Fan management in Antec case

[carlmart]

I have an Antec P180 case that I bought in 2009.

At that time I was following a recommendation from the Silent PC website, which as the name implies has major concerns with silence issues on a PC.

The question is that only this year was I able to use it, because it only accepts small ATX mobos, a demand I was not aware of at the time.

I felt glad to be able to use, because it looked at first like a well thought out case.

But there is one issue it doesn't provide for: chipset and HDDs cooling. For the former I always use a side fan, blowing in. For the latter I always used a front fan, also blowing in. Space for none of them is provided.

For the chipset I already bought an articulated arm fan that I will position for that purpose. But I don't think it will also cool the HDDs.

So I was thinking of reverting the 200mm fan which is on top, blowing air out. That is so it blows air in. Would that work?

 

[zero2dash]

The issue that you might have is that your rear fan exhausts heat, same as your top fan (assuming everything is at the stock settings).

If you flip the top fan to intake, your rear fan is still exhausting, and heat rises. You'll have hot air exhausting out back, some of which is going to rise and get pulled back into the case if the top fan is flipped to intake. Essentially then you have a rotating heat pocket that will never fully dissipate.

I don't have any further recommendations for that case, but I wouldn't flip the top fan to intake.

 

[carlmart]

It maybe so, but I'm not so sure.

As I see it, and do correct me if I'm wrong, the CPU fan blows to the rear through the heatsink, and that hot air is exhausted with the rear fan. There shouldn't be any hot air up top to exhaust, as the power supply is at the bottom.

Now, if you tell me the top fan wind may disrupt the hot air going out, that might be so. But the top fan is injecting fresh air into the case, so it might cool things off too.

Maybe the case would be to revert the top flow and watch temps to see what happens.

 

[zero2dash]

The top fan does exhaust warm air....4-5+ cases I've had with top fans, they've all been this way. There might be MORE warm air going out the back exhaust, but the top one does make a difference as well. Even with tower coolers with fans blowing in the same "channel" as the rear exhaust fan (TRUE, U12P, Arrow) - the top fan still pulled out warm air.

If you reverse the top fan to be an intake, it will most likely intake some of the warm air exhausted by the rear fan. This is thermal 101 - heat rises. The rear fan does not expel air straight backwards; fans have never been this way (short of a more specially designed fan like a Silverstone AP). They expel back and outward at all angles. Likewise, a fan will intake air from all angles as well, not just straight.

I've seen reviews that involve turning the top exhaust into an intake, and the consensus has been that it causes a rotating heat pocket of warm air expelled by the rear exhaust fan which rises and then is taken back into the case by the top fan which is now an intake. That air will (best case scenario) never cool down that area because the air will always be warm and your mosfets are going to run warm to hot. Worst case scenario, you're going to have air that not only never cools, but continues to warm up even further - if that happens, your mosfets are going to cook.

 

[Meeho]

1. small ATX motherboards?

2. there is space for front 120 mm intake fan

3. HDDs are cooled enough by the PSU in the lower chaimber, or by the above mentioned intake in the upper chaimber

4. top fan is 120 mm, not 200

 

[GuyClinch]

Turning the rear mount upside down won't work. With a traditional case design you in general what intake low and in the front and out top back and rear. These Antec design could use some more intake in general..

You should have two intake fans (well one is a mid case fan in the lower chamber) and another fan mounts in front of the HD)..

So you have some options.

1) Boost your HD intake fan with a power fan that can blow through stuff like a gentle typhoon..

2) Add 120mm fan to your 5.25" bay..

3) Cut off the restrictive plastic on the things behind the door. Mod the restrictive metal behind the plastic door.. (I mean REALLY antec? haha).

4) Do everything.. Move your HD to a cage in the upper 5'25" bay - then you will have your HD fan blowing directly onto your video card - and hack up the plastic behind the door, the metal behind that plastic and remove the stupid door.

5) Sell the antec and buy a regular case..

 

[stratosrally]

First I must say that knowing the exact components you are using in this build would be helpful - and also if you are planning to overclock anything.

Modern chipsets and hard drives don't need as much cooling as those in the past.

Chipsets have passive heatsinks on them and the HDD cages do have ventilation in the P180.

I think you should try building it up as the factory intended, afterwards you shouldn't have heat issues unless you are running an overclocked CPU or multiple video cards.

From Antec's website:

Cooling System

- 1 rear (standard) 120mm TriCool Fan with 3-speed switch control
- 1 top (standard) 120mm TriCool Fan
- 1 lower chamber (standard) 120mm x 38mm (thick) TriCool Fan
- 1 front (optional) 120mm fan
- 1 (optional) 120mm case fan in the Air Duct over the graphics card

That's 5 x 120mm fan locations, stock. I seriously doubt you'd have any more problems with heat if you use them all.

If you have a reference-cooled rear-exhausting videocard, I wouldn't even use the optional Air Duct fan location.

Exploded view:

http://www.antec.com/pdf/drawings/P180v1.1_Manual_DRAWING.pdf

As far as the fans being in exhaust or intake mode, the 2 front and the one for the PSU should all be intake.

The rear should be exhaust.

The top should be exhaust as well, but there is no reason why you couldn't experiment with it as an intake and check your temperatures to determine which method is best for your situation.

Their animation shows the top is designed as an exhaust, however:

http://www.antec.com/demo/P180B.html


I hope this helps!

 

[xnikx]

for the top fan
in my silverstone tj09 i have two top 120 mms
when i have them both as exhaust i get lower gpu temps but higher cpu
when their intake i have lower cpu and higher gpu temps.

imo its better to have top fans as exhaust since heat rises.

 

[carlmart]

1. small ATX motherboards?

Yes, there seems to be at least to ATX sizes: my former mobo was 12"wide, my present one is 9.5" wide, and it fits inside the Antec P180. The other did not.

2. there is space for front 120 mm intake fan

Yes, as long as you do not use any of the HDD cages for HDDs. They are supposed to flow air to the board, not the HDDs.

3. HDDs are cooled enough by the PSU in the lower chaimber, or by the above mentioned intake in the upper chaimber

No, they are not. There is a solid plate separating the PSU compartment from the mobo + HDDs main compartment. Besides that, the HDD's cage is solid, so it would only accept air flow the front or the back.

4. top fan is 120 mm, not 200

I think you are seeing the wrong P180 data. The upper fan IS 200 mm, not 120mm.

 

[Dangman]

Yes, there seems to be at least to ATX sizes: my former mobo was 12"wide, my present one is 9.5" wide, and it fits inside the Antec P180. The other did not.

.....

I think you are seeing the wrong P180 data. The upper fan IS 200 mm, not 120mm.

Are you talking about the Mini P180 ? The regular P180 case could easily fit standard ATX (12 in × 9.6 in) motherboards and only came with 120mm fans. The Mini P180 did indeed have a top 200mm fan and could only fit mATX (9.6 in × 9.6 in) motherboards.

And before you say I'm wrong, look at my sig and note what case I'm using right now for my gaming rig.

 

[carlmart]

Your ideas, and sorry to try to comment on most of them on a single answer, are all very helpful. At least to show me that there's very little I can do, except to change the case (which I will consider when I put all things inside and see what happens) or modify all the front.

Modifying won't be easy or even feasible. As I said above, the front fans spaces are not there to cool the HDDs, but the main board and GPU. To cool the HDDs, the only thing provided was space between the HDDs, and air intakes on the front. How useful they are, only after I close the case will I know.

The chipset runs pretty hot, and I'm not sure that doesn't shorten its life. Right now it's a 56 C degrees, and once again with the case open. I provided a flexible arm fan which might help things get better with the chipset, and probably cool the lower HDD cage. We'll see what happens with the HDDs in the upper HDD cage.

 

[carlmart]

Are you talking about the P180 Mini? The regular P180 case could easily fit standard ATX motherboards and only came with 120mm fans. The P180 Mini did indeed have a top 200mm fan and could only fit mATX motherboards.

And before you say I'm wrong, look at my sig and note what case I'm using right now for my gaming rig.

Yes, P180 mini.

 

[Dangman]

Yes, P180 mini.

Yeah, make sure you post the right component next time you ask for help. Otherwise it leads to confusion as shown in this thread.

Anyway, as others have noted, turning the top fan to an intake does not help. In fact, I did that with my own P180. Didn't help much and actually lead to higher GPU temperatures. In addition, Bit-tech.net's air cooling investigation showed that a top intake was far less effective than a top exhaust:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/02/10/the-big-cooling-investigation/1

Also, maybe you should setup your cooling setup to mimic this Mini P180 build:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1223-page2.html

The HDD temperatures were a very reasonable 28°C to 33°C.

 

[Meeho]

Yes, P180 mini.