Hello Got some inspiration on this great forum and wanted to share some modifications I did to my Ultra-D and Antec P180. Who knows, maby someone else will get inspired?

First off, I noticed that the heatsink up by the 4.0V jumper gets really hot (nearly burned my skin off when touching it for like half a second) and I read on the forum that active cooling was recommended. But in my quest for a silent system I came up with another solution.



As you may notice, this is actually a heatsink originally from a Lanparty NFII Ultra-B :shake: I cut of the mounting thingys, cut some fins of and drilled a hole. I then applied some thermal compound on the mosfet heatsink and attached the NFII heatsink with a screw. The airflow isn't that great around that area, but it works very well. After a few hours of prime I can still touch it and hold my finger on as long as I wish. So I guess it's somewhere in the 50C's.


Secondly, I got tired of the high noiced chipset fan. First, I moved my X800GTO to the lower slot and attached a Zalman passive sink. But I soon realized that the VF700 on the X800 got really little airflow and had to be moved to the upper slot. I bent the pins to fit (took a while) and cut 6 of 'em off. I then attached a 70mm fan from a AMD64 boxed cooler to the heatsink. It spins at ~1500RPM and I can't hear it even when trying to. The heatsink needs some decent airflow and now it's got it :cool: The fan also helps circulate the air around the VF700. My chipset temps never exceeds 40C. Here it is:




And lastly, I needed to fix something in the lower chamber of my Antec P180. My PSU (see sig) has no holes in the backside so the airflow was really crappy in the chamber. The Papst fan in the middle just pushed air right at the modular connections and flat backside. So I drilled out the metal bracket in the front of the case and attached the fan with rubber pins. Then I fabricated a metal "air guider" in the middle to get the airflow down under the PSU (where the fan is). Works like a charm, even if it looks kind of ghetto :shake: Anyway, here it is:





Thats it, sorry for my spelling and bad english

I like what you did with the Zalman NB47J on the chipset. I tried to do something similar but because of the length of my 7900GT and the way that capacitors are positioned on the PCB, I couldn't get pins bent far enough to give it full clearance into the upper PCI-E slot. It's a shame because I would've loved to rig up a thin 80mm fan in that area like you did. Instead I had to go with a VC-RE which is a little noisier than I'd prefer.

even though I don't have that case, every little bit helps. Thankyou, and fantastic, awesome, eXXXtreme work :drool:

Keep it up.

nice touch!!

How did you mount the additional 70mm Fan for the Chipset on the MB? Im looking for the same Solution, since i have an old AMD64 Boxed cooler lying around, and the Evercool VC-RE isnt aviable ion Germany. This fan is not as "thick" as other, normal 80 or 120mm Fans, right?

Those are some pretty nice ideas. I'm trying to firugure out what I need to do to cool my system in that case.

I like the idea of the extra sink on the top of the board! I'll be keeping my eye out for similar materials. Good one there, mate!!

On the same note, I used to keep a thermistor right on that sink in my system, and it never really heated up. I think max it ever hit was 40. Mind you, I have a 120mm fan blowing in that direction, mounted in the empty 5.25 drive bays beside it. I put it there primarily pointed to the ram, and it went in at the same time as the termal sensors, so I don't know what the temps are without the fan.



You can see I just stuck it inbetween a cap and the sink, it wasn't a tight fit, but not loose either. I see now how close that 120mm fan is to the right of it, I'm sure it has significant affect on temps.

I really really like to see that you took out the fan in the lower chamber and put your own in the front! I can't tell you how many times I've considered this myself. I'm not having a problem with getting air to the PSU, I just want to route the cables through where that big fan is! If I can squeeze a regular 120mm in the front, I would pull the fat one and most of my cable management problems will disappear in a very literal sense!! Bravo on this one! You have given me new motivation!

I have seen that Zalman bent and spread out like that on an Ultra-D somewhere before, and have one of the sinks on my shelf in case I want to try -- got a super "lost-leader" deal on it. I fully intended to try this out, but, well, read on...

I can't move my vid card down, my sound card is in the way and can't move it farther down or it will cramp and overheat the lower left part of the mobo. So this zalman or the VC-RE was the only answer, my chipset temps are always hitting 50.

I do have a VC-RE ready to go in next time I pull the mobo, found it at a mom and pop store after giving up on finding one anywhere else in town. This was after I got the zalman. Now looks like the zalman is going onto my brother-in-laws video card that has a noisey dying fan, so choice is made for me. Incidentally, a big supplier here is now carrying the VC-RE after tons of requests from DFI owners heheh.

I have that zalman bracket that comes with a 90mm fan and bolts onto the adapter slots - FB123:

http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=15&code=016

With a 120mm fan on, it reaches to the top of the P180, putting even more air on the ram and that chip and heatsink. Overkill? Maybe. Noisey? No, I use 3 speed Antec fans. If you put them on med or low they are silent. I run them on high when OC (which is always), with the case closed it is still the quietest computer in the room.

I had trouble finding a fan that would properly fit the air duct. I finally found one that did, fitting nicely into the recess, the 80mm Thermaltake Silent Cat. It isn't silent, but worked OK and not too loud. I added filter material to the intake using some patch material for fixing holes in drywall. Works like a charm, plenty of dust buildup on it, vacuumes off once every two weeks.

I stopped using the air duct when I figured out that I could add a second fan to the zalman bracket, a much bigger and quieter 120mm 3 speed Antec Tri-Cool that moves a ton more air and took a crapload of temp off my video card and chipset. That airduct is history!

So I've somehow managed to collect 6 x 120mm fans in the upper chamber of this P180, and when I put the XP-120 in that will be one more 120mm fan. Gahhh!

When I put the AC Freezer in and ditched the stock HSF, I had to relocate the zalman fan bracket, the Freezer is too tall and will hit the bracket and/or fan. It also hits the air duct that I no longer use.

I moved the bracket to the other side of the case. I couldn't believe my luck, the holes line up just perfectly with some of the holes on the side of the 5.25 drive bays. I flipped it over 180 degrees, bolted it on with longer bolts and some washers. Both fans are almost perfectly positioned! I still prefer them on the other side, but the point is they are doing their job just fine here.

Now, if I were to buy another bracket, YES, I could fit another two 120mm fans in the upper chamber! There is room! That would be a total of 9 x 120mm fans in the upper chamber of a P180! World Record?? I just might do it one day!! LOL!

Here are some pics of various stages of the above. First a few with the air duct and the zalman bracket with only a 90mm on it, then a couple with the 120s in there.

Here are the fans all numbered, the one tucked in the 5.25 drive bays is hard to see, it is a black AC, very quiet and moves a ton of air. The suction it draws through the front is quite unreal:



This was all supposed to be temporary. I bought a front panel display with three thermal sensors with the intent to use it as a removable device, leaving it in my toolbox and using it on various computers to monitor temps with XP is not yet booted etc. I sleeved the wires for extra durability, and that caused extra storage problems when it is in my P180 in the floppy slot. I need to move it up to the 5.25 drive bays, and have to fabricate a tray to hold it and a face plate.





I bought this old mobile HDD rack at a swap meet for $2 with the hopes I could come up with something using my trusty dremel, then paint it. I could then still use it as a removable device only larger.



Once I had it apart and started dry fitting things, I found certain things seemed to fit naturally, snug and tight. Besides, that teeny-weeny little fan that came with it just won't do. Noooooo, we must put in a much bigger fan, yes!

Ran into a couple problems when putting the mobile rack into the drive bays.

1) The mounting screw holes are too low and the whole thing lines up way too high. Since the thing was barely more than a plastic bracket, I tried flipping it upside down. While this worked in the end to temporarily mount my 120mm fan towards the ram, it still doesn't line up properly and makes it more difficult to mount the FPD into the lot.

2) The whole unit is too long. It is just barely short enough for me in my case, but in another case this is not going to work.

This is OK, I think, because as I was looking at the front I was pretty sure I would be cutting off a good inch to replace it with a new face plate, so I can shorten it as much as I need. I'll drill new holes for the mounting, no worries there. Final touch, paint the whole thing black.







You can see, this is quite the wind tunnel, and it really does suck a lot of air. I was quite suprised at how much air is being drawn in through here, and it makes me wonder how much the air filters are hindering the other two intakes. Nevertheless, I've come to insist on a dust free case for this computer, and the next step is to fabricate a frame to hold some more of that drywall repair material for the front bays. Crap, maybe I'll just buy some grill material, this part will be in plain view when the door is open to see the temps on the panel.

Still to do:

I have an XP-120 going in to replace the Freezer very soon, so the zalman bracket will go back to the left side where it belongs.

I need to finish off the mobile rack so I can move the FPD up to the drive bays and get the sleeved wires out of the mobo area.

I need to fabricate a filter system for the drive bay intake area.

I need to pull the mobo and put in the VC-RE.

When I pull the mobo, I will allocate at least 2-4 hours to make a concerted effort to try to route my cable management behind the mobo as much as possible. If I can get the main ATX power cable back there I'll be happy. The rest of the cables should easily route behind, it is just the big ATX one that will be tough.

I'll have to rethink pulling the lower fan and modding in a regular on in the front before doing the cable management because this could simplify things a lot.

This system is 90% complete. It will never be finished, but it is nearly complete in that I have almost all the components I intended to have in it.

Overall, I am quite pleased with the cooling in this case. The flexibility is phenominal, allowing a lot of customisation without really doing anything custom. I've tried a lot of different things and it's still the same case, ya know?

As for actual temperature readings, check this post where I recorded some:

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showpost.p...61&postcount=15

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51995

I ask again...

How did you mount this fan to the MB???

http://img224.imageshack.us/my.php?image=c...tcooling7qv.jpg

LithoTech

my g/f use a similar drive with a 80gig maxtor HDD, and i found one black which is more appropriate for her case, it would be more nice a black one for you too, but if its cooling enough, that the way to go

LithoTech, i was looking though your pics, and have a question.. in post#8, pic #1, you have the fans unmbered. i was curious as to how fan #5 sounded and performed since it looks like it is about 1/2 inch away from where the side of the case would be. if it isnt too bad i might try that idea and a VC-RE to cool my chipset down, which currently idles 45c and loads at 55c at stock settings w/ AS5.

Wow - great job!

Safety Tip
You might just want to consider bolting that thing to the floor before you turn it on.
I'd hate to see that big, heavy case flying around the room! :eek2:

http://img350.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lowchamber3nt.jpg
i was able to get a 120mm fan in front of my lower hdd bay without having to take out that entire bracket that the bay screws into.. as long as it doesnt vibrate much u must be real happy. that fan lowered my hdd temp over 5C.

and i love what u did with that zalman heatsink. i have a 7800gt with an arctic cooler rev5 on it which is huge and its in the second slot. whenever i decide to get an xfi, i dont think ill be able to fit that 7800gt in the lower slot anymore and i dont want to lose my silent heatsink, so great idea.

Mine used to hit 55c too, and now tops out to around 50c. Once I put in a VC-RE as well, hopefully it will stay below 50.

As for the fans...

Actually, fan 3 is almost an inch closer to the side panel than fan 5. Pictures never do anything justice. :shake: If you look closely, you can see the bracket flares inwards at the end near fan 5, so fan 5 is farther away from the panel.

Note: when this system is properly configured, the bracket is bolted to the left side, to the PCI adapter mounting plate screws. The bracket ends up flipping 180 degrees and the whole thing is 2.5 inches deeper within the case, much closer to the action. It has been flipped to the right because the AC Freezer is too tall and blocks it.

I know your concern, I had the same. If it is too close, you get horrendous fan noise due to the fan working hard to get air, sucking, horrible.

Nope, no extra noise even though I would sware it IS too close (fan 3 that is).

There is about 1/4 inch clearance from the fan to the flange that the side panel hooks into, and another 1/4 inch from there to the actual side panel. So total of 1/2 inch, 5/8ths at the most.

When I rigged it there, I was nervous, but felt I'll just flip the fan on low speed if it is too close, that should stop it from the vacuuming effect. Since I leave the panel off when overclocking, the fan could go back on high when I really needed the cooling. Failing that, I could disconnect it and only use it when the case was open. As it turns out, there are no problems with the fan on high and the case closed.

The system is quite effective, and totally adjustable. The nice thing is none of the fans are wobbly or loose. I was worried about that too, but each fan is sort of touching or wedged against something else as well as bolted to the bracket.

Once I get that freezer out of there, I'll get some pics of the system on the left side, which is much better, cleaner look and the fans are wedged even tighter.

I've been too busy to get at it lately, and need to run some more ram tests first. A few days, maybe this weekend and I'll have some more pics.

At the same time, I'm going to take a very close look at getting a fan in front of the lower HD cage. I have a spare tri-cool from the top that I replaced with an LED one, I'll use that and get it all set up. Might even pull the mobo at the same time and get that cable finally tucked out of sight. Man, that will be one big chore out of the way, the cabling has been a temporary job for far too long!

That comment brings back memories of me spending almost an hour trying to squeeze or angle in a 120mm fan in past that assembly. I gave up. How did you manage it?

yeah i cant get my cables to look good for squat.. i just got them running together up the case in the same place, and then just zipped stripped them, still looks weird, but it is clean. i might try that fan + vc-re on the chipset, wont hurt anything except my wallet . and anther, doe that also cool your GPU down? my gpu idles at 45c and can reach 71c during COD2 or HL2..

Yup, took a big chunk off my GPU. The airduct wasn't doing much, removing it and putting a 120 there made a big difference.

I still hit the 70s with the case closed in games, but not when it's open, tops at 68-69c. I think this card is supposed to be fine to 90c, but the effect on ambient is what bothers me, especially being so close to the chipset.

Before this config, it used to hit 80 in games that really worked it.

I've been resisting buying an AC X1 for it, because price around here sucks compared to the deal at SVC. I'll hold out a while, betting prices will drop here soon. Reviews sound good on it, would be nice to ditch some easy temp.

wow AC X1 i have never seen it or even heard of it, looks bad-ass! i might get one and sell my vf-700cu, anyone want one for $15?

Sorry for not replying Thanks for the replies!


LithoTech:

The reason why your sink doesn't get warm is probably because you haven't activated the 4V jumper. If you do that (I'm using 3.5V right now) it gets very hot. As I said, I nearly burned my skin off And still, after this modification, it gets around 60C at load.

Also, that is a LOT of fans :shake: I am really going for a quiet system myself, and have ordered some Nexxus Real Silent 120mm fans and sound dampening material. Doesn't those fans blowing onto the motherboard/memory destroy the airflow pretty much? It seems to me that they create a lot of turbulence. Nice airflow though :nod:

ripken204:

How the h*ll did you mount a fan in the front of the lower chamber without removing the bracket? Really want to see that :drool:

Chaos_2k:

Actually, I attached it with a wooden screw :cool: It grips in between some of the pins on the Zalman sink. I just put it through the upper right hole on the fan and used a screw driver to attach it.

Update us on how well those work. I looking into those for my case. I'm looking for silence and cooling.

X1 outperforms the VF900-CU under load according to a mag article I saw. And it's silent without the need of a fan adjuster, and way cheaper albiet a lot bigget footprint. I'd had my eye on them since they came out not too long ago.

I'd like to upgrade the vid card to a 7900GT, so blowing $40 (cost around here w/ tax) on an X1 would only benefit resale of the 6800GS since I have no other PCI-e system here to pass it down to. Best to save the money and live with what is already 10+ under my old temps.

I'd have bought one from SVC except shipping costs more than the cooler does -- local price! :sweat:

I'm running BH-5 atm, 3.5v, priming a 260mhz setup.
I'll put that thermal sensor back on there the next time I have the fans out of the way, probably later today when I flip the jumper back. I'll update here when I get new data.

That is the biggest problem with this setup, the fans block access to the mobo and even though they are easy to remove, it's a pain to have to do it a lot.



It's a sickness I tell you! It starts off innocent enough, just one extra fan, a small one. Then you start sneaking them in when the case isn't looking. The next thing you know its controlling your life! :eek2:

Low speed low noise 120 fans are still great airflow. Keep one or both of the exhaust as tri-cool for the option of extra speed, the higher flow of exhaust alone can make a huge boost on the flow of the rest. At least that is my theory on it based on my own results, others that I have read, and my understanding of areodynamics, convection and cooling.

Basics: an air cooler works off of convection, transfer of heat from one element to another. The cooler connects to the hot chip, sucks heat off it, dissipates the heat through it's own material and surface, and then looses a certain amount of that heat due to air taking it off of the surfaces.

The physics of air taking heat off a surface is the same as the surface taking it off the chip. The air comes in contact with the surface, and steals the heat or energy. It is the same thing as wind chill, only we call it wind chill to describe winter sub-zero temps that are dangerous to us. But it is the same thing.

Therefore, we must understand two things:

1) the larger the surface of the HS cooler, the better it will perform (providing its convection properties are up to snuff). This is why they make them with so many fins, it creates much much more surface area. In the cooling world, surface area rukes as much as convection properties.

2) Air convects too, so the more air that passes the surface area of the cooler, the more temperature will be taken away from the cooler.

The temperature of the air passing the surface of the cooler has a direct affect on how much temperature it takes away, but we are not as concerned about this as much as its dwell time or how fast it passes the surface. The more air that passes the surface, the more temperature it will take away. Think of each molecule of air being it's own surface. We want lots of molecules passing by because that will take off more temperature than cooler, slower moving air will.

In light of this, I'm never too concerned with turbulence!

Additionally, any performance cpu HSF is pretty powerful and causes a lot of turbulence on it's own. It is the exhaust that manages the continuation of the airflow in the proper direction.

In my case, I've tripled the turbulence, at least, I admit, I have a problem.

But I have doubled the exhaust, at least, and when set to high those fans pump out air like crazy. Putting my hand at the back or top of case and feeling the air rushing out is quite satisfying. In fact, it was so good that I ended up putting a low speed quiet coolermaster 120 in the top exhaust because that is the one that can be heard -- they are a lot cheaper than the tri-cool, allowed me to use the tri-cool elsewhere instead of running it on low all the time.

For intake, I have the regular front which works fine (one of the stock black 3 speed fans), and an AC 120mm which is quite powerful and extremely quiet, mounted in the 5.25 drive bays.

I wish I had a vid camera to demonstrate this, the best way to see airflow in your case, and the worst habit you could possibly think of taking up: lite-up a cigarette and wave it in front of the intake and see how powerful the draw is.

The draw from the (currently unfiltered) 5.25 bastard rig is at least double the draw I get from the filtered stock intake. The lower chamber intake is slightly below that. Putting a fan in front of the lower HD tray would make a huge difference here, I can't wait to takle it! Hoping to see a pic of how it was squeezed in!

In an case, I have plenty of intake and the case is never starving for air even when the fans are on low and the case is closed -- I'll call this silent mode. Note, the AC intake fan has no speed adjustment other than it kicks into an ultra high speed if one of the thermal sensors passes an alarm setting. Also, when the case is in silent mode, the intake for the AC has all the blank plates inserted etc.

Unfortunately, I can't see whats happening to the smoke when in silent mode. But following a good drag of it into the case when it is open showed me nothing more than smoke being blown all to smithereens and blasted away to nothing in a matter of seconds.

While the case is open, fans high, it really isn't an issue because there isn't and doesn't need to be an airflow, all fans can draw from outside of the case so to speak. We really are only looking at when the case is closed, in silent mode. It would be interesting to put a web cam inside the case and see if I could get some shots of smoke. I don't smoke inside the house, and don't like the idea of blowing smioke in my case for 45 minutes trying to get the right shot, but it could be interesting and a worthy sacrifice for the shit I will get for lighting up inside.

So I can only conclude that I am getting plenty air in from the front, passing the mobo, cpu, vid and ram, being blasted in any way it does depending on fan speed at the time, then getting sucked out.

If I had some sort of whirlwind effect where air was circulating and not being exhausted, I would be seeing super heating in some areas, especially when compared to an open case. So I am concluding that this is not happening.

Playing with the fan speeds in silent mode can greatly affect cooling. In most previous layouts I spent time adjusting front and rear speeds a bit, noting temps and comparing then settling on a basic setting for surfing/folding or gaming/overclocking.

Lots of other P180 users find the same thing. For example, iirc: setting the front to low, and one exhaust (rear) to high, and the top exhaust to low or even intake, created a very good performing silent mode because the only high speed fan is the farthest away from the user.

Some opt to not run a front fan at all, for systems that aren't overclocked or loaded a lot and the case is exposed like in a livingroom HTPC situation. The exhaust fan alone should be enough to draw intake, a decent AMD system running stock speeds with a good HSF would never break a sweat doing an HTPC load in a P180 configured like this. I'd defy anyone to hear the fans in it with the TV on.



I would very very much like to see this too.



Also good to know! Do you think that zalman with a fan on it outperforms the VC-RE? It probably should, based on the above physics it has much more surface area and a much larger more powerful fan. It may not be copper, but while copper conducts heat well throughout it's surface, it doesn't transfer it to air as well as aluminum. It would be really cool to get some comparisons here.

.

Forgot to mention about noise.

When this case is open, and all the fans on high, it is loud. It sits 24 inches to my right on top of my desk. To some people, it may even be considered very loud. However, I'd say by comparrison to other performance cooling HSF systems this is far from a jet aircraft or hair dryer. If I were to guess at a db, and judging from a 30db 80mm fan, I'd say I was 30-35db.

I might be sounding a little conservative here, but consider: my iMac G5 graphics workstation is 12+ feet behind and to my left. I can hear the little fan whine away in it as it folds@home. That is a sinlge 60mm fan, and I can clearly hear it over the 120mm x 6 @ high speed drone not 2 inches from my mouse pad, and thats with the case open.

I'm not on a total silent kick, but I do like, no I very much like being able to flip these on low and seal the case up and hear nothing but a slight whisper.

I can definately see how others get totally into completely silencing their computers, and if I don't watch out I will end up with that sickness myself! I just hope it isn't as expensive as my Fan habit! :nod:

Osen,

Re: the heatsink up by the 4.0V jumper

I put the thermal sensor back pinched inbetween a cap and that heatsink. I was in there flipping the jumper back to 3v (just for a day or so).

I was looking at it and it struck me as I remembered posting in another thread about that zalman you have on your chipset, that thing just might fit the bill for this as well!

I did a dry fit, tried a couple positions, looked for the easiest mount. Looks like the best solution would be to cut it down a bit, it is a little too big, but would fit if one insisted.

Took a picture, it isn't mounted correct here, I didn't notice at the time, but you get a good idea of size and position:





Looks like I need another one of these, as this one is spoken for. Well, half of one maybe.

Anyone wanna buy half of a Zalman NB47J?

sure, half price :nod:

lol. half price shipping, but not half packing.

I can't say it looks better than the BFG one did, but it cools a hell of a lot better.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



I dropped from 62 C to 52 C idle... and 88 C to 64 C under load.

My NF3 chipset went up about 3 C under all conditions, due to the design of the cooler. (It blows the hot air out towards the MB, not out the back or to the side.) I'll mount that 80mm fan back in place and see if that helps.

EDIT: I installed the 80 mm fan (that is in my BEFORE picture) and temps dropped again. Now I'm running 32 C idle on my chipset. Sweeeet!

Mark

Man I love the look of the TT BT!

Awesome results! That is huge temp savings, way more than one would expect.

I'm a little bummed to see it blows right on the chipset. I was still dreaming of getting one of those, and that is a notch against it.

Still, only 3c increase shows it is passing enough air through that the air isn't super heated, and probably helps cool other parts of the mobo that don't have the benefit of the VC-RE on it.

And the overall performance is outstanding. Completely silent I hear too, no pun intended.

I'd love to know too. I've had no luck trying to fit a normal 25mm thickness fan in that area. Right now I have a Zalman 80x15mm rigged up there. But I'd much rather use a 120mm fan for greater airflow at lower noise levels.

i saw that exact thing. that looks a little bad you think about it. the front 120mm case fan blows air in, the GPU gets it and heats it up, sending it off to the chipset, which heats it up more, then when it blows in all directions out of the chipset, it goes right back into the GPU..like a big swirl in there. do you notice a steady rise in your idle temp from the time you turn it on to say, half an hour later?

Okay guys... in the spirit of 'testing' I made a few changes to my rig. I moved my 80mm fan to sit right beside my CPU fan. (On the right side, blowing down on my PWMIC.) I left the GPU cooler blowing like normal, but I did something weird to see what difference it would make:

I swapped my 120mm TT intake fan (A2018) with the stock TT fan on the CPU cooler.

Now, I have to say that my temperatures are going to go up because the stock TT CPU cooler only runs at about 1300 rpm... which means I am cutting down on fresh intake air. I jacked my exhaust fan up to max (2500 rpm) to try and draw out the air... and I took some interesting readings.

While playing BF2 for HOURS on end, my internal temps became somewhat stable. The CPU, PWMIC, and NF3 chipset all sat at around 41-42 C or so. The case was warm to the touch, and the exhaust fan was pushing out some seriously warm air. The GPU became stable somewhere in the high 60's and hit low 70's at times... but I never had a problem with over-heating.

I am ordering a couple of 120mm fans that have a higher CFM to increase airflow... but at this point I am somewhat surprised at the results. Obviously, I need another 120mm intake fan to keep up with the exhaust on my case and the fan in my PSU. I am thinking of mounting it on the 'floor' of the case, blowing directly into the GPU and chipset cooler. Thoughts?

Mark

If you need more fresh intake, and have room you can also try bolting 2 120mm fans together at your existing intake. It might save you having to cut holes in the floor of your case, yet increase intake air, and really as long as the air is moving into the case and accross the GPU you should still get really good results and lower noise.

I did this on an antek case that had only a single 80mm intake and what a difference. :nod: I can't see why it wouldn't work on 120s if you have the room.

Am I correct in assuming you made the change to put the more powerful fan on the cpu?

Odd that a 120mm is not enough intake and temps raised, most cases have a single 80mm.

Double check that you mounted it the correct way. Failing that, check for blockage or anything interfering with the airflow or movement of the fan? You should be getting tons of air in there, even at 1300 rpm. Of course, change the fan with a 70CFM Antec Tri-Cool and that should help.

Zalman's FB123 fan and bracket will mount a 120mm fan right on top of your GPU and chipset area, although it won't benefit as intake unless you have a side vent (me looks around for a dremel).

If you have enough empty 5.25 drive bays up top, a 120mm fan can be easily rigged in there and draws huge air into the case.

That GPU was hitting some high temps with that new cooler, had it been using the old one it would have been in the 90s, eh?

i am also waiting from ripken.. no matter what i did, i cant put the fan in front of the lower hdd rack..

You are correct. I swapped out my more powerful case fan with my CPU fan. I got more effective cooling on my CPU, but my case is now lacking a fresh supply of air so it now becomes stable at whatever the case fans can handle.

Basically, I need to order another TT fan for the front of the case to increase my air flow, and perhaps add another fan in the lower part of the case to direct cool air over my GPU / NF3 chipset. (Dead spot in that area due to ineffective design.) Maybe I'll add an exhaust below the graphics card...

Decisions.... decisions....

Mark

The intake is easily resolved temporarily by taking the side panel off. More exhaust always helps the intake draw in, blowholes are easy mods.

Sounds like the trusty Zalman FB123 bracket would work for you, put a 120mm right over your vid and chipset. Would have room for another too.

A PCI slot exhaust you mean? Hmmm, never seen one in action, but if they are quiet and move air then t'is enough.

.

True... except that I want to maintain positive pressure in my case to prevent a vaccum that will suck dust into my rig. (I'm anal like that! :shake: ) I got really good cooling with the 120mm TT intake fan... I just gotta buy another and stick that sucker in to get the flow numbers back up. :cool:

I made up some brackets and directed an 80mm over the chipset fan and at the video card. It dropped temps about 3-5 degrees C but I think I still need to exhaust hot air in that area... which leads to my latest idea about cooling that area.

I am going to make a plate that covers the four unused PCI slots, and mount an 80mm fan there to pull the hot air out of that area and out the bak of the case. Then, I am going to install another 120mm fan in the bottom and duct air towards my chipset and GPU. The 80mm fan I put over the PWMIC is helping in that area... so I think I am getting closer to where I want to be. :nod:

Thanks for the feedback!

Mark

I was going to mention that princible, I'm so glad you know it! I've tried to achieve the same thing in a few other cases I've worked in. Effective concept, and really does work.



Looking forward to seeing some pics of the work in progress.

Ask, and ye shall receive! :shake:

Here is my rig before I swapped out the chipset fan, the GPU fan, and the CPU fan... I was playing with the 80mm fan to get some airflow over the chipset fan.



This is with the Accelero X1 and Evercool VC-RE installed:



I don't yet have pictures of the new TT fan on the CPU... but it looks lust like the one on the rear of my case. That stock one pictured on the CPU is the one I slapped into the front of my rig... and will soon be replacing. I moved that 80mm fan up beside the 120mm CPU fan (to the right of it) to cool the PWMIC. It does a good job... but I need more airflow! :nod:

More pictures to come!

Mark

I'm resurrecting this thread for a couple reasons.

Firstly, I pretty near gutted my P180 last night as I reconfigured the fans and cooling, relocated a front panel display/controller that has way too much wire to deal with, and nearly completed prototype version 1.1a of the Ram Guardian Wind Tunnel P180 mod.

Secondly, in testing I was running without a couple of fans, particularly the one I had on the ram and 3v-5v voltage jumper, and in ragards to a comment Osen made about the temps of the heatsink on the chip next to the jumper, I found out first hand, errr finger, just how HOT it gets!

I remembered to check the temps when I flipped the jumper, and there was no significant change in the sessions that followed. That heatsink was always just good and warm, and I verified it by measuring it with two of the three sensors. Averaged about 39C when overclocked (2.7ghz, 3.5v vdimm), under load, case open, fans high.

As I finished up reconfiging the fans last night, starting the system up progressively with more and more stuff hooked up, the FPD high temp alarm went off during one session, I remember being mixed up which sensor it was, and fearing that I broke one of the thermistors because no way it could be reading 50C! I bumped up the alarm tolerance and as I did that the temperature kept climbing! I was about to hit the power when it settled at about 55C. I let it idle a bit to be sure, then shut it down.

Tracing the wires (I have stripes drawn with a sharpie near the sensor to identify which sensor is which), I found the hot one on the heatsink beside the voltage jumper, and went ahead and tapped it with a finger. Yup, hot. Ouch.

So at this point I hadn't put the top intake fan back in, the one I rigged into the 5.25 drive bays. I was making changes there, more permanent fixtures, and was hoping I could run the system a day or two without that fan. Maybe longer, give me some time to do it proper.

I suppose I could have pulled out the BH-5 and put in some UTT. Nuh-uh, not meh! I looked at putting that zalman NB47J on it, and still might do that as soon as I find what I need to fasten it, but it wasn't going to work fast or easy, I'd be better off completing the fan bracket I was making.

Basically what I did was take an old 3.5 to 5.25 drive adapter and some L-shape hardware with some nuts and bolts and sort of like a mechano set got that fan back in there rigid as ever, actually pointed towards the ram and heatsink, and it's only held with one wingnut for easy removal. All the L-shape pieces are adjustable, so the fan can actually be redirected, raised or lowered a bit. It's really quite simple, although not too pretty -- I'll keep my eye out for some nicer hardware should dress it up a bit and I'll be painting the rest eventually.

Putting a decent amount of air past that heatsink takes a lot of temp off of it. When I first fired up the new fan, I was shocked that it was still hitting 50C!! But then I realised the fan was on low! lol.

Cranked the fan up, and holy shit!!! :eek: 50... 45C... 40C... 39C... 35C!! Amazing, at low speed the fan hardly helped at all. :mad: But once it was moving decent air it took temp off immediately and fast!

35-37C idle and 39-40C load. No fan, 55C+ :cool:

I dub this new fan mounting the Ram Guardian Wind Tunnel ver 1.1a from Hell.

Pics for your pleasure to follow. I pulled the Freezer Pro out and put in the XP-120. That allowed me to move the Zalman FB123 bracket back to the left, mounting a 120mm directly over the video and chipset. You can see the top of the bracket just touching the fan on the XP-120. The new RGWT is up top in the 5.25 drive bays. Lights, camera, action!











.

Views installed:







Front view:









I'm going to move the FPD down one, and get longer L-shape hardware to stretch down to the lower drive bay -- reverse the bays but fan stays where it is, like so:



.

Overall, I'm estimating the XP-120 is performing a couple degrees better than the Freezer Pro. It's hard to say at this point because the ambient temperature from most of my collected data from the freezer is a good couple degrees below what it is now. Taking that into consideration, it may be 1 or 2 degrees better under load.

However, my ram is now the same temperature for both sticks. With the freezer, it was always cooler for the stick closest to the Freezer which was blowing towards it. Even though I had active cooling in the area. Just shows how much wash there is from the xp-120 blasting down on the mobo.

I've definately lost intake power with this new config, due to all the crap I have loaded in the upper drive bays now, it is blocking at least 50% of the fan flow. But I don't care, because all that crap used to be down in the lower area crowding everything, a royal wiring nightmare. Much better now, most of the mess is hidden and absolutely out of the way. Once I flip the FPD back down a bay, it'll be much better.

More pics, just cuz I had them ready and kind of finish off the story. Enjoy!
























.

I wonder where this urban myth came from. Not the first time I read this. There is no difference in how metals of different type transfer heat to air. :confused:

Besides that, nice thread (and pictures) with lots of fans. :eek:

WOW, lol a fan boy of fan's has to be a first, i have the same case and only four fans in top half none in the bottom! temps i have a Zalman ZM-NB47J Northbridge Cooler no fan with AS5 which now idle's @ 41c max on a hot day and 35c on a normal, all my fans set to low, my full load temps are CPU @ 42c PWMIC @40c CHIPSET @ 41c! i think with all that cash on fans could have gone some way towards Water Cooling!!

Maybe not but the is a difference between how different metals cool down and conduct heat, Copper conducts more heat than aluminum, but aluminum cools down much quicker than copper!

Your system is so nice.I'm drooling all over.I personally think that the antec fans are pretty loud.But the arrangment and the way you settled all there is beautifull(I don't meen cable managment).Congratulations.
@-CsA-TAZ what do you think about the zalman?I have it to and I/m satisfied with it.

Aluminum cools down quicker due to its lower density (and thus has lower thermal capacity), that doesnt affect the transfer of heat to air though since it cannot "suck up" as much heat as copper can in the first place.

Thermal capacity and conduction are the magic words here. Airflow and surface area are the other corner stones.

The only 2 factors in favor of aluminum is weight and cost. However, these two factors often outweight the advantages of copper in many applications.

LOL, oh noooo, fan fan boy just doesn't ring well!

Outstanding temps, especially for a hot day! I have one of those zalman here unused, I might try it because I'm not happy with the 44C chipset temp I currently have under load with all the fans on low speed. I was hoping for more out of this VC-RE, and I'm sure it is mounted fine, AS5. Rest of the temps I'm pretty good with, biggest jump I see is when the house warms up.

Heh, I wish about the water cooling. Maybe one day, I dunno, it'd have to be rock solid so I could leave it unattended without worries of it springing a leak. And the good systems are bloody expensive. I could see going with a corsiar nautilus or something though.

These fans cost peanuts. I basically picked them up one at a time when they went on sale, so cheap you were only allowed one per customer. I think I paid $8 or $9 per. So it took a few sales till I had 3 or 4 of the tricool LED ones. I've tried tons of others, mostly in other peoples' systems. I know lots about nice quiet fans, not much about performance quiet fans. I went with these because they nearly match one of the panaflo in stats: 79cfm 30dB.

They aren't that loud, even on high. But when you have a few of them in a small area, yeah you can hear it man, lol. Glad I have the nice thick sides of the P180, with the case sealed up and fans on high, it's no noisier than any other computer. Fans on low, I can't hear it at all, too much other sounds here drown it out completely.

I'd like to get my hands on a panaflo H1BX, but no stock around here, really hard to get, expensive. I'm dying to see how much it will take off the CPU compared to the antec. Now that fan will be loud!

It does the job perfectly, what more can you ask for?, cools much better than i was expecting!




Ok correct me if Im wrong, but where in my sentence did i say anything different? :confused:

Gee, thanks! It's not worth drooling over, heh, nope. Cable management leaves a lot to be desired, it'll never be perfect, I've just got too much crap in there and keep changing it.

Looking from the back in to the front, you can see there is quite the rats nest. I've just never been able to do a completely clean cable job in this system.

Loud is a relative term I guess. I've found the antec fans can vary a lot between fan to fan, some are much louder than others, faster too. They definately make more noise than other fans, especially if you compare lower speeds. Yet at lower speeds the sound level is fine, for me, even though they may not match the same CFM as other quieter fans, at least these ones will kick up a storm when I need, with not too much noise.

There is an iMac G5 about 12 feet behind and to the left of me, and with my case right beside my mouse, open with fans at full tilt, I can still hear the iMac's little fan whine away behind me (folding of course, poor thing heats up like a djin under load, lol). So if that's any indication of actual sound level... or maybe I'm now deaf in my right ear?? :eek:

Arrangement is much better than before, but I've got one or two more changes to make. Hopefully, one change will allow me to do things like put the Freezer Pro back on without moving anything else, or put a big Panaflo on the xp-120 without hack-sawing the bracket that would be in the way of the 38mm thick fan. I'll update here when I get to each stage!