Hi all. My first post on BT. I am currently in the planning stages of my next " Ultimate Machine™ " The current one is not so ultimate anymore. Its 4 yrs old....... I'm talkin' Athlon64 3000+ old. LOL What I'm planning for my new machine is to get my feet wet with watercooling. Forgive the bad pun, I couldn't resist To this end I want to install the radiator vertically in the front of the case. I am going to install a mesh grid onto the front door of the P180 case to allow extra air in. I am going to use the Thermochill PA120.2 radiator, here: http://www.thermochill.com/pa1202.php From the Spec PDF for the Thermochill PA120.2 radiator: http://www.thermochill.com/guides/PA120-2.pdf, it is 301mm in length. Thus, my question is if this radiator will fit in the front of the Antec P180: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowI...ed+steel+ATX+Mid+Tower+Computer+Case+-+Retail My plan is to remove the external 3.5" drive bracket and the upper 3.5" drive bay cage, and also lose a couple of 5.25" drive bays. Lots o' moddin' planned He he. Is there enough room to have the radiator in the upper area and have access to at least one 5.25" drive bay, if not two 5.25" drive bay. Could someone take out a measuring tape and take some measurements for me, plz. It would be much appreciated Thx. This is just some preliminary research I am doing before I go and buy the parts. I will of course post a worklog once I get to it
i am considering modding mine atm and have found that if you were to install watercooling the best place for it will be on the top on the case. i have seen it done before and would advise ripping the cages out. you may benefit from reading this as this person put their rad in a very good place which doesnt effect the divisions of the case or any of the main cages. another place for the rad presuming its a double and not single rad, like used in the above link, you may want to consider cutting into the top of case. http://forums.legitreviews.com/about6640.html this link shows how to put the rad on the top of the case. but i would advise against removing those top cages
Hi, I have seen those cases with the rad on the top. Not interested in doing that. And I want to have my hard drives located in the bottom in that isolated chamber. Thx, tho I want to have the rad standing vertically in the front so I can cool the RAM, CPU area, the NB, and the video cards with the fans from the rad. I plan to have the fans on the inside to reduce noise, ie. front of case => rad => fans sucking air thru rad => blowing air onto mobo. I dont plan to remove the 5.25" cage, rather chop off the bottom panel of the 5.25" cage and fasten the rad to the inside of the 5.25" drive-cage. What I meant by losing a few 5.25" drive bays is that I know the rad will occupy a few of the bottom bays of the 5.25" drive-cage, but I was wondering if I would have room for a DVD-RW and possibly a 5.25" drive-bay mounted reservoir located above the rad in the 5.25" drive cage. I also plan to mod the case to be an inverted-ATX case, but thats a whole other kettle of fish that I wont get into here All I need to know is if there is enough room to mount the rad in the front, and if there would be any free 5.25" drive-bays left. So plz keep posts related to that. Let me worry about the specifics of attaching it there Thx.
The 5.25" drive cages measure 18cm in height, from the top of the case to the bottom of the fourth drive. From the bottom of the fourth drive to the floppy drive cage measures 13cm. The 3.5" floppy drive cage measures 4cm high. So you could take the upper 3.5" cage out, cut appropriate holes in both the third and fourth 5.25" cages and there'll be enough room for your radiator, with a little bit of clearance top and bottom (about 0.5cm each end). You could lose the 3.5" floppy drive cage, which would give you about 2.5cm clearance top and bottom.
isnt that what waterblocks are for? the whole point of watercooling is that you dont have so many fans. all you should need is one intake on the front and exhaust on the back, and then have 2fans if going for double on the rad
It will fit in the lower front if you ditch both drive cages then de-rivet and remove the divider plate. Then possibly cut the front steel of the case a bit so that the upper fan on the radiator is unobstructed. Unless of course you made a shroud that adapted the stock fan mounts to the radiator. Here's me pointing to where 301mm is in relation to the bottom inside of the case. I have a friend who is basically planning to do the same thing. You won't need direct airflow on the RAM. If you want it switch the fans in the top and rear to intake and have the fans on the rad in the front exhaust.
MixWizard, I do get watercooling. The two fans that I will have on the rad are what I am going to use for blowing air over the entire motherboard area. This is to supplement the cooling. A little extra airflow never hurt electronic components, especially when I plan to OC the bejaysus outta them ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, kenco_uk, are U saying that the size of the top compartment is 35cm (18 + 13 + 4)? That means I should have room for one DVD-RW drive in the top slot (35cm - 30.1cm for rad = 1 Optical drive) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I want to leave the lower hard drive bay intact, so I basically want to install the rad directly above that. Could U possibly take another photo with ruler measuring from the top of the lower hard drive cage. It would be much appreciated. Also, I want to have the fans sucking in from the inside of the rad for a few reasons: 1. They will be bringing cool air in from the outside 2. Any noise from the fans should hopefully be damped by the rad 3. I don't want to use the fans on the rad as exhausts as I would be using warm air to cool the rad. So I prefer point #1 better I am definitely thinking of constructing some type of shroud that I would use to fasten the rad to the 5.25" drive-cage. I am also thinking of fastening a metal panel to the 5.25" drive-cage to extend it down on both sides to the separator of the top and bottom compartments. This, I feel, will restore some rigidity to the case after I chop out the other parts Thx for the input everyone
I'd say it's possible, just. Very little margin of error allowed, even if you give yourself as little clearance as possible above and below the rad.
