Top blowhole cover for the P182

Shaman · Post by **Shaman** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 3:55 am

Am I the only one that thinks this should have been included with the case as standard? A cover made of the same material as the top that slides into place just like the spoiler does. Like this:

Many systems only need the back fan, in fact Antec included a fan hole inside cover with the NSK2400/Fusion for those that wish to use only one of the two fans, so it seems natural that they should have done this for the P182.

I would pay for something like this. Anyone else would?

Shaman · Post by **Shaman** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:01 am

Bump for Antec reps.

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 8:39 am

Yes, I want one too.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:17 am

me too!! Antec rep's: hear this innovation, its truely a useful one.

Ygglur · Post by **Ygglur** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:57 pm

I want one of those too. Antec pls release one.

yaler · Post by **yaler** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 4:38 pm

I want one of those too, and some of those new more open filter door cover thingies. Weren't those supposed to be released? They should package them together.

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:54 pm

Would buy, certainly. Looks better than my aluminium tape.

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 3:43 am

that would be nice...

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 3:56 am

I'd happily buy new filter doors + that cover for a reasonable fee...

seraphyn · Post by **seraphyn** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 4:19 am

Same here.

Luminair · Post by **Luminair** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 7:33 am

I may not use it but sign me up anyway!

Lou_H · Post by **Lou_H** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:46 pm

Hey, I made the exact same cover! Well almost. I had an old piece of black ABS plastic that is a little bit scratched and I cut it to fit the same.
I have some dampening foam velcroed to the inside of the cover so that I can remove it if I want to use a fan. I donâ€™t have a place to post pictures yet, but I have a lot of other little mods for the P182.
Maybe Antec should sell a PC case kit with lots of options?

Otto69 · Post by **Otto69** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:20 pm

Maybe I'm strange, but I took a piece of clear plastic sheet about 1/8" thick, cut to size, and used the fan retaining screws to hold it in place INSIDE the case. Then I put the vent cover thingy back on. Now I can look down inside and see my passive copper CPU heat sink and it looks cool

But the vent is sealed.

Darren555 · Post by **Darren555** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 5:02 am

After reading the detailed SPCR review I initially disconnected the top fan but when I turned it on low my mobo temps dropped by 4-5 degrees.

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 5:21 am

STOP THE PRESS, increasing ventilation helps cooling!!

Oh wait.

Individual scenarios depend on so many variables that there really is no one answer for all. In your case Darren I think you failed to cover up the top, hindering the rear fan's performance. Main thing with all these is to explore and find out what is ideal... and in my opinion, in a regular PC, two exhaust fans is hardly it.

Otto's plastic see-through idea sounds intriguing if not entirely necessary.

Shaman · Post by **Shaman** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 6:48 am

Blocking the vent from inside is what Antec did with the NSK2400/Fusion. But with the P182, blocking it from the outside would work out much better, it would allow us to remove the ugly spoiler and have a clean sleek looking case, almost like the monolith in a Space Odyssey.

Luminair · Post by **Luminair** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 7:11 am

Shaman wrote:almost like the monolith in a Space Odyssey.

Right now I think the p182 looks like a fridge. But you're right, it is pretty close to the 2001 monolith, which is... the best looking case ever.

Shaman · Post by **Shaman** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:21 am

MountainMods sell an acrylic 120mm blowhole cover that seems to be perfect for blocking the top blowhole of the P180/2 from the inside without looking ghetto.
Link Here

If anyone in the US wants to try it, go ahead and tell us your opinion. I would try it myself if the shipping costs to europe weren't $25.50 for something that costs $2.99

It would be interesting to know if the acrylic is thick enough to fit snuggly in the metal clips without ratling around, and if it can take regular fan screws without cracking, although nuts and bolts would do too.

AntecRep · Post by **AntecRep** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 5:59 pm

Two things.

First, I will forward this along with the information that it has the strongest swell of support I have seen behind any single product mod I have seen.

Second, I've seen this comment many times before in other places. Many times it is simply that we shouldn't open up the top like that. From my own personal experience, I have to strongly disagree. If I were going to plug up one of the fan openings on the P180/P182 cases, it would be the rear one. Simply put, "heat rises." I have modded many cases over the years to add fans in the top of the case pointed upwards. That's also a common service offered by performance-pcs.com A passive CPU cooler is an absolutely smashing way to keep noise down. The most common problem we 'hear'

about turns out to be noisy CPU fans. I had a fanless cooler on my Pentium D in a Nine Hundred case. That is not a case that was designed especially for quiet, but it sort of just happened. With two front and one rear 120mm fans and the BigBoy (200mm) on top, it had the potential to be a wind tunnel. I put every fan in the case on low and could only hear it as long as nothing else was going on in the room. Heck, a tv in the next room could drown it out. I actually can't wait to get my hands on a Mini-P180. It's got all the advantages of the P182 and the big 200mm fan on top like the Nine Hundred. That may be what I use to build my q6600+DP35DPM system.

Dazrin · Post by **Dazrin** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 6:56 pm

Thanks for forwarding this along! It is great to see you involved like this.

AntecRep wrote: Second, I've seen this comment many times before in other places. Many times it is simply that we shouldn't open up the top like that. From my own personal experience, I have to strongly disagree. If I were going to plug up one of the fan openings on the P180/P182 cases, it would be the rear one. Simply put, "heat rises."

I think if it weren't for the noise issue would all agree that this makes more sense. Of course, depending on our specific component arrangements, closing the top or back may have a different effect on system temperatures so it won't always work this way.

As far as the noise, different ambient levels greatly impact the amounts of noise we perceive. I know for me closing the top cover (with a text book in my case) really made a difference since the computer is below me. If there was a single accessory to buy that would work for both locations that would be ideal.

Regardless, thanks for forwarding this along.

Shaman · Post by **Shaman** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:35 pm

Thank you for your support and for forwarding this AntecRep!

AntecRep wrote:I had a fanless cooler on my Pentium D in a Nine Hundred case. That is not a case that was designed especially for quiet, but it sort of just happened. With two front and one rear 120mm fans and the BigBoy (200mm) on top, it had the potential to be a wind tunnel. I put every fan in the case on low and could only hear it as long as nothing else was going on in the room.

I take it you plugged the fans to the 'FAN ONLY' connectors of an Antec PSU. The Tricools run much slower when using that connector, as I found out when I built a system for a friend based on the Fusion. When plugged to a normal molex connector, just one 120mm Tricool on LOW is too loud for many of us here.

About your belief that it's the rear fan hole that should be plugged, why don't you pull some strings to make it possible for anyone to buy the inside blowhole cover that comes included with the NSK2480/Fusion?

It could be released as a pack - the top blowhole cover, the rear inside blowhole cover and the less restrictive filter doors.

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 9:02 am

AntecRep wrote:First, I will forward this along with the information that it has the strongest swell of support I have seen behind any single product mod I have seen.

Thanks, much appreciated!

AntecRep wrote:From my own personal experience, I have to strongly disagree. If I were going to plug up one of the fan openings on the P180/P182 cases, it would be the rear one. Simply put, "heat rises."

I agree, from a technical standpoint, the top probably isn't the best hole to plug.

I think my concern is more aesthetic, though. If I can get by with the silence level I want, acceptable temperatures and have a smooth top, it's a win!

I think that's what makes the P180 such a good case: you can pack in a very powerful system and lots of drives, and still keep things cool and quiet. But if your system isn't too powerful to begin with, then it's not necessary to take advantage of all it's numerous features.

Anyway, thanks for listening to us!

Luminair · Post by **Luminair** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 9:47 am

People definitely want this mod because the top hole lets sound out of the case for us to hear. Since many builds do not need the second output, it is a natural mod to make.

Re: convection flow. One thing every engineer I've ever talked to has told me about convection flow is that you can basically write it off when fans are involved. Whether you chose to cover up the back top top or back top side, very very little temperature difference would be made. Certainly little enough to not matter when we are talking about eliminating noise as the #1 concern.

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 10:53 am

Luminair wrote: Re: convection flow. One thing every engineer I've ever talked to has told me about convection flow is that you can basically write it off when fans are involved. Whether you chose to cover up the back top top or back top side, very very little temperature difference would be made. Certainly little enough to not matter when we are talking about eliminating noise as the #1 concern.

Exactly.

In an enclosure the size and shape of a typical PC tower, and with its comparatively modest heat sources, the effects of convection are overwhelmed to the point of insignificance once you introduce even a single slow-moving case fan. The P182's rear fan opening is very close to the top anyway, so even if there were any stack effect to speak of, the "advantage" of the top fan will be negligible.

AntecRep wrote:With two front and one rear 120mm fans and the BigBoy (200mm) on top, it had the potential to be a wind tunnel. I put every fan in the case on low and could only hear it as long as nothing else was going on in the room. Heck, a tv in the next room could drown it out.

No disrespect, but if those were all Antec TriCools and you genuinely found them inaudible except in conditions of near silence, I hope someone else is doing the subjective sound evaluations...

Good to know the feedback is being noted, anyway.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 11:00 am

in regular day environment tri-cools in low are pretty close inaudiable in couple of meters. But that's not the case during night or quieter surrounding.

AntecRep · Post by **AntecRep** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:50 pm

I've got a NeoHE 500 in my 900, so no Fan-Only connectors are available to me. Just set the switch to L and call it good. Exactly like I did on the demo system that I built for a LAN. It's now a desktop for someone at the company so I hunted it down, dB meter at the ready.

Holding the meter 4" from the top of the 900, centered over the fan, the lowest reading I saw was 39. It would jump when doors opened or people talked. I moved about the office trying to find the quietest spot and could only get it down to 36. Can't say that I hear any difference. My system at home is under my desk by my feet. I might see if I can turn off everything in the house and measure it for you guys though. Give you an objective number. It illuminates the entire room and out into the hall when the room lights are out, but it doesn't make enough noise for me to care.

Quieter than night? You guys need a different solution than the 900, so back to the P182.

Does anybody have a thermal imager in order to see the difference in the heat affected zone in the CPU cooler when blocking the rear v. top fan opening

Just put a piece of perspex over the side and photograph through that.

The reason I ask is: An engineer at a defense contractor I worked at once grumbled something to the effect, "Enough fans can make the heat go sideways... I guess." He was referring to a multi-controller/multi-drive disk array I had constructed for a Sparc 20 that was going in a plane, so the sting of the remark made it memorable.

Can't take that stuff personally, though sometimes I still do. I did not have room to put in all the drive sleds and the fan tray, so I kluged the fan tray onto the front blowing into the enclosure. Mine ended up getting put in the climate controlled server room (hilarity ensued, but that's another story) for the developers to mount from the server and access realistic amounts of data and a custom cabinet was fabbed for the heat of the real world. With fans on top...

Shaman · Post by **Shaman** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:07 am

AntecRep wrote:Holding the meter 4" from the top of the 900, centered over the fan, the lowest reading I saw was 39. It would jump when doors opened or people talked. I moved about the office trying to find the quietest spot and could only get it down to 36.

That's considered a nice quiet dB value by Antec standards or just by you? I hope the meter was just picking up alot of ambient noise.

AntecRep · Post by **AntecRep** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:12 pm

Ambient noise??? It's an office... hellooo!!

Being right on top of the computer made a delta of only 3dB over minimum ambient. Your post reminded me to put the meter where I can take it home for the weekend. I'll see if I can turn off everything in the house and create a "night or quieter" environment.

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:27 pm

Yeah, well. The last office I worked in (a Dilbertville cubicle nightmare) dropped below 40 dB only during the Christmas shutdown. The labs ranged from 60 to 90 dB.

By contrast, my home office (when the furnace/AC is idle, and the freeway 1 mile away is quiet, and the birds outside the window aren't singing, and the TV is off, etc) is around 20 dB, similar to MikeC's lab.

So a stock P180/190 TriCool fan on low is inaudible in a "work" environment (and also inaudible on high in the lab), but at home was intolerable, and promptly replaced by an undervolted Nexus.

irusun · Post by **irusun** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:27 pm

I just picked up a P182, but I too would like a nice fitted cover for the top hole.