Many thanks for the cool ideas from the members falcon26 and Konnetikut, about how to do good cabling.
This is the fruit of 10 hours of work and 1.5 months of investigation on this forum.
Case: P182B with pre-applied Acoustipak Deluxe V2
-Modified with tin snips and dremmel to create external SATA power/data ports on the back.
CPU: Update: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 3.00Ghz running @ 4.00Ghz. Not Lapped with AS5
Former CPU: Intel Cure 2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz stepping G0 (SLACR)running @ 3.01Ghz. Lapped until 2000 Grit (mirror finish) and applied Arctic Silver 5.
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme Lapped until 2000 Grit, mirror finish and used a 3/16 thick/ 1 1/4 diameter washer to make it a solid fit and tight.
PSU: Old good Corsair 620HX
Motherboard: ASUS P5E3 Deluxe WI/FI AP (X38 Chipset )
Video Card: EVGA 8800 Ultra KO @636 Mhz.
Sound Card: Bluegears B-Enspirer 7.1 (tossed out buggy Creative and never going back)
Memory: 4 GB of Crucial Ballistix DDR3 12800 (1600Mhz) rated to run at 8-8-824
Since I'm running 4 sticks of 1 GB each , the X38 chipset gets very limited, so I ended up running them @ 1333MZ 9-9-9-24 (timings on Auto for now)
HD: 3 Western Digital (2x250GB for Xp and Vista selective boot) + 1 320GB for Backup.
All drives enclosed in "the best": SMART DRIVE 2002 Copper. You can find them in endpcnoise.com they are expensive, but I've used them for 2 years now. Temps on drives never pass 32C:-)
All drives routed to the CASE using AKASA SATA PCI-BRACKET (SATA EX-BLUV)
Optical Drives: 2 ASUS DVDRW Dual Layer
Floppy Drive: Yes, matushita. Needed to run Memtest and other stuff.
Fans:
- Exhaust : Scythe S-Flex SFF21F (1600RPM) running @ 1028 RPM w/ Fanmate.
- CPU Cooler: Scythe S-Flex SFF21E (1200RPM) running @ 1028 RPM w/ Fanmate. Yes, matched speeds to assure even flow of air.
- Mid Case Fan: Scythe S-Flex SFF21D (800RPM) running @ 830 RPM. No need for undervolt, it's silent enough.
As you can see this is a much more tough rig, specially trying to match what Konnetikut did for his rig. I had to add one more DVD drive, and a Floppy. Luckily I found the thinnest floppy cable ever, it's brand is COOL CONNECTIONS and is yellow and you can find i at Fry's
Taken without flash, and tweaked the exposure (Sorry
) You can observe the Acoustipak foam at the back of the panel. 
A closeup on the Video and Sound cards. Unfortunately all the Asus X38 motherboards (P5E3's and Maximus) are a very tight fit for a Thermalright HR GPU cooler. Specially since I use the sound card, because also play games. No Zalman VF1000 either... impossible if I want to use a sound card. (I guess good warning for all new Asus X38 adopters)
The PCI at the top of the board is very tight. The sound card collapses for less than a mm with the heatsink of the GPU. It's a KO version of the EVGA 8800 Ultra, so that heatsink at the bottom of the card means a NONO for a sound card there.
Yes. You see the cables at the top of the PSU. Those are the AKASA SATA PCI bracket cables, that will let me rout the enclosed hard drives outside the case. So no noise, and no vibration. GONE. You wonder how did I put those there?
Simple. Electrical tape, and then covered with aluminum tape.
There is a review of this connector here:http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/akasa_sata/index.shtml
The SATA cables look almost invisible, assuring a good airflow. I still wonder why did I left that hard drive cage at the bottom? Looks?
Probably to keep some of the case's original weight and diminish vibration.
Here is what I did, carefully took the connectors from the AKASA SATA brackets, and placed them on the holes. Calculated the lenght/wide for a good fit. Then tin snipped and used dremmel to finish. 4 washers and screws and voila!
A closer look to the mod. Not perfect but close. I needed to make sure that the cables were all shielded and protected from the PSU electrical/heat emissions as much as possible. More than a week using this computer and no problems whatsoever
Another shot. Sorry, it's blurry, adjusted exposure.
Acoustipak Deluxe V2 applied on the main panel door. Had to cut it very carefully. The Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme is very tall. So I had to be strategic.
A look at the back of the rig.
A new baby born!!
Acoustipack foam on the front door. NOT A PROBLEM!!
As posted on Mike Chin's P182 front panel door thread about poor airflow for powerful videocards, this was my mod job on the doors, so I won't need to take them out. ELEGANT and EFFECTIVE! Just a knife, and firm hands!
As you can see you don't notice anything unless you really look them close with a flashlight. YEP! Idid my cuts on both upper and lower grills, couldn't resist. And EMI, no, it's not happening to me
The 800RPM Scythe S-Flex fan inside.
Overall look. Yes, I had to clean all the garbage. Not the IPOD of course!:)
Also you might notice that the Case is inside a wood desk, thats exactly why I had to take out the drives, and I've done so like I showed from the last 2 years since I started with a Sonata, then a P150 and now this. No vibrations here.
This is how the cables go from the back.From my DYI SATA power/data ports to...
The SMART SRIVE 2002 hard drive enclosures. In my experience, THE BEST cooling enclosures for hard drives. They are expensive though, 70-80 bucks per unit. I have three because I've been byuing them as I needed them. They are designed to be used either outside or inside the case....
CPU Coretemp after 2 hours of Prime 95 on 4 cores. Running @ 3.01 Ghz 24/7!!
On Idle: 38 C
On Load: 62-63 C
GPU after 1 hour of Crysis Demo
On Idle: 60 C
On Load: 82 C
UPDATE: Just switched to a Yorkfield QX9650:
I'm running it on this silent rig @ 4.00Ghz.
Idle: 31C
Load: 63C
The BACK PANEL CABLING!!
Sorry, no pictures yet unless I have to open it again.
The good thing. Is it possible to have foam in the back panel and still be able to put all the cables in the back?
YES!:-) It takes a while, and lots of patience.I've spent no less than 6 total hours figuring out the best way to route the cables on the back panel, following the pictures of Konnetikut's rig. Again, this one was tough, because I have more peripherals than his rig, but his good sense of order and great pictures helped me a lot.(Thanks champ!)
Thanks for all the good ideas in this forum that helped me conquer a useful rig and quiet It is exciting, and I cannot tell you how many times I sweated cold doing this, specially routing the cables, lapping the CPU, and installing the CPU cooler with a washer mod for better fit.
But it is thanks to this place that I've found the best people to help me out answering my concerns. Cheers to all!
Any questions, suggestions or critics,are always welcome to help me and help us!
Thanks!
It had to go inside. Thanks for watching!
, except I ziptied the Scythe to a HR-03, if you want some advice then lsiten, change the CPU cooler for a Ninja then the HR-03 + Scythe will fit.....
