Here's a nice quiet build I did over a year ago in an Antec 300 case.



Case: Antec 300
CPU: Intel E6750
RAM: 2 x 2GB Team Dark DDR2 1066
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
Video Card: MSI HD2600XT Fanless Heatpipe
PSU: Antec Neo HE550
HDD: WD Green 500GB
DVD: DVR-215BK
HSF: Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme with Artic Cooling AF 12025 PWM
Intake Fan: Noctua NF-S12 1200
Exhaust Fan: 120mm Antec TriCool
Blowhole Fan: 140mm Antec TriCool

It is a very quiet case by most people's standards, but i'd have to say that on the whole, I wasn't very happy with the 300 case. I have seen much better cheaper cases.

The 2 TriCool fans the 300 comes with are fairly rubbish. When the case was new, the 120mm fan would not always start up on the lowest setting. This was a known manufacturing fault and Antec offered to send me a new fan if I would send them a photo of the old fan with one of the blades snapped off so they would know I wasn't going to reuse it. I didn't bother, but after a few months of running in, the fan worked properly. The fans still make too much noise for my liking.

I'm quite happy with how neat the insides of the case are on this build though.

Mods to case: Fan grilles cut out, holes cut for wiring.

Still to do: Elastic mount the hard drive. Replace all the fans with quieter ones (mainly the TriCools, becuase the 12025 on the Heatsink hardly ever starts up and it only runs very slowly).

I do like the neatness, well done with that.

very nice wiring job
what's with the power cable that goes from the hdd to the dvd? i own a neohe so i know that there isn't that much space between sata connections, did you mod the cable? it would make the half sleeving make sense.
and suspend the hdd already! compared to cutting holes into metal its a piece of cake.

let me point you to pccasegear for nexus fans, $12 is very very cheap.

Very nice indeed. Love the clean cabling.

Can I ask for a pic of the other 'back' side of the case behind the mobo tray area showing the wiring holes you've cut?

I second porkchop's recommendation of PCCaseGear - you can also get a 140mm Yate Loon 1000rpm fan there to replace the top exhaust in the 300.

The power cable mod... I remember now! It was very simple to do. All I did was unclip the connector from its old position and clip it back onto the wire a bit further down. It would have required a bit of force to push the pins through the wire though. I probably laid the wire on some cardboard then pushed the connector down onto it.

I don't have a pic of the other side of the case, but i'll take one when I get the chance.

Will check out PCCaseGear!

The cables are so neat they look almost... almost GERMAN! Good work.

that's because the bearing is DESTROYED, as evidenced by it's failing to speed up at the start. that's not a known manufacturing fault, it's an anomaly that got past QC. Antec offered to make it right, you declined. dont fault them for your laziness.

WRT your cable job, very impressive. i've never seen a 300 that looked cleaner. proof that a clean cable job can be done in an open bottom-mount PSU case. (open meaning lacking the extra interior metalwork of the P180 and the like.)

Thanks!

Oh the bearings are good. Antec sold thousands of 120mm TriCools like this for a few months. I had others, but I got rid of them all. I'm not faulting them for my laziness, i'm faulting them for selling bad fans for many months. Before I even bought the case, many people were already mentioning the problem with the TriCools. I thought they must be anomolies, but it happened to me too, and with other 120mm TriCools that I bought on their own.

Compared to a standard PC fan, the TriCools are quieter, but they fall short when compared to many other "silent" fans. The 140mm fan always worked properly but even on the lowest setting it is still the noisiest thing in the system most of the time.

I recently got an Antec NSK2480B which comes with two 120mm TriCool fans. They both start up properly, but i'll be replacing them with quieter fans. So to Antec's credit, they've rectified the problem.

I have a few more cases which came out pretty neat. I'll post them up soon. They're much, much cheaper cases than the Antec though

one of my antec cases came with an extra tricool just to cover themselves in case any were faulty. not sure what to do with the fuckers now...


nice job. was just looking at the 300 if it was any good. is it solidly built at the front? building a machine for a boy who can have a temper, and may kick the thing...

just install an accelerometer circuit breaker in series with main power line and if he kicks it, he will think he broke it LOL

garenteed no second kick.


O.P. NICE build. It almost looks like its not even wired at first glance!
I'm impressed. I think cable management, even in cases without a side window, is a beautiful thing. theres just something cool about being able to see all of the board and heat sinks in their sexy glory.

nice job

No, that's because Antec use cheap, awful lubricants.

The 300 is a very lightweight case, not the sturdiest by far.

I dented my front bezel trying to pull it out of my desk. The mesh in front is not really supported by anything so it will deform. I managed to bend it back in place, but a hard kick would render it quite beyond repair.

I would have a hard time building a machine for a child who is incapable of taking care of it properly. Maybe a Panasonic Toughbook would be a better option?

very tidy case I wish I had a modular PSU:

Thats a really nice setup you have, and its quite neat and organized inside which I just love.

Just curious, what are the temps like in there?

I would turn the Thermalright by 90° and remove the rear Tricool, so he would have a vertical air path through the GPU and CPU heatsinks.