P180 questions

thor

thor

thor

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Just got my P180 through the post, set it all up and everything is running fine - just got a couple of questions regarding the cooling.

The case comes with 2 exhaust fans as standard - the rear and top - but I was just wondering if the system would be better cooled by turning the top fan into an intake? I'm running the AC Freezer64 Pro and with it being such a large heatsink, and so close to the top fan anyway, it just seems natural to have it blowing down on top - has anyone experimented with this?

The second thing is the VGA duct - I had this installed and setup with a Zalman slim 80mm fan connected to a fanmate at its lowest setting. This turned out to be the noiseist part of the case, not so much the fan but the sound of the air travelling through the duct, so I've now removed the whole duct from the case.
What I noticed was my temps with the duct and fan in place were 45c for the CPU on full load and 42c for the graphics card (pretty much idle). Now, with the duct removed I'm sitting at 42-43c CPU and 40c for the VGA card. Have other users experienced lower temps with the duct removed? I had the fan setup as a rear intake as advised in the manual - I actually thought that this didn't make much sense as the vent sits between the PSU and case exhaust fans so surely the VGA fan would be taking in warmer air - would it have a better effect setting the VGA fan/duct up as an exhaust?

Finally, I've got the choice of putting in a Zalman CNPS7700-ALCU or sticking with the AC Freezer 64 Pro - anyone got any idea which would be the better one to go for?
 
Hi Thor,

I've experimented with a few set up options regarding the placement of the fans around the CPU cooler. First i simply covered the top hole and had one of the supplied fans exhausting air straight out of the back. This gave idle temps of around 32 degrees C.

Next i tried no fans - this was ok as it was much quieter but I did notice increased temps of 35 degrees at idle.

Lastly, i bought two Akasa silent 120mm fans and placed them both exhausting out of the case - this led to a decrease to 28 degrees at idle.

I did try it with the top fan blowing into the case but it didn't effect the temp much and sat at about 31 degrees.

With regards to the vga duct i've read many articles stating how useless it is - noisy and ineffective! As such i didn't even bother using it! Anyway, i'd rather let the graphics card/cards have a bit of space to breath. It is quite a cramped interior after all!

Finally, the Zalman could work quite nicely - especially if you had both 120mm fans exhausting the radiated heat straight out of the case! If you've already got the freezer 64 i'd maybe save my money for something else tho. It's still a darn good cooler. The temps i listed above relate to my A64 clocked from 2.2ghz to 2.42ghz.

Hope that helps!
 
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Thanks for the great reply! I'll experiment with the top exhaust fan tomorrow at some point.
I know what you mean about the cramped conditions - I don't really see why the VGA duct has to be so large, and why it has to be made of cheap plastic causing extra noise.

As for the Zalman, I actually currently have both and only installed the AC today when I moved over to the P180. My CPU (A64 4000+ @ 2.7GHz) has had the IHS removed and I noticed when removing the mobo that the Zalman wasn't totally steady just sitting on the core, so I removed it and shoved the AC on instead. Now I'm not sure if it is worth my while modding the Zalman mounts in order to get a better seating or just stick with the AC - guess I'll just have to experiment over the coming days. :)
 
No problem!

Better keep me posted on the Zalman - i'd be really interested in how your temps go! I very nearly got one instead of the freezer but had to go for the cheaper of the two as i was a little strapped for cash at the time!!! :(

Good luck with the modding! :)
 
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