Just ordered p180

[AznAnarchy99]

I just set the order for my p180 from Monarch. If only the person bought this case a week earlier and i coulda had the rebate. So what im wondering is, do you guys have any tips on cable management? Ive read alot of the stuff from SilentPC so im wondering what you guys did.

 

[neubspeed]

I got my yesterday, it's better than sex I swear!
I took out the black plates above the cable holes on top of the PSU because I found them to be a pain in the ass. To get a fan directly blowing on my video card, I removed the drive cage from the higher part of the case and put the hard drives at the bottom cage, it was really easy to fish SATA cables and power cables into it as well. The fan between the PSU and the drive cage is pretty much useless and a nuisance, remove it and stick it somewhere else. Use tethers and velcro whenever possible, keep it simple. Good luck with the toy.

 

[Fleabus]

Hi:

I'm waiting for some HDDs and I will use this case for a new system.
I will use the 120mm x38mm lower chamber TriCool set to LOW drawing air IN.
My HDDS will be mounted there and I want it there to help cool them and the PSU.
I will buy an extra 120mm TriCool, mount it in front of the empty upper chamber HDD cage and set it to MEDIUM drawing air IN.
The supplied 2 TriCool 120mm fans at the top rear and top back I will set to LOW drawing air out.
For the VGA duct, I will get one of these:
xZALMAN ZM-OP1 80mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan - Retail
80x80x15mm Model #: ZM-OP1
http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/search_list.asp?pr_name=ZM-OP1
I'll set it to either normal or low depending on noise and have it drawing air OUT of the case.

Some of the little heaters I will be installing:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Dual Core S939 Toledo PIB
Asus A8N-SLi PREMIUM nForce4 w/Asus AI Cool-pipe motherboard
2GB OCZ Dual Channel EL DDR PC-3200 400MHz Titanium CL 2-3-2-5
EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX KO video card
2xHitachi Deskstar 500GB 7K500 SATA-II 3.0 Gb/s 7200RPM HDDs
16 MB Buffer; FDB; NCQ
Enermax Noisetaker 701AX (600W) [EG701AX-VE SFMA] PSU

For excellent cable management in this box see this forum thread:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=37&threadid=1628729

Happy trailz,

 

[AznAnarchy99]

From what ive read from SilentPC is that the 80mm fan for the VGA duct does very little unless its a passivly cooled video card.

and ive seen dynamics work and im hoping it would turn out to look remotely like that

 

[Erasmus354]

basically the key to cable management is to take out the bottom fan...just let the PSU cool itself. By removing this fan it lets you route the cables through the far opening which makes the cables much easier to hide. However, some powersupplies wont have a long enough ATX connector to reach some motherboards this way. I know that my Seasonic S12-500W doesn't have enough length to reach the connector on the DFI Ultra-D if I do this, and therefore am stuck taking a straight shot to the connector.

 

[Fleabus]

AznAnarchy99:
Re: the VGA duct.
My Plan A was to forget about the duct, remove it completely
and duct tape over both sides of the holed panel to seal it shut.
I may still do this.
Most of the comments I've read on the duct seem to talk about using it to blow
air onto the VGA card to help cool it.
Drawing warm air from the back of the case and recycling it back in makes no sense
to me.
I'm thinking of using it to help evacuate air from the 7800GTX and Northbridge chip
areas which are relative hot spots.
In the end, I'll probably have the duct/fan ready to try if I find temperatures higher
than I'd like.

Erasmus354
One reason I chose the Enermax PSU is their habit of supplying longer than usual cabling. Mine is quiet, efficient and has an external manual fan speed control
which I should be able to turn down some to decrease the fan noise further.

Happy trailz,