Antec P180, three smartdrives and some cable management.

Show off your quiet rig.

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Yggdrasill
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Antec P180, three smartdrives and some cable management.

Post by Yggdrasill » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:47 am

In an attempt to get better temperatures, sound levels, cable management and a nicer case, I have replaced my old chieftec case with a P180. This has also coincided with my acquisition of a new digital camera, so I'm able to show you the results.


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Here's the standard view, as you can see I have two smartdrives in the lower cage and one smartdrive where the upper cage used to be. I also have two optical drives, a floppy and a 5 1/4" temperature monitor, so there's a lot of cabling I needed to do. The fans were actually turning when I took this picture, but apparently not too fast for my camera, also, above the smartdrives, you can see a Fanta bottle, ignore it. :wink:

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention, don't use a thumbscrew to secure the lower drive cage, you won't be able to close the door, and if you get the door shut, it might jam when you try to open it, mine did, and I almost broke one of the hinges.


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I initially thought I'd suspend the smartdrives in the lower cage with the type of shock cord that I used to restrain the upper smartdrive, but I realised the suspension would have to have a margin of error of about 5 mms, or it would just lie on top of the elastics, so I ditched that idea, because it would be too much work. Instead, I decided to just place them on top of four (eight in total) of the grommets Antec provided, they are very soft, so they work very well. Between the top of the upper smartdrive and the top of the drive cage I slid a piece of polystyrene to prevent the drives from moving around.


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Between the back of the smartdrives and the fan there is a clearing of about half an inch, this means the cabling is very close to the fan, I'm guessing about 1-2 mms.


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I used aluminium tape to keep the unused cables and slack out of the way. Here, you can see that I've connected the lower fan to the temperature controlled PSU fan output (the blue wire and a black wire), so the lower fan will usually be off. Also, I passed the power cable for the two smartdrives through the hole beside the fan.


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Here you can see some of the cabling, I passed the unused audio cables and IEEE 1394 up into a space between the optical drives and the extension of the motherboard plate.


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On each side of the floppy drive, there is an unused space that can be used for hiding cables, the one towards the back is perfect for hiding the slack for the case cables. I didn't mention it before, but the upper smartdrive is also placed on four grommets, and the shock cord has some tension to it, so the drive is quite stuck, I could probably turn the case upside down.


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This is how I attached the shock cord to the case. And I really like the super macro mode of my new camera, the 2304x1728 picture is insane! :D


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I also got a new keyboard and mouse, so now my system looks pretty leet.

akio
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Post by akio » Fri Jul 29, 2005 1:33 pm

Nice job, neat cabling.
It seems that few people actually have done the hard work suspending enclosed HDDs.
But the CPU fan and the three smartdrives don't look matched to me.

Yggdrasill
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Post by Yggdrasill » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:01 pm

akio wrote:But the CPU fan and the three smartdrives don't look matched to me.
The CPU fan is not the loudest component though, as far as I can tell, the sound from the CPU fan can't be heard from outside the case.

Right now the loudest component is the ATI Silencer fan, so I suspect it might be faulty. The noise sounds like some sort of high-frequency rattling, when I stop the fan with a finger, the noise continues unchanged, but when I unplug the fan, it immediatly stops. Is this the way it's supposed to sound? Will I have to replace it with something more exotic? Or will another ATI silencer be better? Or maybe the fan needs to run for a while to get quiet? I only installed it today.

Yggdrasill
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Post by Yggdrasill » Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:03 pm

Argh, I just read about the ATI silencers in in the VGA silencing forum. :(

Arctic Cooling should have some disclaimer on the packaging. "Our fans suck!", "We hate consumers!", "Bugger off and die!" or something.

Hooking the fan up to a a fan controller didn't work, it just revved up to 2250 and stayed there, maybe the one I have wasn't sensitive enough. Maybe the clicking sound wasn't as pronounced, but it was hard to tell. I think I'll have to get something better. *sigh*

limee
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Post by limee » Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:10 pm

Those are the copper smart drives right? What hdd temps do you get with'em? Do you remember what they (the hdd's) were bare?

Yggdrasill
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Post by Yggdrasill » Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:29 pm

limee wrote:Those are the copper smart drives right? What hdd temps do you get with'em? Do you remember what they (the hdd's) were bare?
Yeah, they're copper. The upper one is 41 C and the one on top in the drive cage is 44 C right now. I don't know what their temps are bare, I've never run them bare.

Ralf Hutter
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Re: Antec P180, three smartdrives and some cable management.

Post by Ralf Hutter » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:26 am

Yggdrasill wrote: Edit: One thing I forgot to mention, don't use a thumbscrew to secure the lower drive cage, you won't be able to close the door, and if you get the door shut, it might jam when you try to open it, mine did, and I almost broke one of the hinges.
Look through the P180's thumb screw collection and you'll find one with a shallow head. That's the one to use for the lower drive cage because it will clear the door.

Yggdrasill
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Re: Antec P180, three smartdrives and some cable management.

Post by Yggdrasill » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:44 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:Look through the P180's thumb screw collection and you'll find one with a shallow head. That's the one to use for the lower drive cage because it will clear the door.
Ohh, right you are. I didn't notice that.

Yggdrasill
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Post by Yggdrasill » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:42 pm

Okay, I've connected the fan to a molex connector, now it's at 5V. This review suggests the cooling is better by 15 C than the stock cooler at "32%", so it should be alright. A margin of 15 C from "32%" seems comfortable.

Now that the clicking noise is gone, the noise levels from the case fan, the CPU fan and the ATI silencer fan seem fairly similar, with the CPU fan being a tad more perceivable, because it has slightly whining sound to it. For now though, I'm pretty happy with the sound level, I can only hear the computer when there's no other real sounds. I can still hear the computer over a fridge in the other room (with the door open), so there's some room for improvement, but the computer is very quiet.

I'll probably upgrade the CPU fan when I get a new CPU and motherboard, which may be a year or two away.

Shadowknight
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Post by Shadowknight » Sat Jul 30, 2005 9:11 pm

What width cable sleeving did you use for the differrent cable types? PSU, fan, PSU molex, P4 cable, etc.

Yggdrasill
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Post by Yggdrasill » Sun Jul 31, 2005 3:38 am

Shadowknight wrote:What width cable sleeving did you use for the differrent cable types? PSU, fan, PSU molex, P4 cable, etc.
The PSU came with the sleeving already on, it was the least Yesico could do, passive power supplies cost a fortune!

Sorry I couldn't help.

Yggdrasill
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Post by Yggdrasill » Wed Aug 03, 2005 4:41 pm

Well, I thought I'd try to replace the whiny CPU fan with one of the 120mm antec fans at "low", I used some clear plastic and made a duct, I attached the fan to the duct with clear tape, then attached the duct and fan to the old heatsink with some steel wire and aluminium tape.
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I made the duct assymetrical so it would be easier to make and place the duct further away from the case fan. The duct is about 5 cms deep.
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My temps were 50-ish at idle and 58-ish at load (CPU-burn for about 20 min), and now they're 46-ish at idle and 55-ish at load, but the best part is that the whiny sound is gone, all I can hear now is a whooshing noise from the air moving and fans, which isn't very intrusive.

Isn't it amazing how fast you grow tired with annoying sounds? :shock:

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