Ultra-D and Antec P180 cooling modifications

[-CsA-TAZ]

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.

 

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

 

 

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.

 

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

[Guest LithoTech]

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.

 

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!

[Guest LithoTech]

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.

 

Thankee for wording that much better than me.

 

Correct me since maybe I have a misconception here, but isn't the process of cooling down in effect; the conduction of heat from the metal surface to the air? If not, then given no air movement, where does the heat go?

 

Copper takes longer to cool down because it is more dense, but is that because it is able to store more heat in it and hense take longer to conduct it away into the air, or is it because is retains the heat better not allowing the air molecules to conduct the heat energy away from it?

 

It's easy to see how aluminum can be used to advantage, being lighter and cheaper you can make a larger surface area for the air molecules to conduct heat away from faster, at the same cost or less, same wieght or less, than a copper unit. The zalman nb47j is a perfect example, it must have 5 times the surface area of the vc-re.

[Guest Blooz1]

osen, I'm surprised you could bend those fins on the Zalman that much! That sink is either cast or extruded, and the material is extremely brittle.

 

(Someone had asked about doing that very thing in a different thread the other day. I tried it with a sink I have laying around here, and the fin snapped off!)

[Guest LithoTech]

osen, I'm surprised you could bend those fins on the Zalman that much! That sink is either cast or extruded, and the material is extremely brittle.

 

(Someone had asked about doing that very thing in a different thread the other day. I tried it with a sink I have laying around here, and the fin snapped off!)

 

I've seen a few threads on it here and there, and I grabbed two of the little blighters just in case I messed up with one. But then I had to use the other for a paying repair job, ending up buying a vc-re and now still have a single zalman that's going in this case one way or another lol.

 

Here's what I did with the repair job, it used to have a crystal orb that made a lot of noise for about 2 minutes when you booted it up:

 

 

They are handy little coolers, a lot you can do with them.

 

Here's a good pic I ran into at some point, some good bending work there heheh. Not sure why some prongs seem to snap for some people, and obviously not in this case:

 

[marauder16]

I see you have Enermax Liberty so I wanted to ask if that PSU has cables long enough to reach the ATX and mobo power connectors in P180? (I'm planinng to take Liberty 620W that's why...)

 

EDIT: Don't look at the sig, I'm building a new system.

[maka_RTH]

well, i finally registered after reading stuff on here for hours, haha. i found this thread quite interesting, lotsa fans i'm still building and testing my system, and while i was doing so, i noticed that my ram was getting hot to the touch, and i didn't like that, and i don't think prime95 did either, cuz it wouldn't pass at speeds that i was almost positive it should work. so, i started looking into putting some type of fan cooling on them, looking for something i could buy that would basically put a HSF on my ram. i came across this thread, and realized, hey, why not just put a fan over them? so, i grabbed my stock AMD fan, and right now it's just sitting on top of my 9500 leaning against my ram, and it lowered my PWMIC about 15C, and my ram is now cool to the touch. it's helped a ton with stability, including being able to tighten my ram timings. i also have a TT 120 for exhaust, and the stock cooler master 120 for intake. i'll take some pics tomorrow when i have it out, it's kinda annoying to get at right now though and i'm running memtest. but yeah, my temps at idle are about 27 CPU, 35 PWMIC, and 40-45 Chipset(can't remember for sure on idle), and load is about 41 CPU, 36-39 PWMIC, and 46-47 Chipset. i don't know if you guys know what the 9500 looks like, but the fan on it blows towards the exhaust, and the exhaust helps pull tons of air through it as well. without the exhaust it was running high 30's idle, and mid-high 40's full load. i just want to make a custom bracket now to actually mount my fan for my ram. anyways, yeah, love the ideas. i still need to get an evercool for my chipset, get those temps down some, and i haven't messed with video yet, so i haven't monitored those temps at all as i'm still trying to get the OC i want and be stable.

[Guest LithoTech]

I see you have Enermax Liberty so I wanted to ask if that PSU has cables long enough to reach the ATX and mobo power connectors in P180? (I'm planinng to take Liberty 620W that's why...)

 

EDIT: Don't look at the sig, I'm building a new system.

 

Yes, the cables will reach fine. The ATX lines are actually a couple inches longer than the GameXStream.

 

The problem with the Liberty is their "Eternity" cable system does not make for easy clean cable routing. The connectors are too close together, and you always have unused connectors inbetween the ones you are using. So you end up having to run extra lines and/or splitters to make all your connections, and if the cable is visible at all, chances are good an ugly unused SATA connector is showing.

 

Also, even though the modular lines may have 4 power connectors on it, you aren't supposed to hook up more than two Hard Drives onto one cable. WTF is that? I want 4x HDDs in my lower drive bay, and have to run two lines in to power them? Bah. Granted, the OCZ GX only has 3x power per SATA line so I'd still be running two lines, but they are much easier to manage when they don't have a freaking molex connector inbetween every single sata power connector! LOL.

 

These extra connections also ruin the cable sleeving, which basically ends at the first connector.

 

Sorry for venting. I like the Liberty other than that, it is rock solid on all rails no matter what the load it doesn't budge. It is freaky quiet. My old one will be put to good use, rest assured, it will be under indefinate 24/7 load in another day or so.

[n1ce_hat]

good work guys, looks great

[marauder16]

Yes, the cables will reach fine. The ATX lines are actually a couple inches longer than the GameXStream.

 

The problem with the Liberty is their "Eternity" cable system does not make for easy clean cable routing. The connectors are too close together, and you always have unused connectors inbetween the ones you are using. So you end up having to run extra lines and/or splitters to make all your connections, and if the cable is visible at all, chances are good an ugly unused SATA connector is showing.

 

Also, even though the modular lines may have 4 power connectors on it, you aren't supposed to hook up more than two Hard Drives onto one cable. WTF is that? I want 4x HDDs in my lower drive bay, and have to run two lines in to power them? Bah. Granted, the OCZ GX only has 3x power per SATA line so I'd still be running two lines, but they are much easier to manage when they don't have a freaking molex connector inbetween every single sata power connector! LOL.

 

 

These extra connections also ruin the cable sleeving, which basically ends at the first connector.

 

Sorry for venting. I like the Liberty other than that, it is rock solid on all rails no matter what the load it doesn't budge. It is freaky quiet. My old one will be put to good use, rest assured, it will be under indefinate 24/7 load in another day or so.

 

thnx for the info but I won't have that problem cause I plan to have one 250GB SATAII and occasionally one 40GB PATA drive and I have plenty of fans to plug in so that spare molex will be used for that.

[maka_RTH]

so yeah, even though it's not the P180, here's my current fan setup:

 

and without the flash, everything on:

[Guest LithoTech]

well, i finally registered after reading stuff on here for hours... so, i grabbed my stock AMD fan, and right now it's just sitting on top of my 9500 leaning against my ram... i'll take some pics tomorrow when i have it out...

 

Welcome to DFI Street, and congrats on owning an awesome motherboard!

 

I was suprised myself, at how little air it takes to reduce ram temp. When the 120mm on mine is at low speed, it doesn't touch the temps, but that particular fan is pretty much useless at that speed. At medium it takes any stick I have at blistering hot and makes it barely warm to the touch, no matter what the clockspeed or load. Love it! I never run that fan on high, it draws too much air in lol.

 

I would like to have it tilt a bit downward, towards the lower MOSFETS for the PWMIC. Just a little bit... I've been pondering a few ways to do it, no concrete solution yet.

 

Mine started in a leaning way too, lol!

 

Good exhaust is the foundation of good cooling and airflow. Good exhaust will promote good intake, that 9500 helping to control and drect flow, can hardly beat it.

 

Looking forward to seeing your pics!

 

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