Cool,quiet P182 mini-report

[aelfewulf]

Hello all!

After a year of lurking, I'd like to share my experiences while building this rig, this might be useful to fellow P182 users, and also those considering using this wonderful case from Antec. Here we go!

My guiding principles while building/modding this rig is pretty simple:
1. As quiet as possible,
2. As cool as possible,
3. and Efficient airflow design

And here are my system specs:
Antec EarthWatts 430, Asus P5k, E4300 (stock) + Scythe Infinity, 2gig Kingston HyperX DDR-800, Gigabyte 8600gt, one optical drive, one 3.5" 7200rpm harddisk.
I have not overclocked at this time, but i'm really excited about the overclock potential of the E4300...

In this pic u can see a important mod: a baffle that separates the CPU and graphics card into 2 distinct chambers. I got this inspiration thanks to Chris Thomson at silentpcreview.com. Thumbs up!!!



This cardboard baffle was easier to make and install than I initially thought! It rests snugly in between a few mobo capacitors, fan headings, a 12 cm fan, and the power cable keeps it in place. No tape or glue needed.

Ok let's go for a closeup of the graphics card chamber...

Here u can see the Gigabyte 8600gt uses a passive heatsink, and I have a 12 cm Scythe fan blowing horizontally across the whole card, and exhaust thru the PCI panels. This Scythe fan came from the Scythe Infinity which I am using (more on this later); it moves 46.5CFM of air and is QUIET. You can see that I taped up 3 of the PCI panels at the bottom; I did this with the hope of maximizing the airflow over the heatsink.

Here's a shot of the back, showing the graphic card compartment exhaust:

You can see I taped a tiny strip of single ply tissue to test the airflow direction. Heated air comes out of all 3 open PCI panels.

Now let's see the CPU cooling solution:


and this...

There are 2 fans in this compartment:
1. Antec Tricool @Low strapped on the Scythe Infinity, moving 28CFM.
2. Antec Tricool @Low on the top exhaust.

That's right folks, that's a shroud made out of a plastic folder; 3 pieces carefully measured and fitted onto the top, side and bottom of the Infinity. The idea is to allow heated air to go right out of the case. With this design, the top exhaust fan's job will be to pull in cool air over the voltage regulators, north bridge, the base of the Infinity, and possibly the RAM too. The top fan is 1 cm away from the Infinity.

...view from the front...

You can see the height of the RAM aligns exactly with the edge of the fan, hopefully this leads to good airflow over the RAM. Also, the fan speedswitch is long enough such that it lies conveniently on top of my DVD drive. It's very convenient to bump up the fan speed during heavy overclocking+gaming, but at medium setting the fan IS audible.

This final pic shows the front...I removed the air filter to improve airflow in the graphics card chamber. My experiments show that closing the front door will raise core temps by 2 degrees.



Ok now for the meat of the matter: TEMPERATURES

I use Coretemp 0.95, Orthos. Temps for the 2 cores vary only by 1-2 degrees.
With ambient at 30C, Idle temp=40C; Load=59C.

Other temps: System=40C; GPU=52 (idle); HDD=45C

My thoughts on heatsink lapping: Well-worth the effort! After lapping both the heatsink and CPU IHS, my load temps dropped by 5 degrees! I use AS5, and I follow exactly the application instructions as per Arctic Silver website. It says AS5 will settle in after 200hrs, resulting in 2-5C drop in temp. I'd be really happy with another 2C drop!:) Will update the results soon...

On a final note...
I feel the baffle has been a really critical mod. Previously, without it, and having both fans at top and rear running at low speed, with Scythe fan strapped on Infinity, PLUS another Antec fan in the graphics card chamber, air was actually sucked in from the rear PCI panels, despite the fact that a fan was blowing in the opposite direction!

There ya go, hope u all enjoyed this mini report! Now my system is running with just 3 fans. Quiet, quiet quiet!
Questions and comments are most welcome!

[bonestonne]

very nice build, i like the use of ducts and chambers, it probably helps out the graphics card a ton.

your DVI to VGA adapter, have you ever had trouble with it? i have one, but it seems to me that it caused one of my older VGA cables to die [started only giving my R, G or B, it would be an interesting solution to get all of them. hasn't posed a problem yet, but you're graphics card is higher up in your case than mine, so i was wondering what you thought.

[JohnFL]

aelfewulf....

Very nicely done! I did the same things in my P180. I do have a question tho. I have seen several people mention that they lapped their cpu. Altho i have lapped my cpu heatsink, i have never tried that with the cpu itself. Is the top surface of the cpu hard enough to allow you to lap it? Also, i image you have to becareful that you do not get any of the particals that your lapping, onto the pins on the other side. Any comments on this?

[aelfewulf]

bonestonne,

no problem with my DVI-VGA so far. Anyway, I will be gettin a new widescreen lcd monitor within a week, so I won't need the adaptor anymore!

[aelfewulf]

JohnFL, good question on lapping the CPU. Here's what I did:

1. Cover up the pins with the stock intel black plastic protector
2. Tape up the edges with electrical tape, so that dust/water can't go in

That's it!

The IHS is covered by a layer of nickel. After the initial polishing, you will start to see the copper underneath. My goal was not to totally remove the nickel, but to make a flat surface. When I was done with it, the centre part was still nickel colored, so it suggests the surface was concave initially.

I'd say, go for it!

[graysky]

Interesting idea to compartment off the video board w/ a piece of cardboard... I wonder if there is a better choice of material for that though... one that isn't flammable! Anyone got some ideas?

I will say that it is pretty darn effective. Usually my X1950 Pro raises my NB temps by about 4-5 °C since the 16x slot is so close to the CPU on my board. With the cardboard in place, the NB chipset temp doesn't budge a single degree.

[JohnFL]

graysky...

I used this stuff http://www.ezquilt.com/products/plastic ... sheets.htm It's nothing more than a thin piece of plastic.

I first made a template using cardboard, and then drew that onto the plastic. I then cut it carefully so that it was a little bigger than need be, and then kept putting it into the computer and trimming off a little at a time.

Mine fits between my cpu cooler and my video card. It's not flamable ( as far as i know ), and it keeps its shape and doesn't sage down onto the video card. Also it fits nicely between the capacitors on the motherboard.

[graysky]

Good idea... I was thinking about plexiglass... do you have photo of what you made installed you can post? Also, is it just held in place without a support or did you rig up something to hold it there?

[psiu]

About the only thing I would pick on is the removal of the filter--2 degree change is basically insignificant compared to the increase when your heatsink (and everything else) is clogged with dust. If you haven't used filters before, you don't know what you're missing.

I have not had to blow my P180 out at all since I got it (2+ years ago?).

Otherwise nice and clean and nice

[Natronomonas]

Concur with the filter comment.

I still have to clean out my case periodically, but it's nothing compared to what the filters stop (my case sits on carpet, which I'm sure doesn't help things).

[aelfewulf]

good point aboutt the dust filters

[JohnFL]

greysky...

Here is a post of what i did back in January of this year.... viewtopic.php?t=37697&highlight=

At the time of that post, i was going round and round with some other posters about the top fan and the way i am using it ( blowing down into the computer instead of sucking the air out the top ).

In some of the pictures, i put numbers and then telling what i did, and why.

You can see the plastic in the second picture. You will notice that the plastic is bowed in the center. I did this on purpose.... I found that the air that was being blown by the fan at position #1 ( yes that is a fan ), not only did the air go over my memory chips and the components on the motherboard, but the bow in the plastic, directed the air flow back up towards the Zalman heatsink.

I am a very firm believer in having the top fan blowing down into the computer case. I know that goes against the grain of what a lot of the people here on SPCR say ( have the hot air blow up and out of the top ), but in my case, blowing down into the case at the top lowered my CPU temps. And believe me, i tried it both ways many times. And ALWAYS the temps were lower with it blowing down into the case!

[thejamppa]

I've thought to put top fan blowing into main chamber of my gaming rig and test how that affects the temps. That would create positive pressure for my case (tric-cool blowing out, tri-cool blowing in with Scythe S-flex D-model), only worry is how to filter the top fan due its 2 screw 2 clip attachment...

Did you measured also NB's temperatures and HDD's temperatures? How did reversing top fan affected them?

[dangman4ever]

With the P180's top fan blowing in, my CPU and NB temps dropped 2C.

[thejamppa]

With the P180's top fan blowing in, my CPU and NB temps dropped 2C.

That's pretty decent drop...

[protellect]

With the P180's top fan blowing in, my CPU and NB temps dropped 2C.

That's pretty decent drop...

I wanted to try that, but then my ZeroTherm CPU cooler fan ended up facing to the top of the case

[RaptorZX3]

i'm lucky my board have some space between the NB and the PCIe slot. i didn't noticed any increase in temp. because of my passive video card, but i did noticed a better cooling from the stock NB heatsink to the ThermalRight HR-05 though!