Antec P150: Back in Black? [called: Solo]

Sohjen · Post by **Sohjen** » Wed May 31, 2006 8:05 am

Looks like you can now buy the Solo from Antec's website. IIRC the buy button wasn't up yesterday. I think I'm either becoming overly obsessed with the case, or it's a slow day at work

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AntecRep · Post by **AntecRep** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:33 am

Buy Button was put up yesterday afternoon Pacific Time.

Sohjen · Post by **Sohjen** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:36 am

Jup. Now, about those missing stealth drive bay covers....

masumo · Post by **masumo** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 3:34 pm

Antec probably won't send these out to retailers for awhile- I can see it making sense for them to offer it exclusively from their website for the time being so they can cash in on early adopters.

Hopefully they prove me wrong!

AntecRep · Post by **AntecRep** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 6:34 am

Actually we already started shipping to retailers/etailers probably about a week before we put the buy button up.

So check your favorite places in the US as by now many should have them in stock. Canada may take a few more days.

masumo · Post by **masumo** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 7:18 pm

great news! i'll keep an eye out. hopefully it'll show up at a reputable place like newegg sometime soon.

moritz · Post by **moritz** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 4:49 am

What about the EU? Any sightings yet? Any ETA?

masumo · Post by **masumo** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 6:32 pm

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... ode=140124

zipzoomfly is oos, but lists a price of $85 with free shipping. keep an eye out.

JamesSneed · Post by **JamesSneed** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 4:33 pm

I just got my SOLO from Amazon.com

I wanted to let everyone know that the bungee system for the hard drive uses nylon reinforced rubber bands. They appear to consist of one flat strand of rubber inside of some type of poly-fabric sheathing. I am going to assume bungee cord breakage is a thing of the past as these seem pretty strong. I had planned to replace the bungee cords with some cheap clothing elastic from a sewing shop like MikeC suggested but Antec has resolved that one hassle.

This is my first post but I have been a long time reader. Keep up the good work.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 4:44 pm

James, welcome to SPCR!

Post picture before/during/after your build, please?

masumo · Post by **masumo** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 6:56 pm

I've been checking Newegg, Monarch, and ZZF and Amazon gets it in first?

How long did it take you to get yours? Mine has an expected date of the 19th....if a retailer in CA gets it before then I'm cancelling my Amazon order.

Sohjen · Post by **Sohjen** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:03 pm

Price seems kinda high, $85.99

. Methinks I"m not in that big of a hurry to get the case

. Although I do have my silencio_777 92mm yate loons ready to go.

JamesSneed · Post by **JamesSneed** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:06 pm

I ordered my SOLO Sunday night and it was delivered today (2 days). Iâ€™m in Dallas, TX and apparently Amazon has a warehouse here because the darn thing shipped from Dallas. I still didnt pay taxes on it. LOL

I got all my parts migrated from my old Sonata I since my first post (2 hours). I really am impressed. The SOLO is a very nice case.

I have been running prime 95 to test out temps. My AMD 4200 X2 is only hitting 43c even with the 120mm fan on low.

Sohjen · Post by **Sohjen** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:38 pm

Pics I say, pics!

Edit: Hmm, just read over your post again. Dallas eh? If I order tonight and it comes outta dallas I may get it by Friday...so tempting =x.

Edit 2: I'm so weak, order placed =x. And got free trial to Amazon prime so free 2 day shipping

.

masumo · Post by **masumo** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 9:45 pm

i miss my prime membership. nothing was cooler than ordering a dvd one day for overnight delivery, and having the ups guy make a special trip at the crack of dawn the next morning just to deliver it.

what was your ship date sohen? mine said the 12th, but i really wanted it for this weekend...

james, what method of shipping did you use? i'm in CA so i'm right next door, hopefully my delivery time will be just as fast. i forget if amazon overestimates their shipping times.

truckman · Post by **truckman** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 9:54 pm

I ordered one from Allstarshop on Thursday, it shipped on Friday, and arrived today (Tuesday). That's at least as fast as my usual vendor, Newegg. Their price was one of the higher ones that I saw on Froogle, but after shipping it was pretty much a wash and they were one of the few vendors that had this case in stock close enough for a reasonable ground delivery time.

My first impressions are generally good. The case is roomy enough to accomodate my double height DDS changer in the top two optical bays without colliding with either the motherboard or the power supply, which is the reason that I bought it. I initially thought I was short two optical drive rails because there were four loose in the case (and four matching slots in the plastic holder at the bottom of the case), and two more holding the floppy cage, but I found two more hiding behind the motherboard plate when I removed the right side cover.

I'm definitely looking forward to a reduction of disk noise from my mixture of Seagate Barracuda and Cheetah SCSI drives that are currently hard mounted in a FK-330 case. I'm a bit concerned about cooling because the front intake on the Solo appears to be more restrictive than the FK-330, especially with the filters installed. I'm currently planning to block the rear vents next to the PCI slots to try to force more air to be pulled in through the front. I'm hoping to avoid having to add front fans.

The motherboard plate seems to be kind of flimsy. I may eventually buy some Dynamat to stick on the back.

I can also hear a buzzy rattle if I rap on the case. I think it might be coming from around the rear fan. I'll probably replace the stock fan with the soft-mounted orange Yate Loon from the case I'm currently using.

I haven't figured out what I'll do about the lack of a speaker ...

I would have preferred a matte finish because this machine often gets used as a foot rest.

Sohjen · Post by **Sohjen** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 4:21 am

masumo wrote:i miss my prime membership. nothing was cooler than ordering a dvd one day for overnight delivery, and having the ups guy make a special trip at the crack of dawn the next morning just to deliver it.

what was your ship date sohen? mine said the 12th, but i really wanted it for this weekend...

james, what method of shipping did you use? i'm in CA so i'm right next door, hopefully my delivery time will be just as fast. i forget if amazon overestimates their shipping times.

My estimated delivery date is June 12th, but I think if they ship it out today it should get here by Friday. I hope at least. If I remember correctly they do overestimate their delivery times.

gorjiam · Post by **gorjiam** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 6:58 am

Sohjen wrote: Did you put any 92mm fans on the front? Oh, and got any pics? Pics are always good .

Hi there, sorry for the slow reply. Was VERY busy with work. Installed a 92mm. It manages to cool the hdds, but no effect on the system temp and CPU. Anyone has any ideas where can I host a pic? Just bought a speaker for $0.50. Going to dig out the good old soldering iron. Hope it still works.

Sohjen · Post by **Sohjen** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 7:02 am

Imageshack is good, other image hosting services evade me at the moment, lack of sleep. Animal Crossing been keeping me up late =x.

truckman · Post by **truckman** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:01 pm

truckman wrote: I initially thought I was short two optical drive rails because there were four loose in the case (and four matching slots in the plastic holder at the bottom of the case), and two more holding the floppy cage, but I found two more hiding behind the motherboard plate when I removed the right side cover.

... and I found another plastic drive rail holder hiding under the bottom drive tray.

truckman wrote: I'm definitely looking forward to a reduction of disk noise from my mixture of Seagate Barracuda and Cheetah SCSI drives that are currently hard mounted in a FK-330 case. I'm a bit concerned about cooling because the front intake on the Solo appears to be more restrictive than the FK-330, especially with the filters installed. I'm currently planning to block the rear vents next to the PCI slots to try to force more air to be pulled in through the front. I'm hoping to avoid having to add front fans.

I'm pretty much stuck with adding a front fan. I initially just swapped the rear 120mm Tri-Cool with an orange Yate Loon that I had that was thermally controlled by an NMT-3. Because my system uses a Tualatin P III and a Matrox G450, it never got very warm and the fan ran too slowly to get much air flow over the drives, resulting in a 34C temperature rise on the Cheetah. I disconnected the NMT-3 and switched to a Fanmate, but even with the rear fan cranked up all the way I was seeing a 24C temperature rise. Removing the front filter and blocking off the one empty bay brought the drive temperature down by about 4C. I happened to have a 92mm Nexus fan handy, and when I installed it in front, directly connected to 12V, the temperature rise dropped to a more reasonable 16C, with the filter re-installed.

I'll play some more with the fan speed settings. With the rear fan cranked up, it is definitely audible, though it is not nearly as loud and obnoxious as the drive whine from one of the Barracudas.

I've currently got the drives soft mounted to the trays, and the seek noise is much reduced compared to the noise when the drives were hard mounted in the FK-330. I'll play with the suspension system when I find some time, but I really want to replace the older and noisier Barracudas soon. The only reason that I'm using them at all is that I had them on hand as spares when a newer and quieter Cheetah that I had installed in this system started acting flakey a while back.

truckman wrote: The motherboard plate seems to be kind of flimsy. I may eventually buy some Dynamat to stick on the back.

The motherboard plate is definitely flimsy. It flexed a lot when I was installing the motherboard.

A couple of other minor gripes;

When installing the rear fan after installing the motherboard (which has to be installed after the power supply), it doesn't appear to be possible to attach the upper, right corner of the fan with a fan stick because of a lack of clearance inside. I had to use a fan screw.

I've got all of the 5.25" bays populated, so I had to remove all the bay knock outs, which is a permanent change. It would be nice if this case had removeable and replaceable internal bay covers/shields. It would also be nice to have a way to block off unused 3.5" bays without having to kludge something with cardboard.

It would be handy if the bezel could be opened to check or clean the intake filter without having to remove the left side cover.

Sohjen · Post by **Sohjen** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 4:16 pm

Well I got my Solo in from Amazon today. 1st thing I did was dremel out the front fan grills as well as the rear fan grill. One thing I did notice was that I had to bend the curved plastic where the hinge is at inwards to open the door, otherwise it wouldn't open. I also discovered 3 loose 5.25" drive rails in the case, all stuck on the right sidepanel. Maybe Antec needs to better secure these for shipping.

Took me about two hours to get everything tansferred from my 3000b to the Solo. I opted not to use the suspension method of HDD mounting since I move my case regularly to dust it out. Mounted a Nexus 120mm in the rear and two 92mm Yate Loons that I bought from silencio_777 on ebay on the front. Mounted those with the rubber fan ear grommets (correct?) that silencio included. I don't feel any vibrations when touching the front of the case, and I don't want to touch the sides since it's a fingerprint magnet =x. I think I'm going to have to buy another microfiber cloth just to clean the case. So far the cpu temps have dropped around 5 degrees celcius and HDD temps have gone down about 3-4 degrees celcius, and i'm quite happy with that.

Overall I am quite satisfied with the case. Only thing that would have made it perfect imo are stealth drive covers. I'm thinking about going to Home Depot and buying some of that aluminum HVAC tape to cover up the rear vent as well as any holes that the case has on the front and bottom. I would post pics but I can't seem to find my el cheapo olympus digicam, but if I do find it I'll be sure to post them, even if they are kinda crappy

.

thenewguy8 · Post by **thenewguy8** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 4:16 am

Question - Would the solo work with modern graphics cards? I have an X1900XT, and 3 HDDs and I thought I Read somewhere that with the P150, there were problems of not being able to plug the power connector in on the graphics card due to it running into the HDDs. Anyone confirm?

DaveLessnau · Post by **DaveLessnau** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 4:46 am

I don't know if this is allowed, but here's all the stuff I posted on Amazon for this case:

As I write this, Amazon has no information posted about what this Antec Solo "Quiet Mini Tower Case" is. So, as a stop-gap until I can get some pictures posted and a proper review written, here's the information directly from Antec's spec sheet:

Case Dimensions: 17.5"(H) x 8.1"(W) x 18.5"(D)

Drive Bays: 8
- Front Accessible: 3x5.25", 1x3.5"
- Internal: 4x3.5" or 3x3.5" with HDD suspension

Expansion Slots: 7

Cooling System:
- 1 rear (standard) 120mm TriCool Fan with 3-speed switch control
- 2 front 92mm fan mounts (fans not included)

Main Board Size: 12"(W)x9.6"(L)

Weight (net/gross): 25.3/30.3 lbs, 11.5/15.7 K

Motherboards: Standard ATX (web site also says microATX)

Special Features:
- Internal mounts with rubber grommets
- Optional HDD suspension system
- Poly carbonate side panels to reduce noise
- Advanced cable management system
- Front USB/FireWire Ports

Package Includes:
- 1 Tower Case
- 1 set of screws and motherboard standoffs
- 1 Installation manual

I've provided Amazon with a link to Antec's product brochure, but it hasn't shown up yet. Go to the Antec site (obvious URL) and navigate through Products -> Enclosures -> LifeStyle Series -> Solo for more information.

In a nutshell, this is a very nice, black, heavy, steel (not aluminum) mini-tower case designed specifically for quiet operation. Some of the highlights are 1) the sound deadening insulation on the side panels, 2) an included drive suspension system for decoupling the hard drive from the chasis, 3) a 120mm low RPM exhaust fan, and 4) the ability to add your own, quiet, efficient power supply (I'll be adding a Seasonic S12-430).

UPDATE: I've uploaded three pictures of the case. The sides and top are a very shiny black and the front looks like brushed aluminum.

UPDATE 2: I've got everything transferred over to the new Antec Solo from my old Lian-Li PC-60H1 case and can now add some personal material:

- First, when you get your new case, make sure you remove everything from the box and the case. The manual and various other pieces of paper are in the top "eggshell" type material under the cardboard liner. Also, the bag of screws and standoffs is tied inside the top 5.25" front accessible drive bay and the six drive rails should be someplace on the bottom of the case. In mine, four of them were in their built-in holder on the bottom and the other two were floating around under the hard drive cage.
- Second, only the left side panel and the front fan cage use thumb screws. All the rest of the removable connections are regular screws. One really nice touch about the thumbscrews is that they're attached to their object (i.e., they wont' fall off and get lost when you disassemble the case). I just wish everything else used thumbscrews.
- Third, there's no built in case speaker. As long as I never have to listen for BIOS error beeps, that won't matter at all. I suppose I could hook things up to my Audigy sound card if I had to. But, it's not really needed.
- Fourth, and probably the biggest lack, there's no removable motherboard tray. That makes getting the motherboard into the case and connected a bit more difficult than it should be. In my case, I had to remove the 120mm TriCool rear fan to have enough room to get my old MSI 865PE-Neo2-FIS2R motherboard into the case.
- Fifth, and the biggest problem for me (though it's not fully the case's fault), the combination of my 865PE-Neo2-FIS2R and Zalman CNPS7700-AlCu CPU Cooler did NOT fit in the case. The thing barely fit in the Lian-Li (maybe .25" clearance). In this case, the cooling fins physically ran into the power supply (maybe .25" overlap). I had to use some brute force to get the motherboard/cooler combo in and the heatsink fins are sort of squished in. Not a pleasant activity, but it works.
- Sixth, and very surprisingly, even though I used the built-in drive suspension system, I could still clearly hear the ramp-up whine and drive seeks on my Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA - ST3120026AS drive. I had to put the drive back in my GUP SmartDrive enclosure to quiet that down. I'd been hoping to keep the drive out of that since it raises its temperature by about 10 degrees Celcius.
- Finally, on a positive note, I bought this case to try and reduce the noise of my computer. Purely, subjectively, as I'm sitting here with the computer by my feet, I'd say the noise level has dropped by at least half. I did install a new Seasonic S12-430 power supply when I put the system together instead of using my old Antec TruePower 430. So, I don't know how much noise reduction is due to which item. But, from what I can hear of my Zalman CNPS7700-AlCu and VF900-Cu, most of it is probably due to the case. I was hoping that I wouldn't be able to hear the fans at all, but while I'm sitting right next to the computer, I still can. If I walk a few feet away, however, I can't tell it's on. As a bonus, my CPU temperature has dropped about eight degrees Celcius. But, I think that might be due to the new power supply dumping less heat into the case right above the CPU.

Overall, and primarily because of the dearth of thumbscrews and lack of a removable motherboard tray, I'd probably reduce my rating from its original 5 stars out of 5 to 4 stars out of 5 if Amazon would let me. Otherwise, I'm very happy with the case.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 6:31 am

JamesSneed wrote:I just got my SOLO from Amazon.com

I wanted to let everyone know that the bungee system for the hard drive uses nylon reinforced rubber bands. They appear to consist of one flat strand of rubber inside of some type of poly-fabric sheathing. I am going to assume bungee cord breakage is a thing of the past as these seem pretty strong. I had planned to replace the bungee cords with some cheap clothing elastic from a sewing shop like MikeC suggested but Antec has resolved that one hassle.

This is my first post but I have been a long time reader. Keep up the good work.

That's very interesting about the new "rubber bands." Any chance those of us with the original P150 can get these better quality rubber bands?

korsch · Post by **korsch** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:34 pm

DaveLessnau wrote:
- Sixth, and very surprisingly, even though I used the built-in drive suspension system, I could still clearly hear the ramp-up whine and drive seeks on my Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA - ST3120026AS drive. I had to put the drive back in my GUP SmartDrive enclosure to quiet that down. I'd been hoping to keep the drive out of that since it raises its temperature by about 10 degrees Celcius.

Thanks for the write up! I hope these cases arrive in Canada soon.

Dave, is it possible to fit the SmartDrive in the Solo's hdd suspension system? It may be overkill but heh, just curious -- I would think this would eliminate drive noises and vibrations from some of the worst offenders and would allow for direct cooling from a 92mm front fans.

DaveLessnau · Post by **DaveLessnau** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 4:53 am

korsch,

It depends on how you define "room"

. I put my drive back in the SmartDrive and suspended it vertically between the top and bottom sets of elastic bands. It's not a very stable position at all, but since I almost never move the computer, I figure it will be ok. I do worry about how long those elastic bands will survive the punishment, though: the SmartDrive is really heavy.

Amazingly, even enclosed and suspended, I can still hear the drive seeks (very muted though). The only other obvious option is to mount the SmartDrive on rails up in the upper drive area. But, I wanted to keep the drive as low as possible to avoid the rising heat in the case.

The 10 degree increase in temperature from the naked drive to the enclosed drive is the same as it was in my old case. It's not too much of a problem, since that's just a rise from 35 degrees C to 45 degrees C. The operating range for that drive is 0 to 60 degrees C.

The only external fan I've got is the included 120mm rear exhaust at its lowest level. I haven't added the 92mm front intakes fans yet: I was waiting to see how the temperatures would be without them. My case temperature is about 45 degrees C (about the same as my old case) and the CPU temperature seems to be running 5 to 8 degrees cooler than in my old case (47 to 50 degrees C). So, I'll probably not bother with the 92mms.

Actually, the more I use the case, the happier I am with it. It reallly is a LOT quieter than my old one (which is probably why I'm hearing the drive seeks). In normal operations, I can barely hear it. And, while doing things that ramp up the Zalman CPU fan (the video fan never ramps up), the noise is far milder.

korsch · Post by **korsch** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 2:23 pm

Thanks for the extra pic and info. Hmm, accommodating the SmartDrive might be harder than I thought . It looks like your method

could work but would not allow the installation of one more drive in the suspension system (which I would need to do).

I am assuming that the SmartDrive would not fit at the bottom of the case because of interference from the drive cage and installed cards?

Otherwise the only option as you say is putting it in the 5.25" bays but I would only do this if I could get a silent fan blowing on it directly somehow -- and I'm not sure where it would go.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 6:22 pm

Greetings,

I'll bet that two drive enclosures could fit in there, side by side, in this vertical position?

truckman · Post by **truckman** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 7:24 pm

Sohjen wrote:One thing I did notice was that I had to bend the curved plastic where the hinge is at inwards to open the door, otherwise it wouldn't open.

The door on mine was also reluctant to open at first. I was worried that I was opening it incorrectly and that I was going to break something. It finally loosed up after being opened and closed about a dozen times.

DaveLessnau · Post by **DaveLessnau** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 3:56 am

NeilBlanchard wrote:Greetings,

I'll bet that two drive enclosures could fit in there, side by side, in this vertical position?

They would probably fit, but I doubt the elastic bands would hold them (they each weigh 2.5 lbs). You'd have to rest them on the base of the drive cage. Also, doing that would highly restrict the air flow through the cage. The SmartDrives might not even be needed with quiet drives: my old 7200.7 is probably just loud. If someone has a newer, quieter drive in their Solo now, maybe they'll chime in with how much noise it makes suspended.

Antec P150: Back in Black? [called: Solo]

Got a Solo from Amazon

Re: Got a Solo from Amazon