You know, since you put it that way, I guess I can understand it.

I have recently got in the habit of tucking cables under the motherboard for airflow sake but sometimes it's a real pain to keep them there.
Question: Is it safe to use packaging tape (or something else) between the MB and the case to keep pesky wires underneath where you want them? Is this tape at risk of melting? I have not yet done any such taping just curious.

If anything in your system is hot enough to melt packing tape then you may want to get a fire extinguisher nearby, because something is really cooking!!

Seriously, that stuff will hold almost up to 100C, when the waterbased adhesive boils, but it would most likely delaminate well before that. But no, it should definitely not melt, and as it is not conductive, it won't hurt anything. Vinyl, or "electrical" tape, would be better, but it doesn't stick as well and can be a little cumbersome to work with.

BTW, the above statements are assuming you mean the brown packaging tape and could be applied to clear box tape as well, but not Scotch tape or cellophane tape as it is sometimes called.

For me, if I built a system like this, I'd use a smaller case, as well. Why pay more for a case this size when most of the space goes unused and can create more problems with airflow (hotspots, dead-air zones, cable routing, etc)?

Doesn't that design ensure that the cool/warm air from the upper chamber doesn't mix with the cool/warm air from the lower chamber? I'm told by Nick that MikeC helped design the P180 for Antec, so I'm sure there's a purpose for it. Is it really a good idea to take out all of those dividers? Granted that those dividers are the only thing I dislike about the case. I really love open cases but I got the P180 because it was sound dampening and had excellent ventilation. But now that I'm getting into modding and reducing noise and vibration, etc... I don't feel so comfortable with how things are.

I believe nici's post was laced with sarcasm.

Really, the P180 is a great case--but it's not an easy case to work with. There are really too many options of what CAN be done for the average "Quiet oriented builder". In skilled hands, it's a great case. But in the hands of a novice, things can get real ugly real quick.

We've also got some good cases now that are carrying forward some of the concepts from the P180 and other quiet-oriented cases. The P150/Solo is a good example of something that didn't exist before P180 and is a VERY good platform for a very simple quiet build. Better, in many ways, than the P180...

The SPCR/endpcnoise "Model One" is a great example of something that wasn't possible 2 years ago--a VERY quiet full-speed Intel box with VERY minor mods. I mean, really. Nexus the fan, Ninja the heatsink, duct the PSU, Acoustipak and DONE. Quiet. Sure makes the stuff I did to that poor, poor Sonata 'back in the day' seem foolish.

Of course, "Her" machine is WAY quieter than "His" at this point. In spite of near-continuous tweaking on my box. It sure is amazing what low-power CPU and GFX does for reducing heat...

-Patrick

Well im not saying everyone should cut their P180 to pieces, but it is a lot roomier with that stuff gone I am very creative when i need to stay awake for 24 hours.

jeremy...

Iv'e been watching your post, with some humor, and some head shaking. Myself, i think you have done a great job. It takes a certain amount of guts to spend a lot of money on a case, and then start cutting it up. What really sets you apart is that you also posted it... BRAVO !!

If you get a chance, take a look at my post in the General forum http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=37697

I did a couple of the things you talked about, but i also modified where my power supply cables go. I respect that making it a neat looking case was not your first priority. But i think that you have started cleaning it up, and that is great.

I was pretty much doing what you started, and then said to heck with it, i want to do this and i want to do that. There are a lot of experts on here, that helped me make some decisions. There were also a few who maybe aren't that smart, but i wont go into that.

Just one thing jeremy... do it your way! Your the guy who is gonna have to live with that case, long after everyone else stops posting here.

Good luck, and keep up the good work.

Yes, I know... I know... I'm craaaazyyyy! I get that a lot.
I'm new and inexperienced and screwing some things up according to others but it's nice to experience it. I like the ability to let everyone know my progress on something that means a lot to me.
I'm the kind of person who will get it to look like a really crappy job before making it look impressive.
I'm missing a small part of my MasterCraft toolkit that allows me to attach the cutting disk necessary to cut around the fan grill to make it look better. I'm getting a replacement tomorrow and after it is cut I will polish it to look much better.
Stay tuned!

Remember this?



I removed it altogether. It doesn't add structural support and was only there for appearance
and allow the drive holder to be screwed in, which I didn't do. I grabbed the same pair of pliers
and tore it out in 5 minutes with my bare hands before going to work early this afternoon, was fun!



As you can see, there is more room now that it is gone. Even now, my HDDs are thanking me and enjoying the additional space.



I moved all the unused PSU cables underneath of the PSU.
It was a tight fit but the PSU has more room to draw air in.
The angle the image was taken doesn't do it justice, though.



Following in EndoSteel's (after BlueFront's method) example, I finally suspended my rear fan
with elastic and do notice a difference in the "whirling" noise seemed to have been cut in half.
I realize the elastic isn't 100% and maybe sometime come undone and cause the fan to fall
(as you can see the elastic doesn't come out the bottom right screw hole. It did before I tightened
the elastic. I will adjust it properly tomorrow before work. I'll see if I can add rubber thingies
between the case and the fan.


Yup, did that as well, see the two images below.

..........


Here's the updated pic of my case all-over.


I'm going to change my HDD suspension pretty much to match what is displayed here.

Suggestions? Comments? Positive criticism?
What could I do to secure the elastic? I'm going to Canadian Tire on Thursday so feel free to mention anything I can get from there to improve my existing changes.

Thank you all,
Jeremy

You're doing just fine, Jeremy. All of us need to hack up at least one case when we get started. I had a BQE back in the day when they were the best quiet case you could get, and I never hesitated to hack it apart if it didn't suit my silencing purposes. I learned a lot. We only make progress through making mistakes.

I'm surprised to see that stock CPU heatsink still there. Isn't it the loudest component in your system? I say go and buy a Zalman flower cooler and swap the fan out (because the included fan is a noisy piece of poo) for a Yate Loon or something. It's quite easy to do, and should make a world of difference. Look at the pictures half-way down the following page for an idea about what I'm talking about.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article591-page7.html

When I was quieting my computer, I would open the case, boot it up, grab my flashlight and "patented circular-motion inhibitor" (my finger) and press my finger on the hub of various fans until I was pretty sure what was the loudest noise source. Then I'd attack that source until it was no longer the loudest. I think if you start your machine up and then put your finger on the hub of your CPU fan for a moment, you'll realize you'd gain much better results changing that out than you will by changing the suspension of your hard drives.

Does that make sense? I feel like your trying to improve parts of your computer that are already quite quiet while the noisiest part is being ignored.

Anyways, like I said, you're making great progress in general , and the things you learn now will ensure years of silent computing ahead. Keep up the good work!

jeremy...

What wussboy was saying is correct. That stock heatsink fan probably is whinning, cause they run those things as a pretty high speed cause the fan is so small. Not sure i would go with the Zalman flower heatsink/fan tho. I have that arrangement, and i had to use SpeedFan to slow it down to about 60% of it's original speed. I now have mine running around 1700 rpm's, and i think it still needs to be modified some more. I even went out and bought a Ninja to replace it, but the Ninja did not do as good a job as the Zalman. Not sure what the answer is, but i did find that putting the top fan back in, but having it blow DOWN onto the Zalman definately dropped the CPU temps by 2 to 3C.

I think your case is starting to really shape up nicely. Removing that sheetmetal at the bottom front is exactly what i did, and then i put a very slow turning fan in there. It was a tight squeeze, but it keeps my SATA drives that are in the lower hard drive cage nice and cool.

Keep up the good work !

Now THAT's progress.

Getting better looking with every change. Careful, now that you've got the bug, you can be contagious!!

Like the previous posts said. CPU cooler is obviously the next think to modify. The Zalman flowers are excellent heatsinks (I have two) though the fans aren't all that great, but they can be swapped easy enough. And while I think the crossed elastic band method with the HDDs mounted horizontally is the most effective for silencing HDDs, your method may be quiet enough and make it more stable so the HDDs won't move around when being moved. Like I said, I did something VERY similar to that in my first suspension attempt. I just didn't like the way it looked. I can be vain at times.

You may want to consider going back to straight ribbon cables for the disc drives (I assume the bottom one is a floppy). They are much easier to fold (called cablegami) and tuck out of the way than rounded cables. And supposedly, rounded cables aren't as good as ribbons, but I don't know how an average user could tell.

The PSU compartment looks better and I'm sure your PSU thanks you for the fresh air. There's just not much you can do with big thick cables like that, which is why modular PSU are now the hot item.

Looks good though, keep plugging away at it.

@WussBoy - I realize how it seems I'm giving my quiet parts all the attention while ignoring the louder ones. I supposose this is both true and false. While I haven't focused on the loud hardware, I was merely being adventurous with elastic suspension of the HDDs and fan and etc. I do find the CPU fan loud, the VGA Silencer isn't silent especially when first booting the system up, but it keeps my video card down many degrees.
I want to get a Scythe Ninja because I read SPCR's review top to bottom and thought it was excellent. Providing that I have good airflow I could even use it fanless. I also want to get the Thermalright High Riser (the fanless heatsink with heatpipes that goes under and behind my video card). This may or may not be the best choice, but temperature monitors help point out what wins and what looses.

@JohnFL - I say Scythe, you say Zalman, someone else will say Arctic Cooling like I was a few weeks ago (lol). I like to get it from those who are actually using these products I see advertised and in reviews. You might like this link.

@jhhoffma - Yes, I still intend on changing the IDE cable for the DVD-ROM. I'm interested in the "modular" PSUs Nick Geraedts has shown me. The Seasonic looks cool. As mentioned above, I will change the HDD suspension later.

I'm surprised no one commented on my suspended fan. I will take clearer pics and change the post as well.

Off to work I go (call centre... 8 hours of stupid people... )

Thank you all,
Jeremy

Just a small update, I just ordered a Scythe Ninja (on sale for $11.40 off the regular price!) and Thermalright HR-05-SLI High Riser from the guys at NCIX (based in BC). I should have the parts next week sometime.

That's an excellent price on a Ninja. Just be aware that you may need to blow another $15 or so on the universal retention kit to get a good tight fit...

4:11 AM... am I ever tired... Off to bed after this post.

I redid the elastic suspension of my HDDs, though I didn't do a very god job. Picture.

I also redid the elastic suspension of my rear fan which I like a lot better and is much more snug. Still missing the rubber grommets between the fan and case to further reduce the vibration, though. Unfortunately, no picture of that. I'll take one tomorrow.

I cleaned off the stock thermal paste from the GPU: Picture, and replaced it with AS5. Check out my master application skill: Picture. (Notice the memory pad I removed, realized and stuck back on as best I could during installation )
Unfortunately, the temperature seems to have gone up 3C, so perhaps the contact isn't as good as the AS5 layer isn't as thick as the stock one was. Maybe it's because I didn't get 100% of the stock stuff off and it's interfering with the proper heat transfer.

I was going to redo the paste on my CPU but I figured I'd wait until I got the Scythe Ninja.

That's all. *yawn* ZZZzzzz.....

Ok, major update. Scythe Ninja and ThermalRight High-Riser received and installed, with a slight hitch, but more on that later.

My stock heatsink cowards in the shadow of the mighty Ninja!



Top view:



The Scythe Ninja installed (which was very easy on my S939).



The High-Riser installed (which was part of the hitch I mentioned).



This is Mr. Hitch... due to the Scythe's size, both aluminum heatsinks make contact.
Nick suggested that since it uses heatpipes I could bend it a little to compensate for that.
There's no way I could fit a 4cm fan on it, though.



As a side-effect I was unable to properly seat the High-Riser, but I might be able to adjust
this once I bend the aluminum.



Once my system is back up and running, you can see more of how squeezed in it is
and how crooked (uneven) the seating is.



Slightly closer and a different angle.


With both heatsinks running fanless, my temperatures are as follows:

Idle/Load
CPU - 38/47
GPU - 45/64
North Bridge - 45/49
I ran a GPU benchmark for 5 hours to get full load.

As always comments, suggestions, and positive criticism is welcome from all.

Cheers all,
Jeremy

Nicely done, considering that you don't even have a fan on the Ninja.

Well, I may put a fan on it at some point but I was tired of not sitting down at my PC and relaxing to music so I just installed what needed to be and put it back together. The Scythe can be run passively which is the first time I've ever run a CPU with passive cooling.
I'm not happy that the heatsinks touch each other and if I do bend it then I wouldn't be able to send it back for a refund if I decide that the Vantec Iceberg is better (since the fan wasn't that noisy and cooled it by a good 10 degrees than what it's running now passively. As mentioned previously, due to the lack of space I wouldn't be able to fit a fan on it. I'm into some costly trial-and-error now.

Have you tried to put the NB heatsink on upside down so that it extends below the vid card? I know that it might interfere with the vid card cooler, but it's hard to tell how much.

Just a thought...

I was talking with a friend about doing that earlier. I'll give it a try.

I tried rotating the North Bridge heatsink but it pressed against the NV Silencer fan. I really like the Scythe so if I wanted to have the High Riser fit properly, would it be a good idea to polish away some of the Scythe a bit? What's a safe temperature for the North Bridge? Mine's 46C with either the Vantec fan or the ThermalRight. Waste of money if you ask me. The Vantec is silent. I continue to run the Scythe fanless. Idle temperature is 36C, full load is 50C.
I haven't managed to go to Canadian Tire yet but when I do I'll be able to finish up my fan grills, put some rubber things between my rear case fan and the case, and also cut away some space in the bottom front to allow a 12cm fan for HDD cooling.
I've currently got my entire system out of the case and on my desk here next to me. It's easier to switch parts this way and to work on the case.

NB cooling is a beyatch sometimes...

Other than going with a different HS, I don't know what other options you have...

If you're happy you're happy then no problem If you want to peek at a slightly flatter one the links in my sig with long instructions on how I laid it out (some asked for a how to build guide elsewhere). Cables look pretty neat in the later pics, but you might wanna try running them flat against the empty section next to your motherboard with some cable ties and anchors rather than bundled in the air... of course without the front fan now, the airflow difference is probably negligible.

For me, I was using very low RPM fans which are super quiet, but as a result keeping the cable clutter as close to the case as possible to avoid blocking any airflow over the motherboard or insulating any mb components by being too close was important.

My computer actually sounds louder with the side on now. I am pretty sure the issue is turbulence with the honeycomb fan grilles; that with the side on the exhaust is forced out of them rather than just meandering aroudn the case. I'm pretty loathe to carve my case up but... I guess if its all I can do now ;/ Did you find cutting out the honeycombs really helped much with the low rumbly 'air woosh' or was it just a fan hack and slash?

I run at 33degrees idle and 56 degrees loaded with 2 prime95s after 2 hours at 3.2ghz on a E6600 (2.4ghz stock), but I'm using an S-Flex on my HS. I'm fiddling with stability... I had it ok at 3.6ghz but the temps were sky high after I had to stick the core voltage up to 1.4 to get it there (1.4v actual, higher in bios), and so I backed off a bit for coolness rather than stability reasons.

Looks fun keep posting, you're going to help me overcome my fear of the dremel

It's more likely that the noise is resonating inside the case when it get's louder with the sidepanel on. Some foam on the panel would most likely cure that.

nici,

I gotta ask, what the hell does your sig say? I tried a translation on it and the only words that translated were, one, two, three...six.

Are you counting peppercorns? Is that something the Finns do in their spare time?

I am culturally intrigued by this...

Sockboy,

I use foam on my SLK3000B. It takes up almost all of the panel, only being trimmed enough so I can lock down the panel. But it's wedged in their pretty tight. That keeps my panel from vibrating without mass loading the panel. My case is pretty heavy already and I don't want to add more mass because of where it's placed in my desk. It's too hard to get out to clean if it's too heavy.

[OT]


I think it's kind of like a Finnish/Swedish version of:



i.e. a tongue-twister
[/OT] now back on topic...

Hmm, I might give that a try, though I don't mind it has it is now.


Even cutting out the honeycomb grill reduced the air "whooshing" sound by half. The fan is absolutely silent on low, I can barely hear it with my ear almost right on it.


I'm running at 38C while idle and 50C during full load with the Scythe Ninja fanless.


No, my Vantec Iceberg chipset fan is now buzzing. It might be the video card pressed down too much where the NV Silencer presses slightly on the fan, not sure. My temperatures remained the same as the Iceberg with the ThermalRight fanless, so I will replace it once more and somehow make it work.

I detest 2 cases...

p180 and Antec 900.

Both have power supplies on the bottom and both no matter how hard you try are difficult and a pain in the arse for people like me who build pcs for a living to WIRE neatly.. grrr

It's in Swedish, if i translate it directly i think it is "One peppercorn in a copper kettle" and so on, the point is to see how many peppercorns in a copper kettle you can count without getting it wrong