SPCR

First off, new to the forum, so hello all. I've been tinkering with my Antec P182, and I think I've finally found the best setup possible. Looking for feedback on how, if possible, it might be improved. I have an Asus P5NE SLI motherboard with an E6600 OC'd to 3 ghz, a Thermalright SI 128 SE heatsink with a Scythe S Flex 1200 rpm fan, the standard case fans on low, and an Antec Spot Cool pointed in the diretion of my northbridge heatsink and top of my Foxconn 8800 GTX. Temps are good, although the 8800 still throttles up to 100% and around 80 degrees when gaming. Where should I go from here? Should I disable the bottom fan (I have a PC P&Cooling 750 jammed in there, so there's no intake fan per se. The noise isn't too bad until the GTX starts to throttle. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thoroughly dust the 8800GTX; doing so did wonders for my 8800GTS's temps back in the day. 10C drop, if memory serves..

The video card is only a month old, so I don't think it's built up a lot of dust. It's factory overclocked a bit, which probably doesn't help. I might consider an aftermarket cooler. Is there any real advantage to the bottom chamber fan? If not, maybe I'll take it out to help cut down on noise a bit.

I moved the lower chamber fan to upper chamber in my P182. Down the fan from PSU is enough to move the air around and also cool my single HDD

See it live

Ok, there is thermal issue with extremly hot components with P-18x-series. To fix it or improve temps check this thread:

viewtopic.php?t=44067

I did a little more tinkering, and I managed to wedge the spot cool fan between my Thermalright SI128 and the northbridge so that the fan is blowing directly onto the aluminum heatsink...temps are now the lowest they've been. I've also removed the plastic guide on the bottom of the middle hard drive chamber, and mounted a 120 mm fan using some acoustic sponges on the top and botttom to wedge it into position directly in front of my 8800 gtx. This is now acting as my intake fan, but it's positioned "deeper" inside the case, so hopefully it'll do a better job cooling the GTX. I just wish Nvidia would get their act together and come out with the next gen cards...I'm hoping they won't be quite as power hungry and maybe a bit better on the heat production.