of that. The stock heatsink has a small foam surround to keep it reasonably level, somewhat like the round pads on the later athlons, but it's very firmly attached to the heatsink, and not usable on a 3d party one.


[4] With the cover on and just regular 2D video usage, it gets to what my uncalibrated finger judges as 40-50C or so, with the cover off it gets to 60-70. I don't even want to think what 3D video would push it to.

First time poster here. I have 4 hard drives in this case plus my black LG H10N DVD Drive. Here is what I did. I put 2 250GB drives in the 3.5HD bays. I used 3 1/2" to 5" expansion braces to fit a 320GB Sata below the DVD Drive in the 5 1/4" bay.

For the 4th drive I thought of the space you mentioned above but when I actually looked at it was too small. Instead I took two (picture forthcoming) case slot covers and mounted them to the bottom of my 200GB IDE drive. I bent them a bit to make them act like suspension springs. I then took a rubber foot from one of my old cases and stuck it to the back of the HD and then placed it on the PSU.

I small piece of anti static strip separates the two and about 1cm of space...get plenty of airflow and the drive is quiet as can be.

I will illustrate with a picture to get a better idea of what I did.

Either way It got me my 4 Hard drives and 1 optical. I loved the case but wanted to ensure I could get all my tv shows and downloads archived for use with Media Portal.

Sorry guys, I just have to point this out:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article592-page2.html

"Those who like to tweak there RAM settings should be very happy with this."

That should be "their".

Also,

"Presumably, it never actually reached this value (that would be mathematically impossible)"

From my circuits class, I seem to recall that it's not mathematically impossible. It may be impossible to implement in reality (or impossibly difficult), but I don't see why it would be mathematically impossible.

Both fixed, and the formatting fixed up as well. Thanks for the catch.

I am in the process of building a new HTPC/server and I want a better heatsink than the stock AMD heatsink. I will be using an amd 3500+ AM2 cpu and an asus M2NPV-VM motherboard and of course the nsk2400. Since this is an AM2 cpu it limits my choices, I have read in here of what will not fit, but are there any recomendations of what will fit. I have found an article ( see link: http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getart ... rticID=451 ) that lists which ones will work with the new AM2 bracket but not sure which is my best choice. Two Of the ones that I am looking at are the aerocool xfire http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835129045 and the nmedia icecone http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835133008 I don't think the aerocool is to tall and I would be replacing the 120 fan with a yate loon. Anybody have any other suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

a/c Alpine if it works with am2