A Positive Look at the Antec Nine Hundred (900) Case

[iceveiled]

Does that fan have a shroud around it?

Which fan? They are all installed with whatever they came with. Not quite sure what a fan shroud is.

Pustbunker - It's usually a good idea to follow the natural airflow of the case and, specifically with a CPU fan, to route the air towards the exhaust fan to expel heat caused by the CPU out of the system as fast as possible. Do you want the CPU fan blowing warm air downward towards your GPU and other components, or straight out the back of the case?

Oh and for those looking to completely take apart the case for painting or what have you, antec has mechanical drawings of it here:
http://www.antec.com/pdf/drawings/90...echdrawing.pdf

[bjp999]

WoW!

bjp999 is back from the dead! I had no idea that there were so many people that modded their Antec 900s. I stopped getting email notifications and thought that this thread had become inactive. Imagine my surprise to see over 650 posts to the thread I started in Dec 2006. Many of the posted Antec 900s rigs are simply Incredible !!!

I opened up my case for the first time in about a year to remove one of my HDs. I am moving it to my soon-to-be 5TB unRAID server. (Check out unRAID here, pretty cool). People seemed very concerned that dust would build up inside the case because there are no filters, but the case was almost dust free inside.

I see that some people are flipping their top fans over to act as intake instead of out. I may have to try this when I get some time. I have noticed that I get very little air blowing out of that fan. But since the case was cool, I didn't really care. I think if I flipped it over, it would probably cool even better.

I'll keep monitoring this thread now that I know it is active.

Cheers!

[Brian MP5T]

After browsing this thread (really nice mods everyone!) I saw that some of you mount the CPU cooler to blow upwards, and others mount it so it blows to the back. I've made a paint pic of 'my' nine hundred and I was wondering what the best airflow for it would be with a scythe infinity/muugen cooler on a Q6600.



Which do you think is best?

.....1

[timber715]

yup I agree with brian... 1 also...

[pustbunker]

Thanks for the input Going to try closing off the side panel intake tomorrow to see if it improves the airflow.

[Power5]

If you are painting the inside flat black, use more than a couple coats. I sanded and self etch primered my inside and after 2 coats of paint, I still get nicks when I move stuff.

[sailrabbit]

Props to the OP and all for the inspiration to attempt this build. I had so much fun with it every time I finished.. I tore it apart again (4 times!) for more tweaks. I left my camera on the tripod and snapped away during the builds. It takes awhile to crop my messy ofc out of the pics and upload, so here is build #1:

This was a great excuse to get some new tools!



Harbor Freight has cheap tools. I wouldn't recommend these for a professional, but they work fine for the hobbyist. Picked up a knockout punch set $15, air nibbler $15, die grinder $5 etc. on sale. The rotary tool had no torque, so I used the accessories with my Dremel.


Strip down case. Paint HDD cages (primer then flat black looks the best):




Access holes:



HDD Cage, Rear Fan, Side wiring:




Making Cables, Side, Interior views:




Abit IN9 32X-MAX, Q6600, Asus Silent Knight II, 4G Corsair XMS2:




Asus 20X SATA DVDRW, 2X 320G RAID 0:




Drawer, Lit Interior (money shot!), Bios views:




I was all finished and noticed a PS screw a little c0cked. The Vantec Stealth has an aluminum housing and two of the steel screw inserts were loose.. one fell inside when I was taking it apart. Time to go get a modular PS for a cleaner look and what the hell.. another 500G HDD for backups. I'll post build #2 as soon as I get time:




-Sailrabbit

[MetalRush]

Nice photo serie, SailRabbit
Did you primer your case before painting?
I also have to redo my cable management... installed a second Raptor (for RAID0) and my cabling is really horrible atm
But then I also want to paint the inside... so much more nicer to look at

[bjp999]

Sailrabbit -



NICE! If this is build 1, can't wait to see build 4! Very professional. If I have one regret, it is that the way I did my hard drives makes it hard to get the cages in and out post installation. Looks like you solved that!

(Good thing all you needed was inspiration. I'm just a hack with a dremel - looks like you actually know what you're doing!)

Great pictures!

- bjp999

[cabbspapp]

Sailrabbit, did you sand your case when you painted it?

[Vaughan14]

Hey everyone!

I just popped in to show you some pics of my system, I started it in October and have just finished it.
I would like to thank all the people in here for all the ideas it gave me, and yeah system specs are:

I spray painted the mesh a dark blue, it looks a lot cleaner in person.

CPU - Q6600 @ 3.6GHz (Zalman 9700Led cooling)
GFX – 8800GTS 512mb in SLI Clock=775 Memory=1050 Shader=1983 Stock Fans at 80%
MOBO – eVGA 680i
RAM – 2G Kit-800 (2x1G) Kingston 800Mhz OC'd to 1066
PSU – Thermaltake ToughPower 750w

3DMark06 Score: 18,675 Edit: Just got 19,025!







Sorry for all the pictures!

[Moe_Szyslak]

Hey everyone!

I just popped in to show you some pics of my system, I started it in October and have just finished it.
I would like to thank all the people in here for all the ideas it gave me, and yeah system specs are:


CPU - Q6600 @ 3.6GHz (Zalman 9700Led cooling)
GFX – 8800GTS 512mb in SLI Clock=775 Memory=1050 Shader=1983 Stock Fans at 80%
MOBO – eVGA 680i
RAM – 2G Kit-800 (2x1G) Kingston 800Mhz OC'd to 1066
PSU – Thermaltake ToughPower 750w



Sorry for all the pictures!

Eeeeeh, just a thought. Perhaps you should resize them I have a screen resolution of 1680x1050 and I can't even see half of every photo. Or better yet, make thumbnails. That's much less work

[Vaughan14]

Sorry just fixed it now, haven't been in a forum this active in awhile!

[Moe_Szyslak]

Sorry just fixed it now, haven't been in a forum this active in awhile!

Wow, that was fast

Are you experiencing any problems having two G92 cards on a PCI-e 1.1 motherboard? A friend of mine couldn't get his setup to work properly.

[Vaughan14]

I did to begin with but now it's fine, but that was to do with RivaTuner and the fact that it doesn't work properly with my GPU. (Only when I use SLI though...)

[mbrocketry]

Hello everyone, my name is Mike and I happened across this post looking for Antec 900 mod ideas. I have been modding my Antec 900 with a work log with lots of pictures and descriptions over at the mod nation forums. But I thought I would post a few pictures here to show what I have been doing with my Antec 900 case.

First off it great to see that there are several people here that like the 900 case. Seems like a lot of people don't like the case for one reason or another. I loved it the first time I saw it so I bought mine from NewEgg with a discount and a rebate. Anyway on the the mod's. I am only putting a few pictures in because I have so many. You can just look at the index of the folder for more pictures or visit the mod nation forums and view my work logs.

I really liked the look of the 900 so for this mod I wanted to keep it simple and still for the most part keep the case looking the same. I had a certain color scheme in mind and I wanted to change the window on the side. My other hobby is high powered rocketry so I thought I would use that for the theme and I call it Fly-N-High. The mods consist of repainting the entire chassis two colors, changing out the switches with Bulgin switches, front case blow holes with the stock grills behind the panel, adding a handle and the biggest mod, moving the power supply so the cable go through the motherboard tray and not out in front of it. The main reason I did that is I what a really clean wire job where you hardly see any wires at all. This required me to take the PSU apart and rotate the board 180 degrees, remove the old mounting nuts, weld in new mounting nuts, cut a hole in the side of the PSU and fill the old wire loom hole in the front. I am using a brand new Corsair TX 750W PSU to handle the workload of the PC. One thing I did not want to do was cut several holes in the motherboard mount tray to run wires either.

This shows how the PSU should look with the wires:



The actual Corsair PSU with new nuts welded in:



Filling the old cable through hole with fiberglass:






As for the side panels I ordered a new right side panel and I used the other to cut my logo in the side. So if anyone needs a brand new Antec 900 windowed side panel that has never been used (still has plastic wrap on window) I have one for sale as well as both drive chassis without the fan mounts. I cut my logo in the left panel using a jig saw and dremel with a reinforced disk with a lot of filling and sanding.


Here is the side panel with the logo I am going to cut in the side:



Here is the panel with the first part cut out:



The next cut outs:



Completed cut outs:





For the front panel I used a piece of 1/16 satin aluminum kick plate used for a door. I found it at The Home Depot for $14 and this would give me enough for two panels if needed. Well I needed it The first panel came out ok but the circles where not perfect and I did not like the switches on the front plate and I decided to move them back up top where the original switches where and cut a new front panel.

The first panel:



The second one which came out much better:



With self etching primer:





Next a little work on the top plate for the handle. I got a nice spring loaded handle that would lay flat inside the tray that I would never use for anything else. I did have to use some of the aluminum plate to go between the top plastic panel and the top of the case as well as underneath the top panel to reinforce the metal and load weight the handle mounting points would carry the weight of the case. Wooh I hope that makes sense. Anyway here are a couple of pictures showing that mod.



Here is the handle:



The bottom plate with the holes drilled:



And the plates that go between the plastic top and the metal top case plate:





I have not finished this project yet, I just started painting this past weekend and I still have a lot to do. However I am on the down hill side of the build which is good, the wife keeps asking when is this going to be done.

Paint pictures:







Here I am starting to put the case back together.

[Vaughan14]

Impressive, can't wait to see the final pictures.

[bjp999]

Impressive, can't wait to see the final pictures.

I was about to say the same thing.

[mbrocketry]

Thanks guys.

[boardonwheels]

Finally a 900 with an Asus Silent Knight II.

[CyberDruid]

[mbrocketry]

Nice work CyberDruid, I had seen your work early in the threads.

[CyberDruid]

This one is getting a new life.

When I have the other parts fininshed I'll show you something a little different

I was inspired by some pedestal bases I saw Rado-Drill make and got the idea to hide the radiator in one...

[Vaughan14]

Looks nice.

[dalosiman]

Just a couple pics of my Antec 900 that I took with my cell phone. My cam is broke so here goes. The system consists of Antec 900 (of course), Abit AW9D Max motherboard, Pentium 4 3.2 proc., Thermal Take Silent 775 cpu cooloer, Antec True Power 700w psu, 4 gb Kingston PC6400 Hyper X mem, Asus ATI X800-XT Platinum Edition, 1 Seagate 80gb SATA HDD for OS, 1 Maxtor 160gb HDD for file storage, 1 Lite on DVD and 1 Samsung CDRW and a couple extra 120mm fans in the case.

I'll soon be getting a new Q6600 Intel Quad Core CPU, 2 Saphire ATI HD3870 video cards, 2 Seagate 120gb SATA 3 HDD's for Raid-0 and 2 Seagate SATA 3 500gb for storage, 2 Pioneer Dual Layer DVDRW's w/ Lightscribe, Scythe Ninja Plus Rev b. CPU Cooler and last but not least a new camera to take pics of it all! ALl the old stuff will be going back into my old Raidmax case for the wife to play on.