P180 Report finished

[zikje]

Goals

• Hide cables
• Remove fingerguards from case ans PSU
• Remove dust

Components

• Asus A8N-SLI Motherboard
• Tagan 430W PSU
• AMD X2 3800 CPU
• XFX GeForce 7800 GTX + Zalan VF-700
• Scythe Ninja
• WD 2500KS 250GB SATAII HD
• Zalman Northbridge
• Creative Audigy Soundcard
• Samsung DVD-RW
• Antec P180 Case

Workforce
2 people

Total time spent
5h 45min

Step 1: Take everything out
To be able to drill, remove the dust en rewire the case we had to take everything out, motherboard included. Before removing everything we did have to think first on how we would put it back together, where we would connect the cables and where we would drill the holes.


Step 2: Cleaning
Dust had to be removed. You can see on the pics that it was really necessary.



Step 3: Drilling
We removed all fingerguards to improve airflow. Not on the pictures is the removal of the fingergards of the PSU.


Then we moved on to drilling holes for rerouting the cables.

For the 4-pin connector cable:

• One hole at the top of the motherboard for the 4-pin connector. It used to go along the frontside of the motherboard, to the right of the soundcard, to the left and underneath the graphic card and then to the 4-pin connector on the motherboard.
• Also for the 4-pin connector we had to cut out a piece of the seperator of the 2 rooms in the case at the back of the case.
• And again for the 4-pin connecter we drilled some holes in the plate behind the motherboard to put in some plastics that would hold the 4-pin cable.

For fun
The height of the Ninja compared to one of the great beers in Belgium.


For cables that change compartment:
There is a hole for getting cables through to the upper compartment. But that hole is in the middle. So we decided to drill a hole that's more located to the back of the case and more to the right. All cables can hide behind the removable HD case. We taped up the other remaining holes to seal the compartment off.



Step 4: Cleaning
Again we had to do some cleaning after the drilling to remove the "iron dust". Letting that kind of dust laying around in the vicinity of electronics is probably not a good idea. In this cleaning operation I even got seriously wounded :p.


Step 5: Rerouting the cables
The finals step was rerouting the cables and putting all material back into the case. I let the back case fan go under the motherboard and let the fan regulator outside. On the top of the case where a place is left for putting another fan, I normally put a book to close it off.




Conclusions & observations

• HD temp is too high and keeps on rizing even when I open the case => I need to put a fan in front of the HD
• Other temps are pretty good
• I can still hear some noise: HD seeking noise, Antec Tricool fans (are set on low; might replace these with more silent fans), the Zalman is pretty quiet because I can set the speed in Speedfan.
• I might put on some finishing touches like getting some rubber on the drilled edges (like around the back casefan)
• I might grab my SilentMaxx HD Silencer from my old PC (if my new HD fits)
• Other silencing material might also be useful: I haven't used any kind of dampening foam.
• One thing that still bugs me is the stupid, flat IDE cable going to my DVD-RW. It's difficult to hide and bend that one.
• But it all looks cleaner now

[derekchinese]

looks good to me!
in your report will you include a subjective assesment of the noise?

[zikje]

I will try that yes. But currently I have some problems controlling my Zalman fan speed with Speedfan. It's attached to the motherboard chipset fan connector. Normally you should be able to control that speed!?

[porkchop]

fan control depends entirely on the mobo.

asus has qfan, which usually allows control of the cpu fan(pwm) and 1 sys fan. qfan2 is the same but with more controllable sys fans(usually bar 1).
only the cheapest asus mobos only allow 1 controllable header.

my abit mobo lets me control the cpu fan and the sys fan only.
speedfan works, but only after opening abiteq(abits control utility).

mess around with asus's own speed control software and make sure that you plugged the fan into a header which allows control.
also check to see if it needs to be enabled in the bios.

having all your fans controlled through software makes life alot easier .

[zikje]

I've switched the connector to the CPU fan and that works with Speedfan. So now I can control the speed of the Zalman fan.

Meanwhile I'm writing my report so stay tuned !

[spookmineer]

But currently I have some problems controlling my Zalman fan speed with Speedfan. It's attached to the motherboard chipset fan connector. Normally you should be able to control that speed!?

Video card fan is better controlled using RivaTuner. Connect the fan to the video card connector.

The look of this case is very clean!

[zikje]

Well there doesn't seem to be a video fan connector on my mobo. But I've rerouted it to my CPU fan connector. That works now with Speedfan.

In what ways is RivaTuner better than Speedfan for controlling the videocard?

[jaldridge6]

if you're going to be gaming, I don't think its wise to use a fanless ninja. Scythe themselves says that fanless is only an option for writing, browsing, and listening to music. I am being presumptuous here merely because you have a 7800GT and that to me denotes gaming which is a will throttle most dual cores up into pretty hefty temps. I guess rather than state any affirmation, i'd rather ask a question through and through. What sort of temps are you getting at full load without a fan on the ninja?

[jaldridge6]

oh, and i'd just like to express my experience with the tricool fans in the p180. After a mere month, two of my fans were useless as they had developed a loud clicking noise. I'd really recommend replacing these at some point. They aren't the best fan out there. I've tried maybe half a dozen, and so far, I'd say the scythe 800rpm SFLEX fan would make a nice replacement!

oh and I forgot to say in my last post, nice job. Looks very clean =)

[zikje]

Thx, my Tricool fans don't click (think 2 years old?) but I can hear them on low. I need another fan on the bottom compartment so I'll probably buy 3 Noctua fans.

Temps have been ok for gaming (I have been a competitive gamer). I'll look some exact temps later, but I have put the casefans on low and the Zalman on 1350 rpm. CPU get in the high forties, Graka in the high fifties. But I'll have to take another more demanding game. CPU temps drop pretty fast after gaming because I use Cool & Quiet: idle temps is 23-28 depending on the weather.

And it's nog exactly fanless Ninja, because the P180 back case fan position is just ideally placed.

[raziell]

Thx, my Tricool fans don't click (think 2 years old?) but I can hear them on low. I need another fan on the bottom compartment so I'll probably buy 3 Noctua fans.

don"t go for the Noctua,i purchase 2 of the 800 rpm version and they are everything but silent.....
go for the nexus 120 mm - they are the best.
ido

[[F]bernZ]

don"t go for the Noctua,i purchase 2 of the 800 rpm version and they are everything but silent.....

QFT. Mine have a high pitched ringing noise to them when the static pressure is high.

[raziell]

looking good!

[Niklas]

Great Work with the cable arrangement. The photos are very nice!

Some comments on the rig:
- First of all. I highly recommend the Nexus 12 cm fans. They are inaudible when undervolted. I replaced my TriCool fans with Nexus and that made all the difference. I have 3 fans installed in my 180 case, the only noice is from the HD.
- To minimize vibration noise to the chassis from the fans, replace the fixation screws with rubber gommets.
- To regulate the fan speed the Zalman ZM-MFC1 works fine. You can control up to 6 fans with this.
- To eliminate HD noise the Scythe Quiet Drive works great. It eliminates almost all seek noise and works with SATA drives.

Congratiulations on a nice clean rig!