P180 Watercooling Project Pics - Comments and Suggestions welcome

Well I followed in Maxxx's footsteps and picked up a Antec P180. I've gotten older and decided it was time to let my U2-UFO go and start a new silent-watercooled project. I decided this time around to try slightly different components from my previous setup (Thanks Petrastechshop!!):

Swiftech Storm R.2
Swiftech MCW-60
50z or D5 (I have both here)
T-Line
Masterkleer 7/16 ID' Tubing
Thermochill PA160
4 x Yate Loon D12SL-12

I've received the case this week and took some pics. The bottom piece of plastic was damaged but not to the point where I thought it would effect much. I'll just patch it up myself.

Initial impressions of the case are that it's not that heavy and it seems pretty tight to work with inside. Both of these opinions are probably based on the fact that I came from the U2-UFO which is heavy and spacious. Build quality is quite good, my front door is not warped unlike some. I wish the mobo tray was removable. The rubber grommets on the hard drive mounting bay are really soft and fun to play with. ;)

edit: March 26th: Thanks for the advice from everyone for removing rivets and the extra bays for fitting in the PA160. New pics added below after drilling out and cutting the tabs on the bays.

I'm also considering removing the filters and front fan grills as they would obstruct airflow and probably cause more noise.

Well here are the preliminary pics. Thanks to Erasmus354 as it was his rig I saw that made me decide to use the PA160.

Edit April 14th:
Spent the whole day putting things together and here is my feedback... (pics tomorrow since I gotta hit the sack after this)...

P180 is a tight fit for watercooling but it works... :) The thing weights a ton. After I finished working on it in the basement, it was a workout carrying it back up to the 2nd floor. Front firewire and audio access is a joke for DFI mobo... the cables would have to go across the mobo so I didn't install... extra drive bay covers are way too flimsy.

Masterkleer is where it's at, bends like hell, seals air tight, crystal clear, and did I mention it bends like hell??

PA160 rocks. I decided to go ultra quiet over perfomance and went with two Nexus fans. The system is silent... the loudest thing is the nf4 chipset fan (of course)... I thought the weaker Nexus would be a problem but no.... X2 4600+ @ 1.42v 10x280 w/ 2gb gskill idle 28C, dual prime load 36C with a gpu in the loop (YES with a SINGLE nexus fan on the rad and one for case exhaust). However looks like a fan over pwmic would be nice...

DO NOT attach the pump to the case... AQX 50z on neoprene... can't hear it at all.

http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/pa180a.jpg
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/pa180b.jpg
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/pa180e.jpg
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/pa180f.jpg
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/pa180g.jpg
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/pa180i.jpg
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/kink.jpg
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/i-ram.jpg
http://www.jpop.com/gocchin/ipa180j.jpg

try dremeling the head of the rivet. that should do the trick

a drill will do the job

I've got a P180 SPCR which I'm currently modifying to fit my needs. I love the layout and size of the case but the build quality feels kinda cheap. I wish they would have used alumium like Lian-Li and coolermaster, I would gladly have payed the extra cost. It's designed to be quiet but they still didn't remove those steel grills, it wouldn't have cost many cents to replace them with something better. Lovley concept but sadly on a too tight budget.

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Originally Posted by gocchin

my front door is not warped unlike some.

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I think the older doors /w warping problems had plastic on the inside and alu on the outside. Since alu and plastic contract and expand differently during temperature changes the door would warp. Antec designed a new solid alu door to fix this problem. Your door has alu on both the inside and the outside and it's solid alu trough the whole door which eliminates the warping problem. I also got the new door. :banana:

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Originally Posted by gocchin

In order to fit in the PA160 I'm going to have to remove the lower 5.25bay and the floppy bay which are held in by rivets. I have no idea how to remove the rivets and any suggestions on how to do it would be much appreciated.

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Just drill them out. I've completly rearranged all drive cages in my case. I just drilled out the rivets and JB-welded the cages where I wanted them.

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Originally Posted by gocchin

I'm also considering removing the filters and front fan grills as they would obstruct airflow and probably cause more noise.

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I'm also considering this. I've removed the steel grill and brought a couple of 120mm filters from petrastechshop.com. Hopefully I'll be able to replace the original filters and filter doors with those. I'm not quite sure how to do it yet though.

Yout got some nice parts, super choice on the 7/16 tubing!

for the rivets just drill them out with a drill bit slightly larger than the middle hole.

To remove rivets carefully drill with a bit slightly larger than the "hole" of the rivet.

can i get the name of the girl in the poster?

D5 doesent sounds like a great choice tbh, youll really feel the triple heatdump on that 160... and its not as quiet as your 50Z. D5 on the 120.3 and 50Z on the 160 would have been better, imo :)

Air filters are gonna decrease your flow and increase noise a little aye, but on the other hand you just hoover the filters to clean the dust, instead of having to hoover you rad. Tradeoff...

Masterkleer 7/16 owns ^^

Thanks guys for all the advice. I can use a 50z too as I still have it. I was thinking the same thing about the heat dump.

I do have a drill for getting the rivets out but there are some spots that are nearly impossible to get a drill into.

@ andersson.j how did you drill out the floppy bay as the rivets are vertical and it would be difficult to get a drill in there.

@ situman GOTO (lastname) MAKI (firstname) also the girl in my avatar and sig and my username gocchin is her nickname as I mention on my website

Personally with a rad that small id try bolting it to an existing fan slot. The only time you really need to mod a case is when you use doubles and tripples

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Originally Posted by Sentential

Personally with a rad that small id try bolting it to an existing fan slot. The only time you really need to mod a case is when you use doubles and tripples

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I will be bolting it to an existing fan slot... it's just the pa160 needs the two bays removed (above the fan slot and below)... as Erasmus354 shows in his pic here:

http://members.cox.net/erasmus354/wa...ling%20002.jpg

I used a flexible shaft for my dremel copy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gocchin

I will be bolting it to an existing fan slot... it's just the pa160 needs the two bays removed (above the fan slot and below)... as Erasmus354 shows in his pic here:

http://members.cox.net/erasmus354/wa...ling%20002.jpg

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I disagree with that arrangement. You lose alot of slots doing it like that. Why not mount the rad on one of the exhaust ports or externally. With the rad there it will be a REAL pain in the ass if you need to move anything. Its always prefered to make sure nothing is blocking any of the ports

Different case but this is what I'm talking about. You want to mount the rad away from any components so that you have plenty of clearence so you dont have to drain if you want to upgrade anything:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...l/DSC00156.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sentential

I disagree with that arrangement. You lose alot of slots doing it like that. Why not mount the rad on one of the exhaust ports or externally. With the rad there it will be a REAL pain in the ass if you need to move anything. Its always prefered to make sure nothing is blocking any of the ports

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I'm not to worried about blocking bays as the case still has 3 x 5.25 bays above that and room for mounting 4 x hard drives below it. Considering I'll only have an optical drive and maybe a fan controller I should be okay :).

I'm trying to keep everything internal and quiet as possible. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gocchin

I'm not to worried about blocking bays as the case still has 3 x 5.25 bays above that and room for mounting 4 x hard drives below it. Considering I'll only have an optical drive and maybe a fan controller I should be okay :).

I'm trying to keep everything internal and quiet as possible. :)

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Understood. If you only have that few CDR devices ( I have 4) then go right ahead :)

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Originally Posted by Sentential

Understood. If you only have that few CDR devices ( I have 4) then go right ahead :)

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Yeah just one DVD burner is all I need... :)

I wish i could get rid of the floppy on mine... its useful though, im none too fond of flashing the bios from winblows... anyone know if you can do that with a USB floppy drive?

I like that mod gocchin, im really not into extrernally visible mods on cases :)

You sure one D12SL-12 is gonna be enough on that 160 though? I was thinking the D12SM-12 is more appropriate for it - if youre going to use a fan reg (i suggest an automated t-ban setup like mine ;)) maybe something a little more powerful so you can get some extra cooling when needed? From marci's and cathar's tests the 160's performance needs something with a little more kick to come close the 120.2.

USB floppy drive will work fine so long as your computer supports bootable floppies.

looking good gocchin.

gocchin - lookin' good there! I have liked that case since I first saw it, I'm sure that you will make it shine :toast:

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Originally Posted by creidiki

I wish i could get rid of the floppy on mine... its useful though, im none too fond of flashing the bios from winblows... anyone know if you can do that with a USB floppy drive?

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Pickup a cheap USB flash drive , around 128mB...
You can make them bootable by using a program called 'mkbt20' , google it and you will find instructions on how to do it... it does require a floppy to copy the boot sectors from... mkbt20.exe
In your bios you wil prolly have to choose to boot from USB ZIP for the USB flash drive to work...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by creidiki

I wish i could get rid of the floppy on mine... its useful though, im none too fond of flashing the bios from winblows... anyone know if you can do that with a USB floppy drive?

I like that mod gocchin, im really not into extrernally visible mods on cases :)

You sure one D12SL-12 is gonna be enough on that 160 though? I was thinking the D12SM-12 is more appropriate for it - if youre going to use a fan reg (i suggest an automated t-ban setup like mine ;)) maybe something a little more powerful so you can get some extra cooling when needed? From marci's and cathar's tests the 160's performance needs something with a little more kick to come close the 120.2.

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creidiki, that's a good idea. I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a more powerful fan since it would probably be on my fan controller. I do play with a lot of cpu's some hotter than others so I will check out that D12SM, thanks for the advice. :)

glad to see your back at it again.:)

:toast:

Oddly enough most rivets can can just use a flathead screwdriver on and just keep twisting until you dig through the rivet - takes 2 min of hard work for each rivet.. Thats how I did them in my lianli where there wasnt much room - also leaves less mess that using a drill... But for ease use a drill!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UnreaL

Oddly enough most rivets can can just use a flathead screwdriver on and just keep twisting until you dig through the rivet - takes 2 min of hard work for each rivet.. Thats how I did them in my lianli where there wasnt much room - also leaves less mess that using a drill... But for ease use a drill!

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that is one hell of a wierd technique..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UnreaL

Oddly enough most rivets can can just use a flathead screwdriver on and just keep twisting until you dig through the rivet - takes 2 min of hard work for each rivet.. Thats how I did them in my lianli where there wasnt much room - also leaves less mess that using a drill... But for ease use a drill!

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Don't Lian-Li use Alu rivets ? If so then that method probably wouldn't work too well on Steel rivets. Good idea for people who havn't got a drill though. (Or are too lazy to get a drill out. ;))