P180 build - Tuniq, HR05, Opty... etc *56K*

L31mr0d

Ok so here's a new development.... I was trying to install NFS: Carbon on one of my drives and it kept crapping out midway through, checked for scratchs... there was none *scratched head* it was also crashing at random points in the middle, never on the same particular file so I knew it wasn't a corrupt file on the CD. I couldn't put my finger onto it until I was installing and I had speedfan open. The HDD i was installing onto was running at 58'c :eek: I quickly stopped installation, opened the door and popped open the lower dust filter cover. lo and behold the thing was matted in dust (man my room must be dusty) I took off the dust filter, left the door open and tried to install again, this time it went all the way through without incident and the HDD temp never topped 48'c (a 10'c drop!!!).

After cleaning out the dust filter and closing the door i'm idling around 4'c lower than I was before, the dust build up really was hampering the airflow in the lower chamber, causing the temps in my HDDs to spike. I've set a reminder in my mobile now to clean out the filters every saturday morning. This really is something every P180 owner should be doing regularly, at least once a week... it also went to show me how much dust these filters are actually stopping from getting into my PC.

hopeful

58c is a little toasty....I assume that was one of your WD Raptors? Do they run hot? I get worried if any of my drives get near 40c but then none of mine are 10,000rpm monsters! I managed to cook a Seagate when my wife moved the tumble drier next to my rig....it got to 60c before it started throwing major disc errors. Might be worth running a scan on your drives if they got to 58c perhaps?

You are right about cleaning the dust filters on the P180....I do mine once a week and it makes a definite difference to both drive and system temps.

You should think about watercooling the raptors...be interesting to see what results you would get. On my current setup I can't get my drives to go above 33 c

L31mr0d

Ok here are some picture updates to the rig, still haven't gotten around to overclocking this baby yet. Maybe next week? I'm finally at a point where its just about finished. But having Tomb Raider: legend, NFS:Carbon and SC:Rogue Agent on the go at the same time isn't helping things :rolleyes:

First pic, this is to show people that it is not possible, without some serious modding of the fan to fit a 12cm infront of the bottom HDD cage. There are also rivets on the inside which would be pressing against the fan. The only option is to get a 9cm or 10cm fan and try and fit it, for now i'll leave it empty.



next, if you can make it out, this is a picture behind my Zalman fan controller which I finally set up today. The wiring is as good as I could get it with the space I had to work in. I basically just shoved all the excess wire in behind the controller and pull tied it.



I also attempted to see if I could increase airflow in the lower chamber as i'll only be using one 12cm Sflex fan now (68cfm) I used to have my spare power cables shoved underneath the PSU (I think you can see this in previous pictures) I've re-routed these now out of the bottom chamber.



These extra powersupply cables are now shoved in the redundant floppy bay. It makes them easier to get at and clears up the lower chamber



Another pic of the wiring



here it is all reassembled, I also took the oppotunity to move the soundcard down 1 PCI slot to allow for more airflow between the GFX card and NB.



This is the fan controller in action. Man those LEDs are bright, I finally apprecaite the P180's door now. Also when my fans are turned down low the LEDs tend to flicker, this would of been annoying had it not been for the door blocking them off. The only time the door will be open will be when i'm gaming and then the fans will be up high anyway which does away with the flickering LEDs. I've labeled each knob in the picture to show you what controls what. While the system is idling, I have everything on low and the last 2 switchs turned off. The system is a lot more quiet now that the mobo isn't ramping up and down the rpms with temperature fluctuations.



Here is a breakdown of the fan setup for my system. Fans "Middle #1" and "Middle #2" are powered off the mobo fan headers and are both on full all the time.



Comments appreciated

hopeful

Thats a nice build in a P180....so hard to get the wiring neat on them.

I'd show you mine except it looks so bad

awhir

will throw some pics up of mine soon.

Alkers

Do both the rear and top fans blow outwards? What direction does the CPU fan blow? Just wondering.

L31mr0d

The rear and top fans are exhausts, the cpu fan blows towards teh rear exhaust. When I have the system silent, the top exhaust is turned off as well as the RAM cooler.

I'm going to do some temperature testing maybe today to see what the effect of each fans rpm has on the system.

Anti

I had the same problem with my hr-05 sli, It was in the way of the second gfx card. So to get around it i mounted mine 180˚ the other way, But looking at your setup this might not work. As your tuniq is in the way.

With mine i have about 2mm between the nb and cpu coolers.

L31mr0d

yeah I don't think i'll ever be going SLI anyway. With the performance gains and upcoming redundancy of DX9 it would be pointless to waste more money on another DX9 card when 1 DX10 would be more powerfull. ATM with the 7900GTX I can run everything i've tried on it on high with decent framerates.

The orientation of the HR05sli is pretty much the only one it will work in in my system, believe me I considered every other option, I wanted to mount it so that it faced the middle fan but the 7900GTX is too long and the PCI power connector would get in the way.

How did you mount the HR05sli? Did you use the push pins or use some nuts and bolts like in my previous pictures?

Anti

I mounted mine witht he sping clips that came with them, I also found there was too much play in it, and that the base owuld slide around on it. So i just used longer springs. And all is fine now. I considered using the screw and bolt method, but was worried about breaking something.

KamiKazi

holy sh*t, that cpu cooler is huge!!

hope it fits into a 900

Anti

barely does. the one in my other case dosent fit properly. As the side of the case wont go back on.

L31mr0d

believe me, however big you think it is, its bigger. It dwarfed my original 9500 and is probably 4 times the size of the stock amd heatsink. I think I was just lucky that it fit perfectly in my system and doesn't block any of the ram or pcie slots. It doesn't allow for much room though when trying to work behind the 5" bay slots or reconnecting fan headers... thats when the ol needlenose pliers come in usefull

Anti

Aye, its a complete monster.

awhir

its a mameth.

Anti

mammoth

awhir

whata nice p180

Anti

Wow that must have been such a hard job to do, 1 hdd and dvd drive. He has tellent.....


Yes im being sarcastic.


Get him to add in another dvd driver. 3 more hdds, and a xfi. And also a graphics card that requires a power source.

awhir

im just sayin its nice.

Anti

Yes it is nice. I dont se what he used a dremel on though !

L31mr0d

awhir wrote:

whata nice p180

Whos P180 is this? why does he even have the middle HDD cage in there if it isn't being used?

awhir

some guy on extreamsystems

just thought it looked nice for a p180.

hopeful

As we are showing off P180's....

My Folding@Home rig. Not the neatest cable job ever due to ridiculous Tagan cables but please note careful use of really bad colour combinations....Red IDE cable plus bright yellow HSF support. ( Where did you hide the black one Unklerosco?:mad: )
Main thing it runs quiet and cool. With the X2 3800 at 2500mhz the CPU temp never goes above 40c and the case temp is around 28c.

KamiKazi

where do you hide all the cables in that case? behind the motherboard tray?

Anti

Bottom drive bays. and below and behind the psu.

KamiKazi

ah rite, nice one i'll give it a go