Antec P182 Performance Mid-Tower
- Thread starter Rob Williams
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You seem to have completely missed the main point of the P182 update over the P180 - if you'd taken the other side panel off, you'd have seen how most of the cabling is intended to go *behind* the motherboard tray, eliminating the rat's nest you created. 
In defense of the review, a lot of the cables seen in that "rats nest" are unroutable behind the motherboard tray. The back fan for instance, there is no way to route that behind anything. You could route a 4-pin molex behind the motherboard tray I suppose but you would still have to take that fan cable somewhere towards the front. I can see how the ability to snake the power cables behind the tray would be useful but sometimes, dependent on the power supply, the cables just aren't long enough. Another instance would be the SATA and IDE cables. In my opinion, those are just as ugly as the power cables and far more difficult to hide.
I understand where you are coming from, the mention of this feature would have been nice and can actually be added into the review, but to deem the build a rats nest because a feature of the case that only a handful of cables could have used, wasn't mentioned or applied, is jumping the gun a bit.
I understand where you are coming from, the mention of this feature would have been nice and can actually be added into the review, but to deem the build a rats nest because a feature of the case that only a handful of cables could have used, wasn't mentioned or applied, is jumping the gun a bit.
Also....
As an owner of the original P180, my only main concern with both designs was the placement of the cabling pass through hole. While I have never had a PhysX card in that case, I have had problems with my sound card clearing the cables coming out of the bottom. I would personally move the hole up 2-3 inches, do away with the 120mm fan in the middle and move it to the front of the case. This would set the bottom hard drive cage back a few inches but would easily eliminate the cramped feel that is there when the fan is installed. Thats my 2 cents on the design. Outside of that, I have yet to find a case that matches Antec's rubber gromet approach to mounting a hard drive. Rails and screws are fine, but Antec nailed that part of the installation.
As an owner of the original P180, my only main concern with both designs was the placement of the cabling pass through hole. While I have never had a PhysX card in that case, I have had problems with my sound card clearing the cables coming out of the bottom. I would personally move the hole up 2-3 inches, do away with the 120mm fan in the middle and move it to the front of the case. This would set the bottom hard drive cage back a few inches but would easily eliminate the cramped feel that is there when the fan is installed. Thats my 2 cents on the design. Outside of that, I have yet to find a case that matches Antec's rubber gromet approach to mounting a hard drive. Rails and screws are fine, but Antec nailed that part of the installation.
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Poor use of case features
Hey - you used the P182 as if it were a P180!
With P182 you can route all cables behind the motherboard tray so that no cables run through the lower deck hole (other than the IDE or SATA data cables if you have drives in the lower bay). Antec provides pre-installed straps just for that on the tray's backside. Same goes for the wiring to the two Tricool fans at the top (and the front fan too, for that matter). Speaking of which, the front fan does not need to be screwed on the case. The black plastic holder is removable (press inward on the clap and at the same time pull to get it out). It's the same mechanism as for the fan between the PS and the HDD cage.
I think your review was well written, but it doesn't do justice to the amount of flexibility this case provides for clean wiring.
Hey - you used the P182 as if it were a P180!
With P182 you can route all cables behind the motherboard tray so that no cables run through the lower deck hole (other than the IDE or SATA data cables if you have drives in the lower bay). Antec provides pre-installed straps just for that on the tray's backside. Same goes for the wiring to the two Tricool fans at the top (and the front fan too, for that matter). Speaking of which, the front fan does not need to be screwed on the case. The black plastic holder is removable (press inward on the clap and at the same time pull to get it out). It's the same mechanism as for the fan between the PS and the HDD cage.
I think your review was well written, but it doesn't do justice to the amount of flexibility this case provides for clean wiring.
U
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That is false. You can route them quite easily - check other reviews. My case is a P182 and I had no problems doing so.
I don't think that the main PS cable is quite the same as a SATA cable.
Routing the PS cable behind the tray does not require any additional wire length. The only possible difficulty is the 4-pin connector, which is usually at the top of the MB. This can be a problem with cheap OEM power supplies (still fixable with a $0.99 extender). However, this case is targeted at enthusiasts which are unlikely to make such PS choices. Your choice not to use what many see as the main added feature of P182 compared to P180 is questionable.
In the reviews defense, the author can be an idiot at times. While writing, I always refer to my big pile of photos that I took during the review process. For some reason, the photos I took of the few wires I routed were not in that pile, so down to crunch time, I ended up overlooking it. I have added a small paragraph in the review and a link to this thread so others can read more about it.
I would go ahead and begin routing more cables, but I swap motherboards often, and that case is not ideal for that in the first place.
I would go ahead and begin routing more cables, but I swap motherboards often, and that case is not ideal for that in the first place.
U
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An Antec 650W TruePower Trio! is a bad choice then? the 8-pin motherboard cable is too short to route through the back, had to do it from the front
// JMke|Madshrimps.be
An Antec 650W TruePower Trio! is a bad choice then? the 8-pin motherboard cable is too short to route through the back, had to do it from the front
// JMke|Madshrimps.be
You did a far better job with the routing than I did JMke
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I had to swap motherboards today, so I decided to do things the right way. Now that things are organized the way they are supposed to be, I love the case even more. With all those cables out of the way, swapping motherboards should prove a simple task.
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lfh003
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Robin:
This Antec P182 sounds great. I am looking to build a new unit and want to put a Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 inside...maybe with a Thermaltake V1 cooler. I noticed you have a liquid setup...how is that working? Your GPU was running about 146º F. The temp on the CPU was great.
This Antec P182 sounds great. I am looking to build a new unit and want to put a Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 inside...maybe with a Thermaltake V1 cooler. I noticed you have a liquid setup...how is that working? Your GPU was running about 146º F. The temp on the CPU was great.
U
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Does anyone know if a Silverstone Zeus 750w PSU will fit in this case, and are the cables long enough? And would the bottom chamber fan have to be removed?
Will removing the bottom fan make four HDDs in the bottom chamber overheat?
Will removing the bottom fan make four HDDs in the bottom chamber overheat?
K
Kill_Switch
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Quote
In the pics it looks as though he only has the CPU WC'd,a dn the GPU Air cooled.
This would give reason to the temps you saw.
In the pics it looks as though he only has the CPU WC'd,a dn the GPU Air cooled.
This would give reason to the temps you saw.
In preparing this chassis for some benchmarking, I decided I wanted to put a big fan in front of the bottom HDD bay in order to suck in cool air from the outside and push it through all three drives I have installed there. That desire was short-lived though, since I could not fit one in there, and could not figure out how to remove any pieces of the case in order to fit one in there.
It looks like that spot is designed for a fan... but am I wrong? What am I overlooking? I assume that a fan is meant for there, because the drives can get hot, especially when you clump a bunch all together.
It looks like that spot is designed for a fan... but am I wrong? What am I overlooking? I assume that a fan is meant for there, because the drives can get hot, especially when you clump a bunch all together.
Rory Buszka
Partition Master
The fan is supposed to go between the hard drives and the power supply, in the middle of that 'tunnel' thing. There's a sliding door there to keep airflow nice and orderly through the tunnel after you route the cables. That's your fan for keeping the bottom hard drive cage cool.
I still don't quite understand. There -is- a 120mm fan in between the PSU and hard-drive (which actually doesn't work for some reason), but that just keeps the PSU cool, not the HDD. Behind the HDD cage, there looks to be a space large enough for a fan, but it just will not fit. The sliding door, I am not so sure about what you mean. I'm not worried about keeping the cage cool, I am worried about keeping the drives cool.
I decided to check HD Tune to see how hot these drives were actually getting (3x 320GB Seagates) and they were 58C, 56C and 53C... ridiculous. For benchmarking I hauled out the bay and strapped a fan to it... temps are now in the lower 30Cs.
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I had the same problem in my case, especially with having a 1kw power supply which are huge ! I ended up mounting the 120mm fan to the front of the case just behind the steel grill by screwing it to the grill. I had to cut part of the box away that slides in the hard drives and do a few more alterations but now it works really well. I am happy knowing that the air is passing over my hard drives also.
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Harrybob
Oh and I used the 120 mm fan but I purchased new fans for throughout so the one I mounted was a slim one or standard.
Oh and I used the 120 mm fan but I purchased new fans for throughout so the one I mounted was a slim one or standard.
What model fans did you purchase? I don't have interest in cutting away on my case, but I'd sure love to have a slim fan that fits in that opening.