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acaurora's BLACK P180 ;P (Narrowband warning!)

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 8:27 am
by acaurora
ok, so if any of you have read, my 6800 Ultra's memory went bad, and I was meaning to upgrade anyways, so here we are with the finished product, minus the neat cabling -

Antec P180 SPCR Edition
Seasonic S12-600 Rev. A2 (Quieter, supposedly?)
2 x 1 GB OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 PC3200 DDR RAM
DFI LanParty nF4-SLi-DR (latest BIOS - 6/23 i think)
BFG 7800 GTX OC
2 x WD740 RAID 0 - 16K Cluster (upper 3.5" Chamber with Nexus 120mm fan)
-Lower Chamber, no fan, I may put the 38mm back in later-
200 GB 7200.7 Seagate
200 GB Maxtor DM9+
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Pioneer 8x DVD Burner
Koolance EXOS Aluminum with M1A fanswap
Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic


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The all-mighty P180 case (and my dog wondering what I'm doing drooling at the box)
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The really cool SPCR logo on the lower right of the front door - I wish we could use graphics in our sigs, that would be awesome!
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The 4 HDDs / Creative X-Fi ExtremeMusic waiting to be installed. X-Fi makes BF2 sound so amazing...
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Here you can see the front with the door open, including the HDD indicator light (the diagonal blue light)
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The inside of my computer. Yes I know it's really messy. I'll fix it later on...
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Closer look inside. Don't ask why I have a chipest waterblock just hanging there, it's from my old rig which used to cool the 6800, and I figured it was too big of a mess to disconnect it and use just the CPU block alone.
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Here if you look carefully you'll see the maglev chipset fan DFI uses. It's not that bad, really. It's amazing how much better (quieter) these chipset fans are...
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Here you see the king of them all - the 7800 GTX. Mike suggested I open a PCI slot cover to help with cooling it. And it too is rather quiet!
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More of my messy wiring.
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Well I figured having the upper exhaust fan was sort of necessary, so I installed the rear spoiler, stuck my EXOS on top of it (moving the EXOS forward would risk it falling), and there we go!
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Door closed, case badges applied, POWER ON!
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Another closeup of the SPCR logo. I think those are fingerprints you see... ;P

Now you'd think this thing would be noisy, right? WRONG. This rig is VERY quiet. Even at maximum load like in BF2, it does get a little more noticable, but still, is very quiet. The most piercing sound is the chipset fan, which is very noticable once it ramps up, but it doesn't happen a lot, and still is rather quiet ;P At idle I can barely hear the other fans, as the slight buzzing of the EXOS drowns it out from under the desk. I am very satisfied with my build, and will, as I said, fix the cabling later on to appeal to those people with neat and clean philosophies ;P

The case in itself is a marvel - I love the laminated panels - tapping them makes a very dead *thud*, there is silicone lying nearly everywhere, even in the PSU brackets, the silicone washers are VERY soft, and even the case feet are extremely soft. Rolled edges everywhere, not a single cut! ;P

Feel free to bash or compliment. ;P

One thing I want to let perspective P180 buyers know - if you plan on having IDE ATA drives in the lower cage, be sure to have a LONG IDE cable. Mine has just a tiny bit of slack, but still is rather tight =[..., same with the 24 pin ATX power cable.

Re: acaurora's BLACK P180 ;P (Narrowband warning!)

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 9:50 am
by wim
very nice acaurora although i think your pics are a bit too big. what on earth is inside that exos thing?
acaurora wrote:Feel free to bash
1. get those 3 tacky stickers off the front of that beautiful case, and
2. get rid of that dog. i hate those little dogs :twisted:

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 10:14 am
by teknerd
1. wim: quiet you, little dogs kick ass. I have a similar dog and he is the greatest dog ever.

2: acaurora, nice, but take off those case badges and that wiring, oh how it pains me to see such a rats nest.

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 10:39 am
by acaurora
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Badges go POOF! ;P My camera with the flash shows every single bit of dust. lol. and those white streaks on the front are actually a reflection of the table leg.

And yes, I will fix the cabling later on lol...

Re: acaurora's BLACK P180 ;P (Narrowband warning!)

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 10:40 am
by acaurora
wim wrote:very nice acaurora although i think your pics are a bit too big. what on earth is inside that exos thing?
3 M1As and a really BIG radiator, as well as 2 pumps.

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 7:35 pm
by BrianE
Hahaha, cute dog! :D

Neat design of the SPCR logo too.... didn't know it looked that way. Man, if I had some extra cash lying around I'd probably get one of those cases just for the sake of it.

Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 2:54 pm
by acaurora
Ok so I tried everything I could to fix the cabling - the result is very marginal - I really don't like the lack of flexibility for routing wires with this case - still I think it was worth the price I paid for the design;P

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EDIT: K tried to fix some more:
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Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2005 5:53 pm
by AZBrandon
WOW!! That is almost exactly what I'm looking to build in the next month or two, except with the S12-430 and a 6800GT. It's nice to know it all fits and works!

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 12:03 am
by acaurora
Well, just to let you know I removed the VGA duct and the plastic plate at the bottom and routed pretty much all of the power cables I needed through the leftmost square hole in the bottom plate. The other ones I didn't need I tucked under the PSU bracket. Overall I like it.

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 12:34 am
by cotdt
That's a nice computer but... is it really neccesary to get an expensive P180 when you are watercooling anyway? You don't even need those case fans if you're watercooling.

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 5:54 am
by acaurora
Well it may seem that the P180 is not necessary, but i'm only water cooling the CPU. Note that I have a toasty 7800 GTX as well as 2 Raptors, which can create considerable amounts of heat. I am not watercooling the video card because the death of my previous video card was due to my choice to water cool it (the ramsinks sucked), and it was too complicated to think about watercooling the 7800GTX. I may go to an entirely water cooled system later on, but for now i'm 1/2 air 1/2 water cooled, and I also got the P180 because I wanted to help SPCR out (thus the Black Edition) and the case looked nice as well.

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 1:02 pm
by dynamiks
that is one hot mess of cables... wow :shock:
I would imagine airflow has to be greatly affected by that mess of cables all over the place. You said you tried cleaning it up; well if I was you I'd try alot harder, because I don't even see a difference.

You setup doesn't have to come out as neat as my case, but at least get the cables organized a lil bit.

Here's a pic for some inspiration...
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Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 1:44 pm
by acaurora
dynamiks wrote:that is one hot mess of cables... wow :shock:
I would imagine airflow has to be greatly affected by that mess of cables all over the place. You said you tried cleaning it up; well if I was you I'd try alot harder, because I don't even see a difference.

You setup doesn't have to come out as neat as my case, but at least get the cables organized a lil bit.
\

There are differences between teh two pictures, otherwise why would I post two of the same pictures? You all have to consider also that my computer is:
1. Water cooled. Thus the card in the upper PCI slot where the tubes come in as well as the controller wire for the sensor as well as the power switch.
2. Powered by an S12. This PSU uses BRAIDED, aka, TWISTED cables. Instead of straight wires. I am guessing that you sleeved your cables, judging by the red shrinkwrap.
3. The firewire header is near the PCI-Express slots, and thus is why the cable must go out over there, since I do use firewire a lot (External HDD).
4. Are you using the front headers? I do not see any except for the red blue and white wire barley visible above the ATX connector as it emerges through teh plastic cover.
5. I am using FOUR HDDs. You are using ONE.

Again, you have to understand that my system has a few more components than yours, and its because of the extra HDDs that it must become more cluttered. However I will try again later on to fix it and clean it up to your liking.

Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:40 pm
by Mystr_Byrnz
While I won't bash your setup Dynamiks, because it is very very good, and the cleanest I've seen, I bet if you took the top HDD bay out the perfection would be a little harder to see. :)

I remember a pic in your other thread showing the cable mass back there. It does look good though, and your work deserves praise.

You just gotta remember that with different motherboards and different component combinations, there will be differences in what people can do. While one person's case might not look as clean as another, it might not be possible to get it as clean in other words.

I wish I had a digital camera to take pics of my rig. It's not quite as nice as yours dynamik but I think it's pretty good.

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 12:44 pm
by Nevarion
well, i can post my case inside, I think it is quite neat.
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It actually has been updated and modified to allow even more airflow in the hdd area, I ripped out the hdd-bay and inserted a suspensioned standard hdd-bay. Sorry, dont have any pictures of it yet.

edit: yes, I now it is not a P180 case, but maybe some inspiration :wink:

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 12:47 pm
by Mystr_Byrnz
Very Nice! :)

Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:19 am
by Burner27
Here's my Antec P180 wiring job and Specs. Although not as good as Dynamiks' since I have many more parts than he has, I think it is good but not great...

Asus P5WD2 Premium
Pentium 4 840 3.2 Extreme Edition
2GB Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC5400
BFG 7800GTX OC
2 x Plextor PX-716a DVD Burner
1 x 300GB Maxtor DM10 16MB cache SATA
1 x 300GB Seagate
2 x Hitachi 400GB
SB X-Fi XtremeMusic
Onboard 10/100/1000 NIC


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And Just wanted to say hi to fellow NYer, Dynamiks

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 9:34 am
by dynamiks
Mystr_Byrnz wrote:While I won't bash your setup Dynamiks, because it is very very good, and the cleanest I've seen, I bet if you took the top HDD bay out the perfection would be a little harder to see. :)

I remember a pic in your other thread showing the cable mass back there. It does look good though, and your work deserves praise.

You just gotta remember that with different motherboards and different component combinations, there will be differences in what people can do. While one person's case might not look as clean as another, it might not be possible to get it as clean in other words.

I wish I had a digital camera to take pics of my rig. It's not quite as nice as yours dynamik but I think it's pretty good.
Okay well you say that if I didn't have my hard drive cage the wire job wouldnt look as nice. Thats fine, I agree. But even if it wasn't there my wiring would still be nicer and way neater than the setup above. And I am not bashing the guy above. Also if you can show me a case that has neat cable management, without hiding the excess cables behind something, please show me. The whole point of having neatness is to hide the excess cable behind something, so they aren't in the way and all over the place.

I mean honestly if people don't feel the need to have neat cable management, thats all up to them. It is there rig not mine. I just don't see how can his case possibly get any airflow with all those wires all over the place like that. Plus not to mention how much of a pain it must be when you want to move things around in the case, since the wires are all tangled.

The OP may not be able to get his management as nice as mine, but certainly I know for a fact it can be neater than he currently has it. The excuse that he has more hardware than me I will not accept. Not to sound cocky or anything but If I had 6 hard drives, I would put any money that my case would still have better management than most of the P180's I've seen. So everytime people give me the exucse that they have too many hard drives, it just seems like they are trying to give me an excuse to have a reason for there messy wires.

I used to have two hard drives in the upper portion of my case, and it still looked nothing like that. It was still very neat, although I moved it to the bottom cause I think it looks even cleaner this way, and allows for more airflow on top and less heat, since the intake fan is blowing in cool air only now, and the heat from the hard drives wont be inside the upper compartment.

Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 1:44 am
by daba
Nevarion wrote:well, i can post my case inside, I think it is quite neat.
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It actually has been updated and modified to allow even more airflow in the hdd area, I ripped out the hdd-bay and inserted a suspensioned standard hdd-bay. Sorry, dont have any pictures of it yet.

edit: yes, I now it is not a P180 case, but maybe some inspiration :wink:
Very clean and great attention to detail I must say. Props to you!

Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 4:58 pm
by shimq1
Nevarion, can you post your specs?