8800 GTX in an Antec P180 - blocks HDD bays?

[LintMan]

I've seen a lot of complaints for Antec's 900 case saying that if you put in a big video card like an 8800GTX, the upper hard disk bay area is unusable because space is so tight.

I'm wondering if the same is true for Antec's P180 case; I haven't found many complaints about that, but the 900 and P180 look to be around the same size, and I'm wondering if most people don't bother putting an 8800GTX in a quiet-oriented case like the P180

So, if the upper HD area is blocked by a big video card, is the upper HD area entirely unusable, or can one or two of those bays still be used?

 

[LintMan]

Doh! This same question was asked (and answered!) in one of the follow-ups to my ownP180 post from about a month ago (a thread I thought was long-buried). To be fair, though, my question was about power cable length so it didn't occur to me that my question might be answered there.

Anyway, according to mc866 in my P180 power cable thread, you need to remove the upper hard disk cage to fit in the 8800GTX. Bummer. I would like to have had room for at least 4 hard disks. I guess I could get an adapter and use one of the external bays, but blah.

Anyone care to recommend a good-quality case that's at least semi-quiet but also has reasonably good cooling?

 

[Kutai]

The bottom drive cage will hold 4 Hard drives...

 

[hox]

I am just starting to figure this out. I have a 8800gtx and a p180 case. I too like the look and lower noise level (when fans are set to low) of this case. Yes the upper drive bay is blocked. The other complication with this case is that larger sli power supplies are too long to keep the fan that would help cool the 4 drives in the lower 4 drive box. I had a couple of old hard drive rails that most cases allow you to mount the drives in a 5 1/4 inch bay, unfortunately the p180 case has plastic that hits the rails so I have to find a separate solution. I am not ready to give up on the case yet, but for now I am running 1 drive in the upper hd drive cage, and three in the lower cage. These are all wd raptor drives which get warm. Not ideal. My mb, a 975bx2 has 3 PCI express slots, which if I moved the 8800 card to a lower slot would free up that upper drive slot. However, only the primary slot is 16x, 16x electrical, so to get the best performance it has to stay there.

What I like about the p180 is the airflow it uses 3 120mm fans, the fact that vibration was thought about each hd mount comes with silcone rubber grommets. I also do not like the fact that the 180 has no wheels. Sliding the case out from under my desk on a carpeted floor has ripped the rubber feet off several times.

I am not sure this case offers good dust filtering, that is what I am looking for, I hate opening up my machine to find dust on the components. I also have 2 coolermaster stackers which I do not like except for the roominess. They also are very poorly desinged for dust filtering, and in my opinion cost way too much for what coolermaster gives you, essentially 1 box to hold your drives which you lose 1 slot if you choose to mount a floppy. Also the drive bay covers come loose and fall out constantly.


Any suggestions?



Any suggestions for a clean lined case that

 

[NYHoustonman]

Well, I can tell you that (at the very least) the front filters on my P180 need cleaning fairly often, moreso than with previous cases. I've had the system for almost 2 months, but I'm out of town this week so I can't take a look at how much dust has built up... But at the very least, the filters kept a lot from getting in (I'll be cleaning them off weekly, I think).

 

[crownjules]

Originally posted by: hox
I am not sure this case offers good dust filtering, that is what I am looking for, I hate opening up my machine to find dust on the components.

Both of the air intake fans in the front of the case have dust covers. I've opened up my case and, after about a year of almost always being on, there is little to no dust on my machine's internals.

 

[imported_aashburns]

the filters do work for most of the dust...my place is pretty dusy so I clean it about once a month -> there are other intakes for the case via vents which cause dust to still make it in (and a small gap around the filter itself).

 

[hox]

Thanks for the comments on dust guys. I found a solution for this case and having extra hard drives. I am using the p180 case with an intel bx2 motherboard and the 8800gtx graphics card. I had a coolermaster 4 in 3 hard drive cage left over from a server build. This part can be ordered for around $25 and it fits in the three open 5.25 bays in the p180 case. It was tight but it does slide in. This cage has a cooling fan for the drives and it allows four addtional drives to be mounted. My system is pretty loaded up now with different raids. Intel 975xbx2 mb, evga 8800gtx, 4x crucial ballastic 1gb ram sticks, 1 LG cdrw/dvdrw drive, 1 floppy drive (old school I know), 4 WD raptor 150s, and 2 maxtor 300gb drives, pc power and cooling silent 750w power supply. I had to avoid the lower drive bay with the raptor drives as they get quite warm and the power supply is too long to keep the cooling fan in place down there. If there was a better smaller power supply then the four drives could have been comfortably placed down there. I have little experience with other power supplies as the pc power ones seem to work well in my hands. I hope my solution is helpful to others considering this case, for the money it is the best I have seen.

 

[almach1]

that is a crazy case setup you got hox.

 

[imported_RedStar]

What do you do about all the spare pci slot covers?...they all have holes and no filters.
Do you Just tape them over...if so why did antec design them that way.

Not to mention the fact that all those holes around the psu let in the dust....


It sur eis a nice case though. So far, it is the only one i find acceptable ...well that and the centurion 5 for smaller installs.

The cm stacker is not available where i shop...so i can't include that one