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Antec P160 received

T

The Saint

Gawd
Joined
Mar 18, 2003
Messages
1,000
Finally I received my Antec P160 and my Vantec Stealth 120mm to go with it.

OUTSIDE: I`m impressed with the quality of the product. WOW.! Impressive work! One thing though: the front bezel is plastic. But I can live with that!

INSIDE> Didn`t open it but since it has a window I can see looooots of space and great work!

Well I'm cooking some pasta so I should go..but I`'ll post a mini review if you guys are interested or if anyone has questions....just ask!

The Saint - (still didn`t mod my 9800 :( )
 
It looks like a pretty awesome case to me. I mini-review would be appreciated;)

Later,
Eli
 
I've been looking at that case. I like the sideways hard drives and the rubber mounts. Plenty of space inside.

Is that the one with the rotatable part at front top? I couldnt figure out what the power cords built into the case lead to.

I would dig a review, thanks.
 
I still haven`t managed to put my hands on the case.

BUT: The front rotating panel has mic and speakers jacks...USB...and you can disconnect it, although you would have to remove the cables inside!

This case was built for silence. It has rubber holder for the fans and the HDD bays in that position are just awesome. Plenty of cooling since it has 2 120mm. I may cut the grills of the fans to even have more air flowing, reducing noise.

It looks really awesome.

I was wondering if I should cover the inseide with Spire or Pax.Mate just for the look of it.

I'll try to hide every single cable since the window on the side is very big.
Did I mention the removable mobo tray?

sweeeeet.
 
Pax.Mate is really just for looks....as far as sound deadening, it kind of dampens vibrations, but how much vibration does a small case fan really make? The only other problem with pax.mate is that it absorbs some dust, so its a good idea to blast it with some compressed air from time to time to keep it clean.
 
When you get a chance to work with the case, could you check something for me? The other Antec cases that mount the hard drives sideways like that aren't wide enough to make use of a serillel adapter. Does the P160 have the same disability? As my main rig runs a pair of PATA drives in raid over the onboard SATA raid controller, I need a case that allows use of the Serillel adapter. If you've never seen/used one, it sticks an extra 3/4-1 inch out the back of the drive.
 
I have a question.....do you have to use the included 5.25 and 3.25 drive bay covers?
 
no you don`t have to use them. You can take them out. at least I think I understand what you want to do.

:)
 
You do not have to use the 5.25 drive covers. They're removable. I like them though, pretty spiffy way to avoid having to stealth stuff.


Quick review of the P160 (got one awhile ago).

The overall build quality is quite good. Not quite Lian Li, but still good. No sharp edges I could find and every fit together fairly well. I say "fairly" because I had a hell of a time getting the right side panel off. The sliding drive bays are also pretty tight sometimes, can be hard to get drives back out. The front panel is plastic. It looks fine (other than the faux chrome edging, which I dont care for), but it's still plastic and not aluminum. Shame on Antec!

Speaking of the front, the intakes are pretty well done. Big openings, seem to let lots of air in. The front blue LEDs on the intakes look nice, good idea. I modded some of those into my Lili awhile ago, so it's nice seeing them stock. The whole front pops off reasonably easily. The 5.25 drive covers are neat, they fold down when your optical drive opens. There are two of them included and both can be removed if you want to stealth the drive or don't use optical drives (dunno, maybe someone doesn't). The floppy is the same way, kind of a waste IMO. The front access panel is quite nice although I couldn't figure out how to remove it in the ~2 hours I played with the case. The thermal probes are a bit hard to place, their wires are kinda short.

Moving to the inside:
Getting the side off is a snap. Two thumbscrews come off, side swings out. Lots of room inside. The 120mm fan in the back looks titanic compared to the normal 80mm. The mobo tray is this odd little pullout deal secured by a bracket and a thumbscrew. It's not as easy to get in/out as a slideout tray, but I guess it needed to be that way for the 120mm. You do have to remove your PCI/AGP cards to get the mobo out though, pain in the ass. Getting the power supply was a breeze. The optical drives were a slight pain, the drive rails are a little tight. The harddrives were where I had my first problem. They went in ok (a little tight, but ok), then I realized I had to take off the right side to plug them in. Ok, annoying but I'll deal with it. Right side doesn't want to come off, as mentioned earlier. I really had to fight with it. After that, my molex connectors were barely long enough to reach the top bays (and certainly wouldn't be long enough for the bottom ones). A fault of my power supply, but annoying nonetheless. Also, some of the support beams TOTALLY block access to the rear of the harddrives. No idea how you're supposed to plug those two in. The sideways cage makes it real easy to hide drives and also allows for plenty of airflow though, so it isn't a total loss. The front 120mm fan has a slide in deal, works well enough although I would have prefered a Lian Li style removable hard drive cage and then a screw-in fan.

The rear, pretty standard. The grill for the rear 120mm is very open, don't really need to dremel it out.

With only 1 120mm fan going, temperatures were a bit warmer (4-5C) than with my 4x 80mm Lian Li. I suspect they would improve a lot with an intake fan but I didn't have another 120mm lying around.


All in all, I give it 8/10.
 
Just a few notes on this case as I have put together a few systems with them where I work.

The right side panel comes off very easy, but you must first remove the front panel (which snaps off pretty easily) and the thumbscrews hidden behind it that hold the right side panel on.

The hard drive cage is another story. I can see the problems Holy Roman Empire will have with the seriallel adapters. There is not going to be enough room for them from what I can tell. As for the other people having problems with wiring through the hard drive cage, you do know you can mount them facing either forwards or backwards without any problems, right? We usually wire them through the back like you are complaining about, but they mount the other way as well if you are having problems.
 
re: The right side. I did end up removing both the front panel and the screws, it was still a bitch to get off. Maybe your case was just built a little better than mine.

With the harddrive cage, if you had to put them in backwards, why have a sideways cage at all? The only point is to hide wires better, and if you have to mount them with the cords toward the left side, it is considerably harder to wire than just have them the "standard" way.
 
Hmm, I am not sure about your case, but with all the ones I have worked on, the right side simply folded down once the thumb screws were removed, just as when you turn the 2 latches on the left side.

As for the hard drive cage, mounting them the other way would make it easier to work on the drives as you do not have the back of the cage to worry about and get in the way. True, it does not look as clean as mounting them the other way, but is easier to install and manage.

The reasons for changing the direction of the drives is due to a few different issues. One is the motherboard tray design, as this case you have to remove it from the interior, and drives and cables would block its removal. Also, in most cases the drives and cables coming out the back of the drives into the motherboard compartment causes much clutter and block airflow, as well as causing problems with certain pci/agp cards that are longer than usual. Most people here would know how to route the cables in the standard hard drive configuration to not worry about this though.
 
The front bezel looks too cheap for me, especially an Antec case.
 
I like the fact that is 120mm fans and aluminum, but that faceplate and gay ass side panel holders.
 
I just put together my system using the P160. I really love the case but I, too, had a problem getting both sides off even with the thumbscrews off. They are in there snug and requiresa a bit of force. I thought I was going to bend it and then i did the smallest bit but it's not noticable. All in all it's a good case but they could have made it a little easier to access the inside
 
right now im at

29c processor(intel 3.0ghz @ 3.2ghz with stock hs/fan)
23c in all the surrounding zones.


This case kicks ass...

My cons
Wire management...they could have had another way of doing this because there are alot of wires in this case stock

Noise...its not noisy but can be heard, Antec says dont use the rear fan if you dont want additional noise, i never tried it without but i imagine it would be alot quieter without it and especially with another hs/fan setup
 
The best part about Antec? Customer Service is absolutely Top Of the Line.
They take excellent care of thier customers and definitely have earned my respect.
 
god damn right there support is good. I called them up, said I had two broken case fans that came with my case. all they did was ask me for a shipping address..........then....I had two new case fans in my case for free. awesome!
 
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