Antec p180 bottom cage cooling

N

Northbridge

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 23, 2007
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225
Do you Antec p180 owners find that your bottom of the case gets enough cooling without a fan there? I decided to install the fan in the upper part of the case and have the 120mm fan on my PSU suck the air into the bottom cage.

I currently have one hard drive in there but I would like to add another 1-2.
 
Northbridge said:
Do you Antec p180 owners find that your bottom of the case gets enough cooling without a fan there? I decided to install the fan in the upper part of the case and have the 120mm fan on my PSU suck the air into the bottom cage.

I currently have one hard drive in there but I would like to add another 1-2.
Click to expand...

You have the PSU on the bottom, and the HDs next to it in the front of the case? The ATX slots are midway up the case, rather than at the bottom? If you generate heat, wouldn't that tend to rise onto the MB? and whatever cards you have in the backplane?
 
A couple of HDD's don't generate that much heat, so it shouldn't be a problem. The PSU should be pulling air from the inside of the case and expelling it out. Not sure how you are using the PSU to pull air in.

Why not just install another 120x25mm fan in the bottom mid bracket to help move the heated air away from the HDDs?
 
I think he's saying the fan that came in the PSU-HDD area, was moved to behind the upper HDD cage. Now the bottom cage relies solely upon the PSU fan to pull in cold air, according to him.

If you actually pay attention to it, the little vents right at the bottom of the case, that's where the PSU pulls air from (with PSU fan pointing down), almost nothing gets pulled in at the front intake down there. I would have at least some fan in the bracket there, just to get some cool air in, especially if you want to add more HDDs.
 
Captain Slow said:
I think he's saying the fan that came in the PSU-HDD area, was moved to behind the upper HDD cage. Now the bottom cage relies solely upon the PSU fan to pull in cold air, according to him.

If you actually pay attention to it, the little vents right at the bottom of the case, that's where the PSU pulls air from (with PSU fan pointing down), almost nothing gets pulled in at the front intake down there. I would have at least some fan in the bracket there, just to get some cool air in, especially if you want to add more HDDs.
Click to expand...

You can't always do this. With the larger PSU's and 4 HDD's it won't all fit.
 
Some PSUs have a front facing fan as well that would pull air from the front of the case.

In my own setup I modded a 120mm intake fan in the front and replaced the mid 120x38mm thick fan with a 120x25mm thick fan. This allowed me to fit a 500w Antec Phantom PSU.
 
Ok I will just buy another 120mm fan for the bottom bracket. I should have thought this through before putting together the system, as now I have to move a lot of wires around. Its going to be a tight fit but id rather keep my hard drives cool. Did I mention that the P180 has been a pain in the ass to wire?
 
Dan_D said:
You can't always do this. With the larger PSU's and 4 HDD's it won't all fit.
Click to expand...

Even worse, I prefer the docking bays. And you can only get two at the top, right in front of the PSU. The MB blocks any two below - or else they stick out of the case about half an inch (maybe not a problem, I don't know). With rails you can adjust. But it just doesn't look good. In addition, my MB has the power connector there, and it can get cluttered very quickly in that area.
 
I've had 3 P180's and found them to be a pain to wire. But, there is light. I just got a P180B (with improvements found on the P182). The basic layout is still the same, but wiring is a lot easier.

I want to use the bottom HDD cage because I have an 8800GTS that runs into the upper HDD cage. If I use only a single HDD, then that top cage can be used and I can squeeze the 8800GTS in (did this on my work computer, also a P180B with an 8800GTS).

So I took out the dremel and drill and went to work. First, I remove the bracket in front of the bottom cage (where you screw the thumbscrew into) where the vent is. I read in another post to drill the rivet heads and the "cage" that looks like it'll hold a fan and it'll pop right off. It sure did.

Now, I couldn't get the cage in with a 120x25 fan there. The fan is a little too thick. Out came the dremel with a sander wheel. I shaved 1-2mm off one side. Enough to get the HDD cage in with the fan next to the vent.

Now of course, the provided filter clips hit the fan. It's OK, kinda crappy filter anyway. I'm going to forego the filter for now until I can get some material to replace it.

I did this because although I could get the fan into the middle fan bracket between the HDD cage and the P/S, I felt that it was just too tight a fit. I'll post pictures some day.
 
Well using right angled drive cables and angled SATA power cables the bottom drive cage can in fact hold four drives while having a 120mm fan in the same chamber. Now I couldn't do this on my gaming rig because my LSI MegaRAID uses different types of cables which integrate power into them and they are longer than normal SATA connectors. With the Thermaltake ToughPower unit in the back, there was no room for a fan in my setup. This is one of the many reasons I went with the P190. In any case I used that same P182 for my server box which houses several SCSI drives in the bottom cage. There with my somewhat long PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 I was able to get the fan in the middle without problems though I did remove the fan bracket and screw the fan in place using standard screws and stock holes so that I could install fan grills on both sides to keep the wires out of the fan. It turned out great.
 
Funny how different people come up with the same solution to problems:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=956943

Bradbury 451 said:
So I took out the dremel and drill and went to work. First, I remove the bracket in front of the bottom cage (where you screw the thumbscrew into) where the vent is. I read in another post to drill the rivet heads and the "cage" that looks like it'll hold a fan and it'll pop right off. It sure did.

Now, I couldn't get the cage in with a 120x25 fan there. The fan is a little too thick. Out came the dremel with a sander wheel. I shaved 1-2mm off one side. Enough to get the HDD cage in with the fan next to the vent.

Now of course, the provided filter clips hit the fan. It's OK, kinda crappy filter anyway. I'm going to forego the filter for now until I can get some material to replace it.

I did this because although I could get the fan into the middle fan bracket between the HDD cage and the P/S, I felt that it was just too tight a fit. I'll post pictures some day.
Click to expand...
 
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