Antec Three Hundred mini-review and dampening mods

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 7:41 pm

For Christmas, I was lucky enough to receive an Antec Three Hundred from my brother (he knows he gets all my old stuff). So I set upon the task of moving my gaming machine from my old and trusty SLK3000B to the new 300. My Windows Home Server system will get the honor of going in the SLK3000B, but thatâ€™s a straight-forward build with nothing worth mentioning (other than the dampening, but I use the same method here).
Upon looking at the case in person, there are a few obvious impressions I made:

1. This case is VERY light. Definitely will cause problems to be addressed later.

2. Hard drive mounting is bad. I understand itâ€™s a budget case, but my SLK3000B was cheaper and it came with a removable HDD cage and grommets. If one were so inclined, it wouldnâ€™t be too hard to drill out the rivets for the inside HDD cage rail and move it away a little to allow some horizontal HDD suspension.

3. This case is VERY, VERY light. The metal on the sides, top and bottom panels is very thin and there no crimps in it to make it very stiff.

4. Love the airflow possibilities, but hate the 120mm fan opening in the side.

Anyway, Iâ€™ll just go through the changes I made to the standard layout.

First of all, here is my â€œmiracle ingredientâ€

antivenom · Post by **antivenom** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:19 am

Very nice set up! I've got the 300 case as well, and I decided to block the top vent because I hated that fan. Mine was exactly the same, it shook my entire computer.

I like your suspension method and I can't believe your CPU temps. 23Â°C?! What's that heatsink your using? I've seen it around a lot and I'm looking for a new heatsink for my Q6600.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 6:59 am

All my specs are in my sig, but it's a Ninja Mini. For a quad, I'd probably want to go with something a little bigger (Ninja 2?).

As for the temps, it's also the dead of winter here (Michigan). This morning it was -20C outside and my apartment was less than 16C <brrr>. The room this machine stays in is pretty cold, but the temps were never that low in my SLK3000B. That 140mm Tricool is not a good fan, but it move a heck of a lot of air. I can feel the "sucking" at the front of the case, even with that thing on low.

antivenom · Post by **antivenom** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 9:07 am

Oh yeah sorry, your sig didn't show when typing my reply.

Oof!

you could run a quad passively in them conditions!

yeah, when I first removed the top fan my CPU went up by about 5Â°C and my GPU went up by about 10Â°C, both still nowhere near dangerous temps though and it's so much quieter

even more so now the holes blocked up.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:04 pm

I have three hundred now and I am finished my own modding.

I removed front fan grills and back fan grills used u-rubber to clean remenants of tinsnip. I do hate that 140mm Tri-Cool, off it goes and instead Scythe Kazu-Maru 140mm 1200 rpm fan. With slight ghetto modding for re-usable silicone fan attachments I used to attach Kaze-Maru thru top fan grill's holes. Works very well and with motherboard control, 1200 rpm Kaze-maru spinns around 770 rpm's and is virtually inaudiable. On Horizontally it emmets slight ticking noise and very slight vibrations, unlike vertical position.

On side I applied one layer of self-adhassive bitumen matt from Biltema ( heavy rubber mat ) to add mass on case, which is very light as stated. On top, that was major cause of vibration earlier, I applied 2 layers of bitumen.

Top of side panels I added Akasa PaxMate II light foam.

Results: Case is now significantly heavier. Side panels are heavier than P182's I have and everywhere instead ding sound I got before is very faint thud.

Air flow is great in case and cable magement made routing a lot easier than in Antec Nine Hundred.

Unfortunately silencing did revealed a naughty problem in my game system, that bloody Seagate 160 GB sata. It has high pitch squaling. System was pretty much inaudiable when HDD was off. With HDD it started to squeal.

In gaming I haven't heard squaling from system but in Aquamark 3 when it gives result I get squal. but not during menu's or test itself.

But considering the case: Massive airflow cheaply. Antec quality, even metal was thin. Needs some care, loving and modding and you can get SPCR quiet system in there. Just like SLK3000b, even I'd preferred to have removable 3,5" tray in Three Hundred like in SLK3000B.

Aesthetics: Three Hundred reeks the Utilitarian simplicity. You either hate it or love it. I love it. Its much better looking than old Antec Nine Hundred I had.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:42 pm

I should have mentioned it, though it's probably obvious from the pics, that I also removed the front fan cages as they are not necessary.

Are you happy with the noise from the Kaze-Maru? I'm thinking of either going with a 500rpm version or a Yate-Loon D14SL-12 (1000rpm) and undervolting.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:25 am

jhhoffma wrote:I should have mentioned it, though it's probably obvious from the pics, that I also removed the front fan cages as they are not necessary.

Are you happy with the noise from the Kaze-Maru? I'm thinking of either going with a 500rpm version or a Yate-Loon D14SL-12 (1000rpm) and undervolting.

Yeah, Kazemaru is good, problem is that its 120mm fan holes need ghetto mounting. I have 1000 RPM 140mm Yate-Loon comming from the states. Thank you Performance-PC's. Its almost 15â‚¬'s / $20 cheaper to order from the states the Yate-Loon 140mm than from Germany.

I myself have been toying idea of cutting the top fan grille, use u-rubber on tinsnip residues, use 140mm Yate-Loon and put 140mm black wire finger guard on top with Yate-Loon...

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 11:40 am

I would think that you could use zipties and some dampening material in-between to mount the Kaze-Maru, avoiding a real "ghetto mod".

Otherwise, I'd be inclined to get a thick piece of sheet steel, cut out the size to fit 140mm fan-frame on the outside and mounting points for a 120mm on the inside, paint it black and mount the kaze-maru on that with some dampening.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 2:29 am

well, I had to slightly modify attachment of silicone fan + plastic pin attachnment but that's still hardly a ghettomod but some sort of DIY mod so the plastic pins won't fall thru grills.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 9:20 am

Picture?

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:32 am

jhhoffma wrote:Picture?

I will take some piccies in weekend. I will post them here and probably create new thread in general gallery for yours truely modded Three Hundred. I've been meaning to do that for sometimes but school keeps me rather busy. Now we have slightly less things to do ^^

Edit: Here is the requested picture. One picture tell's more than thousand word.

kaange · Post by **kaange** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:30 pm

jhhoffma wrote:my SLK3000B was cheaper and it came with a removable HDD cage and grommets. If one were so inclined, it wouldnâ€™t be too hard to drill out the rivets for the inside HDD cage rail and move it away a little to allow some horizontal HDD suspension.

With the SLK3000B, you can just turn the drive cage sideways and pack it with foam below and above so it jams in between the cage rail and the 3.5" cage. For added security, you can add some zip ties from the cage to the cage rail and 3.5" cage, if you move the PC. It's the easiest suspension mode you can think of.

I really wish they still made this case (and with the new eSata front connector of the Sonata III)
Sorry for hijacking the thread

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:12 am

You can also use actual suspension (heavy duty) methods to isolate the entire cage. I used the cage itself in another case (my previous WHS build) and just rested it on a couple pads of sorbothane.

However, in my previous SLK3000B builds, the HDD cage was removed entirely and the HDDs suspended directly. Lots more room and better airflow that way.

combat goofwing · Post by **combat goofwing** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 1:25 pm

hi

first time on the forum

i have the same case running a I7 920 cpu with 6gig ram and a xfxHD4870 1 gig,and AK-967 Nero Direct Contact Heatpipe CPU Cooler

the case fans are way too loud and some advice would be great

i plan to remove the top and back fans and replace them with much quieter ones look for any suggestions on this

then thought about fitting one of the original case fans on the side running at low speed to draw air in to the gpu(its OC to 780/1090MHz)

and maybe fit one to the front doing the same

any suggestions on the best way forward would be great

thanks for any help

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:59 pm

Well, the 140mm Tricool on top tends to be the biggest problem, due to the vibrations it causes and the thin metal of the case. I explained what I did to solve the problem. Yate-Loon makes a low-speed 140mm as does Scythe (Kaze-Maru), but the Y/L will still have to be undervolted to be quiet.

Beyond that, I have a 1200rpm Slipstream running @ 770rpm in the rear of my case, which is dead quiet. You may want to consider an aftermarket cooler for your GPU as it's unlikely you'll ever get that quiet. Then you'll have a better handle on airflow.

I've also blocked off the side vent and opened up two PCI slot covers below the GPU to allow a little cool air to come up from underneath the GPU and up to the fans at the top.

casebuyer · Post by **casebuyer** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 2:20 am

nice mod

Antec Three Hundred mini-review and dampening mods

Antec Three Hundred mini-review and dampening mods

Re: Antec Three Hundred mini-review and dampening mods