How is your P150 / Solo rig? What fans do you use?

tackle · Post by **tackle** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 4:01 pm

I'm very close to buying an Antec Solo.

(Skip this part if you don't like storytelling)
I currently have my main rig in an Antec 300, which I had to ship in my checked in baggage from Los Angeles to Stockholm (with 3 layovers).
End results = the whole case is altered like a trapezoid, have to use violence to put the side panels on. I actually stood with a hammer banging out dents before reinstalled the components (everything survived, just left the motherboard and ram installed).

In any case, I was wondering if people with Solo's/150' could chime in on how they have it set up. Mainly I'm wondering about the 92mm fans, as I have never used one. Not sure which one to buy either, but I'm guessing I'll end up with a nexus one.

My imagined setup would be:
PSU: Corsair HX620
Cpu Cooler: Thermalright Ultra 120 with nexus fan, controlled by fanmate
Case fans: One nexus 120 in the back, (and one 92 in front? No idea yet)
GPU: XFX 8800GTS 320mb

As you can see, not the ideal setup for silence considering the GPU, but I have all these parts right now and with Rivatuner I underclock the GPU and lower the fan speed (to a surprisingly bearable level) when not gaming, and when I'm gaming it's headphones on shotguns blasting anyway so it doesn't matter that much.

Also, this brings me to my second polling; does anyone have a 8800GTS in a Solo, and did you have to mod the HD cage or anything?
I HAVE read reports saying that GTS fits whereas GTX doesn't, but they didn't seem totally certain.

If you have anything useful to share, I'm gratefully listening!

stonyc · Post by **stonyc** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:00 am

I have 2x92mm fans in the front, couldn't tell you the brand though until I get home and open the case however.

Overall, I'm pleased with the Solo... couple notes and things I've learned over the past couple years:

- Be careful with certain motherboard/CPU cooler combinations. I had an Intel motherboard previously paired with my Q6600 and Thermalright Ultra-120. The CPU slot was located a few millimeters higher than my current motherboard (Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R) and the Ultra would butt up right next to my PSU. There wasn't any pressure put on the Ultra, but it made me uncomfortable in any case.

- Continuing with my experience with the Ultra, I had to be careful when putting the motherboard in because with the cooler pre-attached, I wasn't able to drop (not literally) the motherboard straight in. I had to angle the cooler underneath the PSU retention bar first. Then I had to angle the front edge of the mobo (closest to the PSU) down on to the retention sockets before the bottom edge.

NOTE: Those experiences might not relate to all of the bigger coolers out there, so I can only speak about the one that I had.

- The front dust filter is only accessible by opening the case front, which is only able to be opened by opening the side panel and releasing the retention clips. After, the dust filter is easy to snap off and clean. Heh.

- It's HEAVY.

For $90 at Newegg, you're getting a case with a surprising amount of silencing features... sound dampening on the side panels, option to suspend the HDDs or use the vibration reducing grommets.

And for reference, this is my current system after several revisions:

Q6600/GA-EP45-UD3R/HD4670/8GB RAM/2x250GB SATA/1x500GB SATA/DVD-RW/PC Power & Cooling, 610W

Yes, it's a big PSU, but it was dirt cheap after rebate at Newegg when I bought it.

PartEleven · Post by **PartEleven** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:59 am

Yes, it was the GTX/ultra that had problems fitting into the Solo because the card is longer. The GTS should fit fine.

Post by **MikeC** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:28 pm

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500
Asus P5E3 Premium mb
ATI 3850 video card
2x Corsair DDR3, 667 MHz, 2048 MBytes
2x WD Velociraptor w/o icepacks, suspended
Enermax Modu82+ 625W
120mm Scythe fan @800rpm on Xigmatek 1283 hs- blowing toward rear
Fander FX-120 @700rpm as exhaust case fan

CPU idles at ~30C, maxes out maybe low 50s.
Velociraptors at 40C -- hardly ever change

The built-in HDD suspension mounts are killer; it's what I asked to be integrated into the P180 and Antec decided to put them in here instead.

Great push & turn captive thumbscrews on side panel, nice heavy non-resonant build, v. good airflow thorough front bezel, somewhat fragile power/reset buttons (not the switches, but the buttons). It's a great case.

walle · Post by **walle** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:27 pm

MikeC wrote:The built-in HDD suspension mounts are killer; it's what I asked to be integrated into the P180 and Antec decided to put them in here instead.

A real shame Mike, it should of been included and itâ€™s unfortunate that Antec didnâ€™t listen.

But; you got to develop a darn fine piece of case there and viewed to whatâ€™s being put out on the market your ideas would perhaps not have materialised into a finished product, had it been today.

Regarding the Solo, all I can do is praise it, really like it.

frenchie · Post by **frenchie** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:41 am

hi,
The solo is a good case.

Just 2 things :
- to access the dust filters without removing the side panel, you can sand of a few millimeters on the tabs that hold the front door shut. Then you can open the door quite easily.
- I have a 9800GTX+ in my Solo. Fits nice (with some clearance) without any mods but it might interfere with your HDs if you use all the HD slots. You can check out my Gallery post for a more visual image.

tackle · Post by **tackle** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 5:16 pm

MikeC wrote:Intel Core 2 Duo E8500
Asus P5E3 Premium mb
2x Corsair DDR3, 667 MHz, 2048 MBytes
2x WD Velociraptor w/o icepacks, suspended
Enermax Modu82+ 625W
120mm Scythe fan @800rpm on Xigmatek 1283 hs- blowing toward rear
Fander FX-120 @700rpm as exhaust case fan

CPU idles at ~30C, maxes out maybe low 50s.
Velociraptors at 40C -- hardly ever change

The built-in HDD suspension mounts are killer; it's what I asked to be integrated into the P180 and Antec decided to put them in here instead.

Great push & turn captive thumbscrews on side panel, nice heavy non-resonant build, v. good airflow thorough front bezel, somewhat fragile power/reset buttons (not the switches, but the buttons). It's a great case.

I just bought the case now, have only unpacked it so far (still deciding what the contents will be).

I take it you have no 92mm intake fan?
Do you have a GPU?

How is the noise level in that setup?
And something I'd REALLY want to know is how those velociraptors sound in your case. Can you hear them? I've been thinking about getting a faster harddrive, either a velociraptor (I fear them to be too loud) or a WD Caviar Black (not sure how much "faster" they really are though). Right now I have a standard Caviar and a Samsung 500gb spinpoint thingy.

Post by **MikeC** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 5:34 pm

tackle wrote:I just bought the case now, have only unpacked it so far (still deciding what the contents will be).

I take it you have no 92mm intake fan?
Do you have a GPU?

How is the noise level in that setup?
And something I'd REALLY want to know is how those velociraptors sound in your case. Can you hear them? I've been thinking about getting a faster harddrive, either a velociraptor (I fear them to be too loud) or a WD Caviar Black (not sure how much "faster" they really are though). Right now I have a standard Caviar and a Samsung 500gb spinpoint thingy.

No intake fans at all, but the HDDs stay perfectly cool because most of the intake air is through that lower front vent. I clean off the filter about once a month -- just take it outside and shake it or blow on it, and it's good enough.

Forgot about the vidcard, it's an ATI 3850. Very quiet, runs perfectly cool.

Overall noise level of the system is low enough to be inaudible under my desk, in a carpeted room. The ambient of the room is 20 dBA or lower most of the time, so that's pretty good. As you know, I'm picky about noise; I did start this site...

The WD VRs are inaudble. They are extremely quiet when removed from the icepack and suspended like this. I go a step further: There are 3 sets of suspension drive bays. I use the top and bottom one, and stuff the center one with a block of high density foam to absorb any noise from the 2 drives. I hardly ever hear them. They can be heard softly rattlling away if I'm doing a big file transfer at night (when it is probably 16-17 dBA), but for all intents, they are as inaudble as anything in the PC. Actually when I open it up, it's one of the fans I hear chuffing a bit -- I think the bearing is going, but since I don't hear it sitting at the desk when the cover is on, I haven't bothered.

ame · Post by **ame** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 11:53 pm

Solo is a great case. In my experiance it is definatly THE best case for a quiet system. Everything is located perfectly and its easy to make changes.

I've built 3 systems using SOLO, 2 for gaming freinds with that are fairly quiet (as is out of the box no mods or fan swaps) and mine that has the lowest noise level due mostly to fan swaps and a passive GPU.
I also have a 92mm fan@900 rpm at the front and it is the loudest in the system but it droped 6-7 c off the HD temps so I kept it in.

TRUE is about 1 cm wider than TR ultima 90 that I have in there. I had it with both Gigabyte and now an Asus motherboard and it fits easy with about 3-4 cm to spare.

oldabelincoln · Post by **oldabelincoln** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:35 am

The system in the sig is my wife's, which I built for her in 2006. It was inspired by MikeC's "Thailand" build. The 2x92mm front fans simply can't be heard in this system because it sits on a carpeted floor. The system is more than adequately quiet for her use, and she says she can't hear a thing.

I'm building a Solo-based system for myself to replace an 8 year old Dell:

Intel Q9300
Thermalright HR-01 Plus heatsink
Gigabyte EP45-UD3P motherboard
4GB OCZ "SLI" memory (was on sale - not clear it has advantages)
PowerColor ATI 4670 (casual gaming)
Antec NeoHe 550W PSU
2x Seagate 7200.11 1TB SATA drives
1X WD10EADS-00L5B1 1TB SATA drive
Pioneer DVR-215D DVD burner
Pioneer DVR-216D DVD burner

2x Nexus 92mm front fans
1X Nexus 120 mm rear fan
1x Scythe 140mm fan on CPU HS (1100 RPM model)
All fans mounted with 3/32" bungee cord.
All drives are mounted on the sleds - I find the suspenders allow the drives to slide around more than I like.

This system easily fits in a Solo - no crossbar fit problem with the HR-01 Plus. The motherboard is excellent, but only 2 of the 4 fan headers are controllable by SpeedFan. That's ok with me, as I run all fans at full speed - I'm a fanatic about cooling electronics. The system could easily be operated with fans at 5V or 7V, with acceptable temperatures, but I go for the lowest possible temps with acceptable noise, and that's what I've got here.

The 140mm Scythe CPU fan is so large that it even goes below the bottom of the HR-01 Plus fins, and because of the Thermalright mounting hardware sticking up in that area, is angled slightly downwards, which gives great cooling to the heatsink sitting between the CPU and the I/O ports.

I have some very light weight window air conditioner filter material (open cell foam) as a filter over the rear vent holes, secured by a few dots of stick-on Velcro hooks. The top front bay cover has been replaced by a Lian-Li bay cover with holes and a filter, to give extra air for the PSU, which is a straight-through type. I tried a duct, but it made no significant difference in the PSU exhaust temperature, so I removed it.

With all drives doing random seeks and writes, rthdribl and OCCT blazing away under 32 bit XP, I've been unable to get this system to draw more than 200W AC, which is about what I expected based on the P150 system. I didn't think it would need more than the 430W PSU that comes with the P150, but the 550W PSU was on a serious sale, so I decided to take the efficienct hit.

I have one eSATA rear bracket and one SATA rear bracket with a Molex power connector. The P150 has a SATA bracket with power Molex, which I've used when the DVD burner started giving poor burns - I just put a new burner without a case on top of the P-150, and left it to run that way until I got around to swapping out the old burner. The eSATA bracket is for non-emergency use, for something that comes with a real case and power supply.

Overall, I'm delighted with the Solo/P-150. My only complaints are that the case isn't a bit roomier, isn't all-black, and doesn't have a front panel eSATA port - none of these being big deals for me.

I have another Solo waiting to become a DVR when I finish the current build

forester joe · Post by **forester joe** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:06 am

many SOLO owner out there - is the space between a high end CPU tower cooler and the PSU intake sufficient?

doesn't this cause the PSU to heat up and run the fan at higher = noisier speeds than is otherwise necessary?

stonyc · Post by **stonyc** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:34 am

forester joe wrote:many SOLO owner out there - is the space between a high end CPU tower cooler and the PSU intake sufficient?

doesn't this cause the PSU to heat up and run the fan at higher = noisier speeds than is otherwise necessary?

In my experience, it depends on the motherboard. The CPU slot can be a few mm offset, such that in a previous setup (Intel P35DP + Ultra-120) it wasn't exactly putting pressure on the Ultra, but it made me uncomfortable. In my current setup (GA-EP45-UD3R with the Ultra), the slot is a few mm lower and I don't have that problem anymore.

tackle · Post by **tackle** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:12 am

MikeC

When you talk about the suspensioning of your harddrives, I take it you mean the elastic suspension (which I've counted to three in my case as well), and not the drive "cages"?

How do you think it would turn out if you left the ICE packs on there? Would you get more noise? Worse cooling? I can't guess how it would be beneficial to have them removed (other than weight).

In any case, do you have any pictures of your system? Would be interesting to see how you have that foam set up and all.

Lastly, how fast are the raptors? I haven't, up until now, realized there were 10k rpm 2.5" drives.

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:29 am

tackle wrote:MikeC

When you talk about the suspensioning of your harddrives, I take it you mean the elastic suspension (which I've counted to three in my case as well), and not the drive "cages"?

How do you think it would turn out if you left the ICE packs on there? Would you get more noise? Worse cooling? I can't guess how it would be beneficial to have them removed (other than weight).

In any case, do you have any pictures of your system? Would be interesting to see how you have that foam set up and all.

Lastly, how fast are the raptors? I haven't, up until now, realized there were 10k rpm 2.5" drives.

It's much quieter w/o the icepack. Please read my review - http://www.silentpcreview.com/WD_Velociraptor

no pics - nothing special, just a block of foam fitted in the middle elastic, slightly bigger than a standard 3.5" HDD.

tackle · Post by **tackle** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 9:45 am

MikeC wrote: It's much quieter w/o the icepack. Please read my review - http://www.silentpcreview.com/WD_Velociraptor

no pics - nothing special, just a block of foam fitted in the middle elastic, slightly bigger than a standard 3.5" HDD.

As always, excellent review!
I have tons of stuff going on at the moment, and in the back of my head was the idea "search silentpcreview for harddrive reviews and such".
You beat me to it!

I'll probably end up buying one to put my OS's on (win & mac)

SebRad · Post by **SebRad** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:21 pm

Hi, I would run without intake fans unless your HDDs get over 40Â°C or you have high-end graphics that get overly hot.
One of the systems I built in a Solo the HDDs are in suspension bands and I put screws in the rear most holes of the HDD and then "zip tie" round the screw and the elastic suspension band. Very fiddly to do but stops the HDDs from sliding out due to stiff cables or system being moved.

Also I find putting a couple of twists in the band before sliding HDD in makes them a bit tighter and hold the HDD in place better.
Regards, Seb

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 3:05 pm

Hi,

forester joe wrote:many SOLO owner out there - is the space between a high end CPU tower cooler and the PSU intake sufficient?

doesn't this cause the PSU to heat up and run the fan at higher = noisier speeds than is otherwise necessary?

In my experience, the fit is close, but this is a good thing -- the CPU fan becomes redundant and you can often run without it, since both the rear case fan an the PSU fan are moving air.

BTW, the whole inside of the case gets to be pretty much the same temp, some the proximity of the heatsink to the PSU fan doesn't matter. So, the PSU fan (in the units I have used) do not become audible, and moving them away (or closer) to the heatsink doesn't affect them.

Another option when using the suspension: put some of the shoulder screws into the bottom holes on the hard drive, and this will help keep the drive from sliding out of the elastics when the case is tilted.

How is your P150 / Solo rig? What fans do you use?

How is your P150 / Solo rig? What fans do you use?

what about PSU intake temps?

Re: what about PSU intake temps?

Re: what about PSU intake temps?