My new PC! (P182 + Seasonic + Nexus)

XanderH · Post by **XanderH** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 10:15 am

Hi... I moved my post to the first reply of this topic, I couldn't link to my images in my first post...

XanderH · Post by **XanderH** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 10:16 am

Hi all,

I recently assembled a new, quick and silent PC. I found SPCR to be a great guidance for silencing.

Since English isnâ€™t my native language, I donâ€™t feel like writing the complete story about all the hardware I choose. But I think most of it speaks for itself.

The specs:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Mainboard: Asus P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP
RAM: 4x 1GB (4GB) Kingston ValueRAM DDR2-667 CL5
Graphics: Asus GeForce 8500 GT 256MB (passive)
Harddisks: 3x Samsung SpinPoint T166, 500GB
Optical drives: 2x NEC AD-7170S
Case: Antec P182
PSU: Seasonic S12 Energy+ 550W
CPU-heatsink: Scythe Infinity
Fans: 4x Nexus Real Silent D12SL-12
Fancontroller: Aerocool CoolPanel II Black (with "20-in-1" cardreader)
Damping: Nexus DampTek
Fan-mounting: Nexus Anti-Vibration Mounting Kit

And off course, I have some pictures. All of them are clickable for the full-size images.

Scythe Infinity mounted... Yeah, it's huge.

I used bolts instead of the standard (weak) plastic mounting clips. This is assumed to enhance the cooling. I have no idea if it's true, I never used the standard mount.

Everything installed... You gotta love the cable management system in the P182. Almost every cable is routed behind the mainboard-tray. Considering I don't even have a modular power supply, I'm very pleased with the results.

As usual, everything has it's downside. Or... should I say backside? Lol.
It's a bit of a cablemess behind the tray. But who cares. I don't think there should by any airflow behind it

, so I'm certainly not blocking it. The only "problem" is that I couldn't install DampTek on the right sidepanel. Ah well.

The Infinity, surrounded by two Nexus fans. The tiewrap is to prevent damage when... uh... I drop my PC or something. You can never be sure enough.

A piece of DampTEK on the top-panel, also covering the top exhaust.

Front intake. The empty hdd cage is used as a fanduct.

Left sidepanel covered with damptek.

This image should look familiar to most of SPCR's readers.

Door opened.

All four fans run on 6 or 7V (720-810rpm). It's reasonably quiet now.

I didn't intend to overclock, so temps aren't the most important thing for me. But they aren't bad either.
CPU: 31Â°C (idle) / 46Â°C (load)
GPU: 42Â°C idle... and I don't play games, so it never gets in any other state...

Chipset: 41Â°C
HDD's: 27Â°C

The roomtemp while measuring this temps was about 22Â°C.

The pictures aren't really up to date, I installed some more Damptek recently: on the back of the case, around the harddrive cage, behind the motherboard, and... behind the front door. Applying Damptek behind the door made a real difference, propably because the harddrives are only an inch behind it.

So... what do you think?

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 11:12 am

I love the HSF mounting ^^. Looks good. Very clean cabling. I love the way you've used damptek to seal off the up fan place. Nexuses fit well in there, specially black-white versions. Well done.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 12:03 pm

XanderH wrote:
I didn't intend to overclock, so temps aren't the most important thing for me. But they aren't bad either.
CPU: 31Â°C (idle) / 46Â°C (load)
GPU: 42Â°C idle... and I don't play games, so it never gets in any other state...
Chipset: 41Â°C
HDD's: 27Â°C

Nice clean build, but I don't understand what your system is being used for. A quad core cpu, and a video card, not going to play games? Video editing? Mathematical simulations? Folding? Why did you even need a video card? Or a full size motherboard? Sorry, I'm just curious, you do have a very clean build, but if you're not going to do much with it the power you have is pretty overkill.

XanderH · Post by **XanderH** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 12:21 pm

ryboto wrote:
XanderH wrote:
I didn't intend to overclock, so temps aren't the most important thing for me. But they aren't bad either.
CPU: 31Â°C (idle) / 46Â°C (load)
GPU: 42Â°C idle... and I don't play games, so it never gets in any other state...
Chipset: 41Â°C
HDD's: 27Â°C

Nice clean build, but I don't understand what your system is being used for. A quad core cpu, and a video card, not going to play games? Video editing? Mathematical simulations? Folding? Why did you even need a video card? Or a full size motherboard? Sorry, I'm just curious, you do \have a very clean build, but if you're not going to do much with it the power you have is pretty overkill.

Don't be afraid, the CPU power is well used.

It's my primary workstation, used for photo editting, audio/video encoding, software testing in VMWare, web development, office tasks (I know I don't need a quadcore for the last two

), ... Preferably all at the same time...

I agree, I could have bought a dual-core CPU instead. But I usually upgrade only once in 4/5 years, this quad-core is a bit more feature proof. And I don't regret buying it, being an addicted multi-tasker...

About the video card, eh, I don't think I'll be able to see much without one.

It's one of the cheapest passive cooled DirectX10 ready VGA-cards I could find...

thejamppa wrote:I love the HSF mounting ^^. Looks good. Very clean cabling. I love the way you've used damptek to seal off the up fan place. Nexuses fit well in there, specially black-white versions. Well done.

Thanks.

I saw you asked about my fancontroller too, you probably edited your post when you found out it was already listed in my post...

Anyway, it's the Aerocool CoolPanel II. It does its work, but I wouldn't recommend it. The beep it gives everytime I power up my PC gets a bit annoying.

amjedm · Post by **amjedm** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 12:36 pm

Let's forget the setup for a bit please

(although it does look nice)

I think you've got a nice garden

HelloKitty · Post by **HelloKitty** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 1:11 pm

Very nice.
I'm trying to spec out a similar rig. Can I axe why you used the Scythe Infinity and not the Ninja?

I've been reading here a LOT and it appears most people like the Thermalright 120 OR they Ninja. Since I'm going to have a Q6600 usded for gaming and I will OC the cpu a little bit I'm thinking the Ninja+fan is the best for me? (it looks larger....)

rei · Post by **rei** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 6:25 pm

shouldn't you avoid placing electronics on the outside of antistatic bags?

aelfewulf · Post by **aelfewulf** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:12 pm

Very nice!

the tiewrap to support the Infinity is a great idea.

jaldridge6 · Post by **jaldridge6** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:51 pm

rei wrote:shouldn't you avoid placing electronics on the outside of antistatic bags?

hehe i'm guilty of doing this. I really dont know how antistatic bags work. Is it just on the inside?

Fayd · Post by **Fayd** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 10:23 pm

jaldridge6 wrote:
rei wrote:shouldn't you avoid placing electronics on the outside of antistatic bags?
hehe i'm guilty of doing this. I really dont know how antistatic bags work. Is it just on the inside?

antistatic bags work as a Faraday cage, allowing static electricity to flow *around* them, but not touch the devices inside.

as such, they are slightly conductive.

however, that doesnt matter for setting components on them when they arent powered on. for comparison, you, your flesh, is also slightly conductive. but handling components while they arent powered on doesnt do them any damage. (unless you have some potential difference...)

all in all, dont worry about it.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 1:46 am

XanderH wrote: Anyway, it's the Aerocool CoolPanel II. It does its work, but I wouldn't recommend it. The beep it gives everytime I power up my PC gets a bit annoying.

Heh, that what happend with my AeroCool GateWatch II. That annoying beeping in boot-up was so annoying...

amjedm · Post by **amjedm** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 1:53 am

I've got a Coolermaster Aerogate II and it makes a couple of beeps when I start the PC.

I put a bit of BluTack on the internal speaker and now it makes muted beeps which are much less annoying.

XanderH · Post by **XanderH** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 8:11 am

HelloKitty wrote:Very nice.
I'm trying to spec out a similar rig. Can I axe why you used the Scythe Infinity and not the Ninja?

I've been reading here a LOT and it appears most people like the Thermalright 120 OR they Ninja. Since I'm going to have a Q6600 usded for gaming and I will OC the cpu a little bit I'm thinking the Ninja+fan is the best for me? (it looks larger....)

Hm, I see. According to SPCR's reviews the Ninja is better then the Infinity. Strange, I found an other review somewhere else which stated the opposite. I had no reasons to doublecheck these, it seemed logical that the newer (and more expensive) Scythe HSF also was the better one...

I know the Termalright 120 was a better candidate, but it wasn't in stock at my favorite shop.

(I see this one also comes with a better mounting solution, I wouldn't have missed all the fun I had mounting my Infinity...

)

Anyway, the Inifinity works just fine...

About the fancontroller beep, I have a perfect solution for it: I just won't shut down my computer. It's silent, so it doesn't bother me when turned on...

Maybe I'll do something about it one time, but in order to get it out of my case, I have to disconnect all the fancables... too much work for too little results.

And about the ESD-bag... I've put hardware on the outside of them for many years now, it never went wrong...

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 10:52 am

XanderH wrote:
About the video card, eh, I don't think I'll be able to see much without one. It's one of the cheapest passive cooled DirectX10 ready VGA-cards I could find...

Like I said, you could have gotten a Micro-atx board with integrated graphics if all you needed was a display output. Integrated video is passive too

What's the necessity for DX10 if you don't play games? I apologize for my criticism, I've just got the efficient computing bug, no sense in buying components that will just sit idle and consume more power than necessary.

XanderH · Post by **XanderH** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 12:58 pm

ryboto wrote:
XanderH wrote:
About the video card, eh, I don't think I'll be able to see much without one. It's one of the cheapest passive cooled DirectX10 ready VGA-cards I could find...

Like I said, you could have gotten a Micro-atx board with integrated graphics if all you needed was a display output. Integrated video is passive too

What's the necessity for DX10 if you don't play games? I apologize for my criticism, I've just got the efficient computing bug, no sense in buying components that will just sit idle and consume more power than necessary.

Let's just say I'm preparing for the feature. I had some periods in which I did play games, and if I ever feel like it again: It should work.

nikeplektrum · Post by **nikeplektrum** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 11:18 am

Nice tiewrap. Will probably use something like that too.

XanderH · Post by **XanderH** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 12:29 pm

Bought two new goodies today. A new fancontroller and a new cardreader.

When I had to take my PC open, I did some more silencing as well. Time for some new pics.

New stuff installed: Zalman Zm-MFC2 fancontroller and a simple Apacer AE161 cardreader.

Some more wires here, but still pretty clean.

More damptek too.

I told you about this one in my first post... Let's make it complete with an image.

And now something new, at least, I haven't seen it before. I had some Nexus AntiVibration feets left. So, why not install them on the drivecage?

The plastic sliders are removed. Maybe it looks otherwise, but the drivecage doesn't touch any metal parts anymore...

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 12:50 pm

isn't future proofing a little silly? i mean sure, having 4 cores is definately preparing for programs optimized for it later, but the quad cores now will be really slow compared to mainstream quads in the future.

just my $0.02

i really do love the computer otherwise, in some ways i wish it was mine...would do loads for audio rendering. [i hate waiting, and i tend to multitask].

XanderH · Post by **XanderH** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:04 pm

bonestonne wrote:[i hate waiting, and i tend to multitask].

Me too.

It's not just futureproofing that made me decide to buy the Q6600.

abirdie4me · Post by **abirdie4me** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:02 pm

I've got a Coolermaster Aerogate II and it makes a couple of beeps when I start the PC.

I put a bit of BluTack on the internal speaker and now it makes muted beeps which are much less annoying

When the beeping starts, just push the round knob. I found this out on accident one day and it helped me keep my sanity.

amjedm · Post by **amjedm** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:49 pm

abirdie4me wrote:
I've got a Coolermaster Aerogate II and it makes a couple of beeps when I start the PC.

I put a bit of BluTack on the internal speaker and now it makes muted beeps which are much less annoying
When the beeping starts, just push the round knob. I found this out on accident one day and it helped me keep my sanity.

I was pressing the round knob but sometimes I wasn't quick enough so it would still make at least one loud beep.

I can now stop fans when testing without loud beeps emitting from the controller

Justchill · Post by **Justchill** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 1:36 pm

really great work! I am a fan

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:24 pm

Looks great, and your English is just fine btw--probably better than a lot of native speakers

At least this way you won't have to worry about too much tinkering for quite a few years....