Antec P182 case

[ATINUT]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

that is a gorgeous case...I heard about it before but never bothered to look up any specs/reviews on it...I just did and I really like what I see--simple but classy on the outside, and excellent on the inside---not only the cooling (5 120mm fans, case comes with 3) but having separate cages for the hard drives, power supply etc...having the power supply on the bottom is also a nice touch...toolless design (for the most part) and I can still get the large Thermeltake or Tuniq cooler because there is no fan on the left side panel (I believe that fan is placed in the middle of the case)

I think the Antec P182 is going to be my next case...Thanks ATINUT!

I see that they also have a P182 special Edition which comes with a shiny mirrored finish...looks sweet but I prefer the black standard version

before I was torn between getting the Cooler Master CM-690, the Cooler Master Stacker 832 or the Xclio WindTunnel Advanced but now it looks like the P182 has everything I need

Cooler Master CM-690

Cooler Master

Cooler Master Stacker 832

Cooler Master

XClio WindTunnel Advanced

Newegg.com - XCLIO WTBK ADVANCED Fully Black Finish Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail

I got the Black P182 case. I'm in the process of getting a new door from Antec, after the door on my case, came off and a small piece of the plastic that holds the door to the plastic frame the door attaches to broke off, from the weight of everything in my case. Other this minor thing, it's an excellent case.

I couldn't even use the harddrive cage, because of my Thermaltake Toughpower 700watt powersupply, and the plastic shields that you put the powersupply cords up through, if the cords aren't long enough to be hidden the opposite side of the case, had to be taken out and not used, as my second 8800GTS wouldn't fit with them in place.

The harddrive bays are so freakin easy to insert or remove. Just turn out a thumb screw, pull the bay out, insert your drives, attach the power cables, and SATA data cables, which are generally long enough, to the drive or drives, and then attach said cables to the motherboard, slide the drive bay back in place, turn the thumb screw back in, and boom the drives are in place.

My 8800GTS's because of the way the drive bays are designed, to come out, are not blocking the drive bays. If I was using two 8800GTX or two 8800 Ultra cards, it would be a royal pain to use the primary harddrive bay.

One note, if you put a fan in the middle to keep you videocard or videocards cool, you lose the ability to put drives in the first drive bay, and have to put them in the second drive bay in the lower half of the case. However you can achieve the same effect, if two harddrives are in the primary bay, by putting a 120mm fan in the fan bay, in front of the primary harddrive, which is what I'm going to do this week, with another 3 speed 120mm fan.

I have all the fans that came with the case set for highspeed, to keep everything cool, espicially my cpu while gaming. Another thing that I like is that the fans aren't super noisy like some fans on the market.

[CrowdAds]

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

Zalman heat sink?

Yes, its a Zalman CNPS8700 NT with a PWM fan. Not as nice as fvbounty's stock Intel IMO because there are too many fins and hardly any airflow makes it to the mobo. I like this case a lot. It is smaller and looks better in the front than my old venerable Antec SLK3700BQE. I have three Antec Tri-Cool fans which are all set on min. speed (120mm rear, 2x92mm front). Gone is the left side panel vents. The side panels and roof comes with dampening material inside. Also gone is the Intel 3.5" port module. The Antec comes with spec. cables for this and goes to a potted module containing all the ports up front (headphone, front audio out, 2xUSB 2.0, 1x1394a). Also gone is the floppy drive. I moved the DVD drive to the bottom slot so I could use one SATA power cable for both it and the single hard drive.

Funny, people whine about the floppy connector and PS/2 ports still being on the board. These connectors take up no space hardly and come in handy. A friend of mine tried installing XP Pro 64-bit on an Intel DP35 board and took 3 nights trying to get the F6 floppy drivers to be read off a USB thumb drive so he could set up AHCI. He finally had to give up and go to Best Buy and buy a USB floppy drive for about $30 lol.

[traveler]

Originally Posted by Sandog

Yes, its a Zalman CNPS8700 NT with a PWM fan. Not as nice as fvbounty's stock Intel IMO because there are too many fins and hardly any airflow makes it to the mobo.

[snip]

Ahhhhhhh. The CNPS8700NT in action! Thanks for posting the pic.

How is the PWM working? Is yours set for variable or constant speed?

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by traveler

Ahhhhhhh. The CNPS8700NT in action! Thanks for posting the pic.

How is the PWM working? Is yours set for variable or constant speed?

I let the ASIC chip control fan speed by monitoring CPU core temps. If you look at the fan picture closely you can see the heat pipes. It runs quiet under idle conditions but you can hear it while gaming with the old X6800.

[traveler]

Originally Posted by Sandog

I let the ASIC chip control fan speed by monitoring CPU core temps. If you look at the fan picture closely you can see the heat pipes. It runs quiet under idle conditions but you can hear it while gaming with the old X6800.

I heard that Pulse Width Modulated fan speed makes LED's on the fans strobe/blink as the pulses go on and off. Does your PWM 8700 do that?

[polonyc2]

the cooling in the P182 worries me a bit...no side panel fan to cool the video card area...also the fan in the bottom chamber will be a tight fit with the power supply

I might just go with the Cooler Master Stacker 832

[CK8-04]

IMHO that side panel fan is completely useless as long as your video card has sufficient cooling. The PSU will have no problem fitting in the bottom chamber as long as you don't overestimate your power needs and buy some ridiculous 600+ watt PSU which are typically longer than standard power supplies.

[ATINUT]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

the cooling in the P182 worries me a bit...no side panel fan to cool the video card area...also the fan in the bottom chamber will be a tight fit with the power supply

I might just go with the Cooler Master Stacker 832

I had to take out the powersupply cage. The Powersupply cage, wouldn't fit on my powersupply.

There is a fan bay in front of the main harddrive bay, which I put a fan in. If you don't put any harddrives in the main fan bay, you can add one last 120mm fan to keep your videocard or videocards cool.

What I like, is that there is enough space around and between my main harddrives, that the fan in front of the main harddrive bay is keeping my harddrives and videocards cool. I have the fan set on highspeed all the time.

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by traveler

I heard that Pulse Width Modulated fan speed makes LED's on the fans strobe/blink as the pulses go on and off. Does your PWM 8700 do that?

I believe the fan probably has an added diode that allows the PWM signal to cut on/off the 12V to the fan motor but my fan LED stays the same brightness all the time. It is connected directly to 12V. It is possible to have the LED running off the PWM circuit but in order for it to blink the pulse period would have to be greater than 33ms (less than 30Hz).

[traveler]

Originally Posted by Sandog

I let the ASIC chip control fan speed by monitoring CPU core temps.

[snip]

Is that a plug the fan into the motherboard and use the BIOS settings thing?

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by traveler

Is that a plug the fan into the motherboard and use the BIOS settings thing?

Yes, you enable fan control in BIOS then there is a setting to run the lowest fan speed (at the lowest temperature) to either off or slow. Off turns the fans off at the lowest temp. and slow always keeps the fans running (slow) no matter how low the temps get. This is the setting I use. This applies to the case fan headers on the mobo and not the CPU fan header. That header never cuts off completely.