Antec P180b: PLASTIC? WTF?!?

shagbark · Post by **shagbark** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:08 am

I got my Antec P180b case in the mail. I bought it soley because it was so highly recommended here.

It's covered in PLASTIC.

What gives? Plastic is not a conductor! Plastic does not dissipate heat! What is the purpose of the plastic? And how much hotter will my computer be because of it?

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:44 am

What gives? Plastic is not a conductor! Plastic does not dissipate heat! What is the purpose of the plastic? And how much hotter will my computer be because of it?

The purpose of the plastic is to insulate against sound transmission through the walls of the case (to some degree). It will not cause your computer to be any hotter than if it were not there. And by the way, some plastics are conductors and they do dissipate heat (everything dissipates heat, otherwise if you heated some plastic it would stay hot forever).

shagbark · Post by **shagbark** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 12:33 pm

I was wondering if that was the reason. I reacted strongly because I've been waiting for weeks to put this system together, and I just spread out the parts on the floor and pulled the case out of its box, and was trying to figure out where to sand off the paint to attach heatsinks to the side of the case, and... it wasn't paint.

But it looks like a fine case. It's not as amenable to some case mods I'd wanted to do as a hunk of steel would be, but I guess that will save me time.

Yes, I know everything dissipates heat. But some things dissipate it better than others. Plastic conducts a tiny amount of electricity, too, but we don't call it an electrical conductor.

Eddie Spaghetti · Post by **Eddie Spaghetti** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 8:59 am

Heat doesn't get dispended by the enclosure, only by the air that's blown out of the case. It doesn't matter what material it is made of!

The enclosure of my Dell Dimension is entirely made out of plastic.

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 1:25 am

shagbark wrote:and was trying to figure out where to sand off the paint to attach heatsinks to the side of the case,

???

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 6:55 am

nutball wrote:
shagbark wrote:and was trying to figure out where to sand off the paint to attach heatsinks to the side of the case,
???

???

Perhaps he's intending to use some heatpipe setup with the radiators attached to the case alÃ¡ the TN500 Zalman case.

Eddie Spaghetti · Post by **Eddie Spaghetti** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:19 pm

tabbal · Post by **tabbal** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 9:40 pm

nutball wrote:
shagbark wrote:Heat doesn't get dispended by the enclosure, only by the air that's blown out of the case. It doesn't matter what material it is made of!

SORRY... Metal plays a major role dissipating heat.... NOT JUST BLOWN AIR.

panda-R · Post by **panda-R** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 9:53 pm

tabbal wrote: SORRY... Metal plays a major role dissipating heat.... NOT JUST BLOWN AIR.

so if the METAL case was so important in case temperatures you'd think they'd stop designing cases with fans. It'd save money for the company, less tooling need to stamp the grills, make brackets, include fans.

Shadowknight · Post by **Shadowknight** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 10:55 pm

nutball wrote:
shagbark wrote:Heat doesn't get dispended by the enclosure, only by the air that's blown out of the case. It doesn't matter what material it is made of!
SORRY... Metal plays a major role dissipating heat.... NOT JUST BLOWN AIR.

Uh, no. Not in a computer. The only thing directly touching the case is the hard drive if mounted normally (i.e. not suspended) and that helps a little bit. The motherboard, CPU, PSU, VGA card, etc aren't even touching the case. Even with a slow fan, the air is moved quickly enough that the heat never reaches the case itself. Otherwise, it would feel noticably warm/hot in normal operation. It really only makes a difference in a purely passive case like the Zalman TNN series, and that's because it's DESIGNED to cool components by running heatpipes from heat generating components to the case itself.

pyogenes · Post by **pyogenes** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 12:11 am

tabbal wrote:SORRY... Metal plays a major role dissipating heat.... NOT JUST BLOWN AIR.

Yeah, the metal in the heatsinks

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 2:18 am

Man, there's some serious ****ed up quoting going on in this thread!

Levi · Post by **Levi** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 9:45 pm

Check out this link... Before I get flamed for posting this, I realize it is on the Antec site, and there's a good possibility it's biased, but it's still worth a read.

http://www.antec.com/pdf/customPC_p180test.pdf

n00btard · Post by **n00btard** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 10:34 pm

tabbal wrote:
nutball wrote:
shagbark wrote:Heat doesn't get dispended by the enclosure, only by the air that's blown out of the case. It doesn't matter what material it is made of!
SORRY... Metal plays a major role dissipating heat.... NOT JUST BLOWN AIR.

take off your CPU heatsink, stick a mobo standoff on it, attach the case sidepanel to it, and let's see how far you get.

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 4:23 am

n00btard wrote: take off your CPU heatsink, stick a mobo standoff on it, attach the case sidepanel to it, and let's see how far you get.

sigh... which means absolutely nothing.

The only thing the panels of a PC are touching to any significant degree is air, and the temperature delta between the air inside and that outside is far too small to allow their thermal conductivity to play any part whatsoever. If the case material was designed to play a part in cooling (eg directly connected by heatpipes to the heat-producing components, as in the Zalman silent cases), it would be different.

There's a test on the web somewhere using the same system first in a Chieftec steel case, and then in an otherwise identical aluminium version. The differences in temps were hardly noticeable (and in favour of the steel case in one or two measurements), and all were within the margin of experimental error.

I thought this fallacy had been nailed long ago... do we really have to do it all again?

aburgard · Post by **aburgard** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 8:21 am

The only time the case material is going to make a significant difference (> 1*C) is if you are sinking directly to the case. Airflow and quality heatsinks (the things actually touching your hot items) are your real concerns.

I'm folding in a P180 and a Lian-Li PC-V1000. Temps are about the same in both. Both are silent.

n00btard · Post by **n00btard** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 10:34 am

@nick705

www.systemcooling.com

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 12:05 pm

n00btard wrote:@nick705

www.systemcooling.com

And?

/edit: OK, I'm with you, it's where the comparative case test was carried out. The borked quotes here are causing my small brain some confusion, I'm ascribing points of view to people when they probably mean the exact opposite...

Antec P180b: PLASTIC? WTF?!?

Antec P180b: PLASTIC? WTF?!?

For those of you wondering about cooling...