Spent alot of time and effort into researching components for this build, everything from the hard drive to the motherboard, to the Fans and Thermal Paste, went through 2 cases, 4 motherboards, 2 graphics cards to get to this stage, but I think I have come off good.

Anyway here it is, it's a Pretty Fast rig...



All fans used are 120MM, Used Rubber Mounts for all Case Fans, chose to use the New Seagate 2.5" HD's as they are Quiet, Fast and Use Little Power, Tried to make the cables as neat as possible, just need to tidy the SATA cables up a bit though....


Specs..

Antec P182
Enermax Liberty 500Watt [Replaced Fan]
Asus P5KC [Rock Solid]
Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.06 GHZ
4 x 1 GB DDR2 800 [OCZ Platinum Rev. 2 @ 804MHZ 4,4,4,15]
Pioneer SATA BD-ROM [BDC-202]
Samsung SATA DVDRW [SH-183]
2 x Seagate 120gb 7200.2 [2.5" 7200RPM 8MB SATA2]
MSI 8800 GTX OC [610/2000]
Audigy 2 ZS
Dual DVB-T PCI-E x 1 [Terratec 2400i DT]
SIIG 2 Port SATA2 Controller PCI-E x 1


Cooling...

Top Case Fan = Noctua 1200RPM@ 7.5V
Rear Case Fan = Nexus 1000RPM @ 7V
Front Case Fan = Nexus 1000RPM @ 7V
PSU Chamber Fan = Noctua 1200RPM @ 7.5V

PSU Fan = Scythe 1200RPM S-Flex@ 12V

CPU Cooler = Scythe Ninja+ Nexus 1000RPM @ 7V

VGA Cooler = Thermalright HR-03 Plus+ Scythe 800RPM S-Flex @ 12V

HDD Cooler = 3 x Scythe Quiet Drive 2.5
HDD Adapter = Icydock 2.5" E-Sata Enclosure + 3.5" Bay Adapter


Temps...

CPU: 38-45 Idle, 50-55 Load
Mobo: 45 Idle, 49-52 Load
VGA: 62-66 Idle, 76-82 Load

With Stock Cooler, VGA was 78 Idle 90 Load, so HR-O3 Made a big difference in Temps and Noise.
8800GTX is to blame for High CPU & Mobo temps as it gives off alot of heat, without it CPU & Mobo Temps drop by 5 Degrees...,
Funny thing is When I take the Side Case Panel off All 3 temps drop by 5-6 degrees, probably because with Panel on some of the Heat from VGA was stuck in the expansion card area, but it can escape when Side Panel is off, may need some kind of Expansion Card Vent Mod in Side Panel?

All in all happy with machine, to me it is still not quiet, loudest component would be PSU Fan, still though it's quieter than any 3.5" Hard Drive...

You definently want to get a pci slot cooling fan,
The video card and cpu heatsinks are incredibly close together with the fan right there, so it might be that you have reduced air flow because of the size and space of them right there. I'm assuming you have the air flowing front to back?

Front to back, no slot cooler, to loud, system is fine with them temps, but VGA fan is blowing down on card, so warm air from cpu is blowing down on card and hot air staying near expansion slots, front fan is blowing cold air across vga card and some hot air out of the case... Also have two fans to get rid of CPU heat, top and rear which spin faster than VGA fan...

what's the point of the grille over the fan in the PSU chamber? i doubt anyone will be sticking fingers in there,

Well, you could always make your own slot fan with some plastic (or some sort of flexible material), tape, and a nexus fan. Just use the nexus to pull air out and push it through the makeshift vent?

Anyways, the system looks really nice and the system temps are pretty damn good for what you've got in there Are the ram timings stock or did you OC it?

To make safe that no cables will come in the fan?

Prettys nice setup.

Exactly, worried them Hard drive cables might come loose, as the Hard Drive Enclosures Use SATA Data+ Power Extension cable, and 3 of them is a lot of cable..., was hard getting that grill in, but managed ot fix it using the Noctua Rubber Fan Mounts, who needs screws?..

Stock, althoguh even if they were 5,5,5,15 would not make much of a difference..., to be honest I have a Barebone running X24600+ 2GB Ram & Slower Hard Drive and it beats this machine is startup time, nothing wrong with this machine, just that for some reason that machine flies, it's like the size of an Xbox 360 to and pretty quiet..., will post pic comparison...

You want it as silent as possible ... with (as far as I can count) 6 fans ?
I'm sure you can safely eliminate some.

Your CPU heatsink is a mess of competing fans. You've got one on top exhausting, one on the bottom exhausting, one on the right blowing in, and one on the left blowing out. I'd eliminate the fan on the right, and reverse the direction of the fan on top of the HR-03, but that is just me. I realize the scythe @800 rpm is probably the quietest fan there, but it's really not needed in my opinion.

Also a question for you. Do you think the tv-capture card is best suited in this machine? The GTX at idle uses more juice than most whole systems. I would suggest moving it to a diff system, but that is, like before, just my opinion. The sheer size of the HR-03 and ninja makes for an interesting dilemma.

Nice system btw. Is that a microsoft USB x-box controller for the PC I spy? Also, your not one of those people who leaves the plastic on the case for as long as possible are you? o.O

7 Actually, take a pick?, impossible to get any of them out without dismataling half of the system... except Myabe the CPU one, all the other fans VGA are able tied to other wires...

The top and bootom fans are reversed, nothing I can do the Scythe can only be used that way otherwise the blades hit the VGA heatsink, shame isn't it, all the other fans don't offer the same Noise/Airflow, except the Nexus but it cannot be used horizontally as it generates a clicking noise..

I'll keep the Fan on the Ninja , a Passive ninja on a E6400 hit 50 Degrees idle in a mates machine..

Also I calculated the total Power required for the system many times at should be enough with maybe 15W at least to spare, would never reach as high as calculated though.. Was going to go with 400W, 500W is more than enough.. also your forgetting i'm using laptop hard drives that use 5W each compared to 25W from a typiclal hard drive, so 20W instead of 100W...The Enermax is a great PSU by the way, with the Nexus 1000RPM it was Near Silent, but that generated a clicking noise so next best match was 1200RPM scythe, which is the noisiest component in the system...

As for the TV capture card,was thinking of swapping it for a decklink intensity pro...
My only problem is that the HR-03 is not long enough, image two 120MM fans.... , although the heatsink puts stress on the card, the front started to been, nothing a cable tie won't fix, check the pic of it..

As for the 360 pad, your right, it's wireless using the 360 Wireless reciever for PC, great for Jericho or Crysis...

Plastic Yes... , never know when you need ot five into the system, so when you lay it on it's side it won't get scratched...I still have the plastic on my xbox bought in 2001....

Its a shame about that, because intuitively I would have thought you should have it pushing air upwards. It would be interesting to see what your temps did if you could have that orientation.


I had one of these and was completely frustrated with it... Microsoft don't offer any calibration software and the dead zones really needed work... playing Need For Speed the car would either go left or right when you let go of the thumbstick. Have you been able to fix this or didn't you have any problems?

Consider the simple mods suggested here -- P180/182/190 Intake Airflow Restriction: A simple solution. They might get you the 5-6C drop in temp that you now get when you remove the side door.

btw, you know your case airflow is really optimized when the load temps actually go downwith the side cover on. This happens with the SPCR video card test rig.

Hi!

I agree with MikeC. It's really improving air flow - I got 4-5 degree less just cuting grills.
About your OC'ed CPU - I think that you can push much more. I have Ninja without any fan and my E6600 is happy to go even above 3510MHz (I have to discusse this with my mobo ). But before you wil try to do this:
1. Mod your P182
2. re-think your fans setup

PS. Sorry guys for poor spelling - english is not my first language.

I also agree that the vga fan should be pointing upwards, it shouldn`t be so difficult to work around the cable clearance issue.
I would also attempt to eliminate the back exhaust fan and the fan on the ninja, keeping only the top exhaust and vga fans.

To me I guess a few small scratches on the side look better than plastic covering the whole thing, which also gets scratched over time, and can look much worse. Also not transparent so it discolors the whole panel. But that is just me. It's kind of like those stickers that come on home audio recievers and laptops. A lot of people leave them on, cause they think their cool. And that annoys me.

btw you can put a towel down if you have to flip it on the side, or do it on carpet.

I already put a towel down

I had one of these and was completely frustrated with it... Microsoft don't offer any calibration software and the dead zones really needed work... playing Need For Speed the car would either go left or right when you let go of the thumbstick. Have you been able to fix this or didn't you have any problems?[/quote]

I never had that problem, but when I ahd the xbox 1 pad and used that on the PC with XBCD drivers games like far cry had that problem, far cry on the xbox 360 has that problem to, so I think it's a bug in the game nothing to do with the pad/deadzones...

Sorry I don't understnad, can you explain?, my temps are better wiht the case panel off, not that I leave it off, as I explained since there is no VGA side duct removing the case lets the HOT from the GPU out fo the case...