Antec Fusion notes

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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Jeff Haas
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Joined: Thu May 08, 2003 4:30 pm

Antec Fusion notes

Post by Jeff Haas » Sat Sep 23, 2006 10:06 pm

Today, I finished up an HTPC using the Antec Fusion with the MSI 6150 motherboard. I figured this crowd would appreciate my notes on it. You already know how effective the case is, since it's the same as the 2400, so I'll ramble on about my experiences setting it up.

My objective was to make a VCR replacement, I don't care about loading it up with MP3s or browsing the web or checking email from the couch. I'm using Beyond TV because there's no DRM to deal with, and It Just Works. The TV tuner card is the ATI 550 Theater Pro, which came bundled with a remote control (there is no remote included with the Fusion.)

On the recommendation of another user here, I got the Thermalright SI-120 for the Athlon XP 3200. This is truly an excellent heatsink, however I'm not quite brave enough yet to run it without a fan. So I'm using a 120mm fan with Cool N Quiet enabled...and it's quiet. With a fan on top of the SI-120, there's enough clearance for a small gap between it and the lid.

There are a few plates you can plug into the back wall of the case that are supposed to segment the airflow. With the SI-120, you can't fit them in there.

With both built-in case fans on and set to low, there was some kind of odd rumbling, which I realized was the fan closer to the front. I unplugged it for now. I noticed that even though the fan wasn't running, the CPU fan was still pushing air out the opening, so I've left it that way instead of blocking the opening with the included plate.

That makes three fans in this machine: CPU, power supply, and one of the built-in exhaust fans. With this setup, the CPU is idling at 34 degrees and can get as high as a whopping 36 or 37 degrees when it's playing some media. After I've used it in the living room for awhile, I'll see how I feel about how noisy it is and may tinker with the fans some more. (How hot can an XP64 3200 get safely? I've googled it and am confused. Is 40 degrees acceptable? That's how hot it got without a fan on the SI-120.)

The case itself looks great, it fits right in with the other A/V stuff. At first I thought that since it's silver and everything else is black that it would be a problem, but the quality of the aluminum front takes care of that.

One small gripe I have is with the VFD...it's got two lines, about 16 or 20 characters wide. If you look at how tall the characters are, they're about half the size compared to the characters on a VCR or the display on the front of a receiver. So the VFD fails the 10-foot visibility test. It's the right size for a desktop computer, not the living room.

Also, the included drivers give you a bunch of silly options. News, weather, and other stuff scrolls across this tiny display. Hello, Antec: It's hooked up to my TV set. I can turn on CNN or the Weather Channel.

So I dumped the Antec VFD software and installed LCD Smartie [url]http://lcdsmartie.sourceforge.net/[/url] which is an open-source LCD or VFD display driver. Turns out that Antec outsourced the VFD from Soundgraph, so if you search the LCD Smartie forums, you'll find a link to a Soundgraph driver.

And the Beyond TV forums have a plug-in for LCD Smartie that lets it grab data from Beyond TV, so now I've got the VFD flipping through the time, what's currently recording (if anything) and what the next two recordings will be.

Oh, and one major point...it turns out Beyond TV knows how to wake up a computer from being suspended to ram (S3 state), record the show, and put the computer back to sleep. So if it's not recording anything, it's quieter than any other computer on this forum.

Anything else you guys want to know?

Jeff

floffe
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Post by floffe » Sun Sep 24, 2006 1:33 am

40C is waaaaay cool, lots of people here run over 60 at load. The thermal throttling (where it is unsafe) is quite a bit over that. Also, I'd be interested in seeing your HDD temps with the front exhaust fan turned off.

Erssa
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Post by Erssa » Sun Sep 24, 2006 6:59 am

If it makes you feel any better, my x2 3800+ has been running idle @ ~44c for almost a year now. Full load (dual prime95) increases my temps to 57 celsius. My case/cpu has non-extinct airflow and therefore I have high temps. But these temps haven't caused any stability issues.

Jeff Haas
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Joined: Thu May 08, 2003 4:30 pm

Post by Jeff Haas » Sun Sep 24, 2006 5:38 pm

40C is cool? Good, we'll see about taking out the CPU fan after I've been using this for a week or so and seeing how it behaves.

The way Beyond TV knows how to un-suspend the machine, record the show and put it back to sleep is terrific and gets rid of one of my biggest concerns, where the machine would be sitting there making noise while it's doing nothing. I still haven't had it quiet enough at night to tell if I need to tinker with it much yet.

One other thing...you may want to pick up a rounded IDE cable for the DVD drive, the standard ribbon type is really annoying in that space.

Forgot to mention in my notes above...the removable tray for the DVD drive is really well-designed. You pop it out (no screws, it's held in by a clever catch system) put in the DVD drive and pop it back in. The front of the Fusion has one of those spring-loaded doors that the drive automatically pushes open. Works perfectly, no tinkering needed, and no worries about finding a drive that matches the color of the case, as you would if you bought the 2400. But a black drive is probably the best choice.

So, overall, this thing's quiet, really good-looking, easier to work with than any other case I've had, and needs a VFD with bigger characters.

jppoet
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Location: Albuquerque, NM

Re: Antec Fusion notes

Post by jppoet » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:43 pm

Jeff Haas wrote: On the recommendation of another user here, I got the Thermalright SI-120 for the Athlon XP 3200. This is truly an excellent heatsink, however I'm not quite brave enough yet to run it without a fan. So I'm using a 120mm fan with Cool N Quiet enabled...and it's quiet. With a fan on top of the SI-120, there's enough clearance for a small gap between it and the lid.
Has anyone attempted to mount the fan on the *underside* of the SI-120? The would allow more room between the top of the SI-120 and the top of the fusion.

John

markharris
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Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:07 am

Antec Fusion and BeyondTV, S3 suspend SETUP?

Post by markharris » Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:14 am

I have a HTPC built on the Fusion, an X2-3800+, and running XP-Pro with Beyond TV. I see here that Beyond TV is smart enought to jump into and out of S3 suspend state. Built on the ASUS M2NPV-VM mobo.

How do I set this? My PC runs quiet, but is always running. Is there a setup that I missed?

Jeff Haas
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Joined: Thu May 08, 2003 4:30 pm

Post by Jeff Haas » Thu Oct 12, 2006 6:36 pm

All you do is set up your recordings in Beyond TV, exit the Viewscape, and then put the computer into Suspend. It'll look like it's turned off.

Then later, Beyond TV will wake it up, record the show, run through it looking for commercials, and put the machine back in Suspend mode.

I think Windows Update can mess this up, I've come home to find the machine on and apparently doing nothing.

Jeff Haas
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Joined: Thu May 08, 2003 4:30 pm

Post by Jeff Haas » Thu Oct 12, 2006 6:38 pm

John, I'm not sure how you'd mount the fan on the underside of the SI-120. Maybe you'd need a smaller fan (80mm?)

peerke
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Location: Leiden, The Netherlands

Post by peerke » Fri Oct 13, 2006 1:09 am

I was also wondering if it would be possible to hang the fan between the fins and the base. I don't own one but from all the pictures i've seen of the SI-120 I can't see why a 120 mm fan wouldn't fit on the "wrong" side.
Maybe one of the many owners can check if it's possible and/or show a picture of why it won't fit.
It seems an easy mod making for a really low-profile cooling solution.

Mr. Tinker
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Post by Mr. Tinker » Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:45 am

I wondered that myself until I got my SI-120 in the mail. What I didn't notice in pictures I previously saw, is that there are two stabilizing supports opposite the heatpipes, which cut the space underneath the fins down to maybe 80mm wide or less.

I don't have the HS in front of me now, so I can't be sure of the measurements. I can say that the effort to mount a *quiet* fan underneath the fins is probably not worth it, since many have no problems with clearance in this case.

peerke
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Location: Leiden, The Netherlands

Post by peerke » Mon Oct 16, 2006 10:49 am

I never saw the supports! That's a real shame. Good to know though.

nici
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Post by nici » Mon Oct 16, 2006 1:27 pm

I would not be surprised if even a 80mm fan was enough, after all the biggest diffrence in heatsink effiency is between no airflow and little airflow. Meaning a 40CFM fan compared to a 20CFM fan wont decrease the temps as much as a 20CFM fan compared to no fan at all. Or am i talking bolloks again? :lol:

GPD
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Post by GPD » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:53 am

I am planning to purchase an Antec Fusion case to be used with an Intel DG965OT micro ATX motherboard and Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 processor for my HTPC. Jeff mentioned that the Thermalright SI-120 processor cooler does fit inside with "enough clearance for a small gap between it and the lid".

The Thermalright SI-120 is 90 mm tall. Thermalright has a new cooler, the SI-128 listed to be 91.5 mm tall. I am interested in knowing if anyone has tried this new SI-128 heatsink in a Fusion or the NSK2400 equivalent case. Would that "small gap" allow for the slightly taller heatsink and still allow the fan to pull air across the heatsink?

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