Quietest Case..

Adrianr

Adrianr

Adrianr

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Joined
3 Feb 2008
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..That isn't one giant heatpipe i'l have to sell my mother for..

Am i right in thinking the Antec P182 is the quietest possible enclosure for my system? After much searching it always seems to throw up the p182, so are there any other cases being lost under the surface?

Is going the little extra for sound damping foam worth it? I've bungee modded (Well ziptie modded) my hardrive and the reduction in noise has been amazing. So i'm looking to go the whole hog to have a inaudible PC when it's just sat there browsing the nets. It can spin up as loud as it wants when gaming.

Presume a fan controller would also be on the cards. Has to hold an SLI system so airflow when needed is also important, twiddling a few dials on the front doesn't sound too hard.

Cheers :)
 
Yeah figures. I'de probabaly get something that i can hook up 6 fans too. Or can you use say a 3 way fan controller and hook up 2 fans to each, then just control them in sync?

What i'de really like to know is after all the volt mods etc, when it comes down to the actual chassis and it's ability to dampen noise, should i still be looking at the p182?
 
Hi mate. I had a P182 and it was by far the quietest case i've used. I also put foam inside but it didn't make any difference, just made it look nicer. I've since downsized though, because it is rather big and heavy :p
 
benjo said:
Hi mate. I had a P182 and it was by far the quietest case i've used. I also put foam inside but it didn't make any difference, just made it look nicer. I've since downsized though, because it is rather big and heavy :p
Click to expand...

Cheers for the input :) Weight isn't an issue, it won't be moving anywhere. And it would be nice to work in a bigger case.
 
If i wasn't doing lans so often and moving into Uni halls, i would have kept it. Cooling was great, had loads of room to cable tidy behind the back of the mobo panel :)
 
Can anyone make an unbiased comparison between the P182 and a typical alu tower unit with single skin sides, normal bolt in hardrive slots, etc etc? Or even just a good alu tower like a Lian-Li or similar?

I'l be sorting the rest of the components with idle noise in mind.. I don't really fancy watercooling even though it would be nice to put my NB/SB into the loop.. As it's still my PSU that makes the most noise i don't see why good air cooling wouldn't be sufficient for everything else.
 
If it's any help, i moved from the P182 to a Lian Li PC-A05B. The P182 did feel more solid, and the cooling was better, but the finish and quality on the A05B is leaps ahead of the Antec.

As far as sound goes, the P182 was a lot quieter. My perfect case would be the size of the A05B, but with the cooling and silence of the P182 :p
 
TBH, i'm using a Coolermaster 330 and couldn't give two hoots about the build quality! My case doesn't have to be a marvel of engineering, AFAIC it's a computer, and function must most certainly take place over form.

No other options besides the p182 then? It's the silence queen?
 
The quietest case is the HFX mCubed series. I have one and cannot hear it. There are times when I can hear buzzing (electronic component) from the motherboard, but this doesn't happen that often.
 
Adrianr said:
Can anyone make an unbiased comparison between the P182 and a typical alu tower unit with single skin sides, normal bolt in hardrive slots, etc etc? Or even just a good alu tower like a Lian-Li or similar?
Click to expand...
As lighter material aluminum is of course more vibration prone but in any case with hard HDD mounting case would have to be made from steel, not from sheet. (what 5+ mm thickness sounds?)
After quieting fans HDD vibrations are major noise source so if you don't mind about doing suspension mounting that would make any case always lot quieter and would be required for ultimate silencing. (to me sounds as safe as moving HDD around room by pushing it on floor)
Also like you noticed if parts are badly noisy there's hardly any case which could make them quieter (except fully closed thick steel box) so that's equally important part in this weakest link in chain game.

Antec P-models are probably best "drop parts in" quiet cases but P18x is cramped for any longer graphic card and crampedness always rises exponentially when you add some part more.
At least P190 can house E-ATX motherboard (measure for good internal space) but side panel fan can cause conflict with big tower HSF. (and always leaks noises out) For its expensive price P190 comes also with two, dropped in by marketing department, PSUs (bad distribution of load) and I've never been fan of remove whole packet (for installing one HDD) systems.

If you don't mind about small crafting Lian Li A71 feels like excellent spacious case with nice silencing friendly feature set. It's light weight (bare 9kg) is also it's biggest downside so adding damping mat to side panels is pretty much mandatory. (adding weight to all panels of case generally helps)
http://lian-li.com/v2/tw/product/upload/image/A71/71 detail.jpg
HDD cages probably have enough space for doing suspension mounting directly into them.
I won't do that but will start to put case back together in few days with generous adding of BeQuiet's combination mat.
 
Thanks a lot for the detailed reply!

That Lian Li case certainly looks a step above the P182, however it's also a good £50 more. Whilst the space would come as a bonus, noise is the main target here, so i wouldn't want to pay £50 more for something that I couldn't at least make as quiet as the cheaper option. I love the two bottom mounted 120mm fans on the backside of the hardrive bay.. Would be excellent for the PSU + SLI, and two 120mm exhuasts above the CPU area should be good for cooling up there.

Presume cable routing in them isn't a problem? It seems notably good with the P182.
 
The size of the 3d card is only an issue in the P182 if you want to use the hard drive bay in the middle of the case as you can take this out to make space for longer cards. I have a 8800GTX in my case at the moment (soon to be a 4780!) with the drive bay out. The drive bay actually fits with the 8800 in it but you can't fit any hard drive in unfortunately as they poke out from the hard drive bay a bit. I have four hard drives in the bottom compartment with the PSU. If you have more than four though you may have a problem.
 
Hmmm, well i would be looking to run two GTX260s.. But as far as internal storage goes the highest it will ever get to is two drives RAID0 for OS and a single 1TB drive for data. Plus I can always mount those below the DVDRW if needs be.

I hate shopping.. You think you've got it sussed at £90, see something for £140 and slowly but surely justify the increase for no reason at all!
 
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