Thinking of swapping my Mirage 62 for a P182..

fobose

fobose

fobose

Soldato
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Cambridge, UK.
Due to the horrible hard drive bays vibrating in my mirage 62, I have moved a couple of hard drives (the noisest ones) to the 5.25" bays using convertors. however with 5 hard drives in my PC its considerably increased my CPU temperature - even with installing an extra side fan (my case has 3 intakes, and 2 exausts - note that 2 of the intakes have hard drives infront of them).

I was wondering due to the hard drive bay in the antec p182 being isolated at the bottom of the case with the PSU and holding 4 hard drives, would this help my temperature problem as I would only have 1 (and eventually 2) hard drives in the main section of the case.

Another reason I am thinking of this case is because it has rubber grommets for hard drive mounting (just like my antec solo case for my old PC) and I like this idea as it seems to help reduce vibration to the case.

What are your views on the P182? The case costs about £90 which is a lot (I paid £105 for my Mirage DOH), so obviously I dont want to spend any more than the P182 - regarding my requirements for cooling (without lots of noise), and rubber mounted hard drives, what else is there on offer for the same price if anything?
 
If the mirage is the same as the eclipse internally, why not remove the HD cage & bungee mod the HD's :confused:

See mine below

akasainside.jpg
 
Thanks for the reply. However with 5 hard drives that will be a problem, and it doesn't change the fact about the heat issue within the case.
 
BFG_9000 said:
5 hard-drives are going generate a lot of heat whatever the case..
Click to expand...

I would only agree with this for cases that don't have fans blowing directly over the hard drives. My Antec 900 has absolutely no problem keeping all 3 of my hard drives at 25/26oc and yes they are all in close proximity. :)

I suppose as a side note you would have to consider what type or drives you have, mine are all newer generation Samsung Spinpoints. Others such as Raptors you can expect to run hotter.
 
BFG_9000 said:
5 hard-drives are going generate a lot of heat whatever the case..
Click to expand...

My PC was fine with only 3 hard drives, added 2 more and DOH! They all have fans blowing on them though.

I have:

2x WD 640GB
2x Seagate 500GB 7200.9's - probably the most heat from these
1x Seagate 300GB 7200.8

Akasa made a smart move with their eclipse/mirage offering 7 hard drive bays with only one intake fan didn't they!!

Back to the matter at hand though, will having 4 HDD's at the bottom of the case affect the PSU? As in, making it really hot due to the air from the HDD's being sucked in to the PSU then blown out the back?
 
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Something else I wanted to know about the Antec P182 - I read a review which said that if you have hard drives mounted in the upper hard drive chamber, you can not mount an intake fan infront of them, so that would mean there would be no intake fan for the front of the case?
 
fobose said:
Something else I wanted to know about the Antec P182 - I read a review which said that if you have hard drives mounted in the upper hard drive chamber, you can not mount an intake fan infront of them, so that would mean there would be no intake fan for the front of the case?
Click to expand...

what it means is a second fan, attached on the inside of the case, onto the hard drive cage. just as the Antec 900.
p182SE_open.jpg

obviously you wouldn't be able to mount a fan onto the side of the cage which is closest to the motherboard as hard drives would be poking through it :p
 
Well thats cleared that up, awesome - thanks :) I really want one of these cases now, it seems I can even mount my scythe kama bay at the top if I want too!

I have just noticed that the P190 is E-ATX, I would prefer this but its price tag is huge - will they ever be shipped without the PSU's do you recon?
 
What graphics card do you have DampCat? With the upper hard drive caddy filled with two drives do long graphics cards conflict with them?
 
jjj.jpg


That's my 2nd PC, the card is a 7900GS. The Drives are IDE though so i imagine you could save space using SATA?

My main PC has an 8800GT and that's still got plenty of room. Best wait for someone else to answer for sure though.
 
By the by, i have my HDD's mounted in the Optical Drive bay in my main PC using the Zalman HDD coolers. You could always do that if you want to save space. Im not sure if you could still use a KAMA bay, ive always wanted to try.
 
Thanks for the pics - very helpful. I have 3 scythe stabilisers (3.5" to 5.25" convertors), not sure if they will fit though! I have seen a pic in the P182 thread of a P182 with a kama bay mounted (looks like there are no mods to get it to fit), so if I get a p182 I can test it for myself :)
 
Oh the Kama Bay will fit, but i meant if you put the HDD's up top, like so:

gfg001.jpg

gfg002.jpg


Not sure if the kama bay will fit in if you do that. Give it a bash and let me know :P
 
Typical. Just when I want to buy it all of my favourite retailers are out of stock or no longer list the item. Come on OcUK, get your finger out!!
 
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