Deciding what fans to get for my p182-based system

[ZebuluniteV]

Hey all,

I have an Antec P182 case, and am considering what additional fans to get (if any). I currently have it set up with the default three Tricool fans (intake in middle of bottom compartment, and blowing out of top and rear). I installed an Arctic 7 Freezer Pro fan on the cpu.

My main focus at the moment is getting a fan that can push a lot of air as a front intake for the main compartment, since at the moment I imagine there is a lack of airflow in the system both to the videocard and to the fans blowing out.

Additionally, given that I currently have 8GB of ram installed and eventually will look into getting a quad core processor that I would overclock to some degree, I imagine I could use plenty of cooling on my northbridge (currently using the passive heat sink that came with the IP35-e). At the moment it gets little airflow, since the Arctic 7 just blows out the back, and there is nothing currently blowing on it.

Looking at fans here, at least, it looks like any of the Scythe models would be fine, though I thought I'd check in if there are any better/cheaper fans out there. There were some cheaper ones here, but I'm not sure how about their quality (or lack thereof).

I'm not as clear on what I should get for the northbridge (if anything, since the issue might just be more of airflow to the heatsink). These Thermalright heatsinks that I saw listed somewhere seem like they would be better, assuming I could easily fit them in my case/on the motherboard in the first place. They're out of stock, at any rate, at least at Newegg. Something with a fan might be better. Additionally, I've considered just mounting some sort of fan in the case to blow directly on the heatsink, but I'm not quite sure how to go about doing that.

 

[Syzygies]

I'm up to 8 Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F fans on each P182 case; I replaced the three Antec fans and went on. In one location I don't care about the noise. In another I have WAF issues (a stereo term originating as a speaker spec), and I step down the noise and cfm to SFF21D or SFF21E levels.

Observing my temps with the case open and closed, I got better core temps open, so I bought a Scythe Kama Bay and used it with three 5.25" bays like shown here.

Actually, I had a 5.5" length of 5" diameter acrylic tube cut for me at TAP Plastics, and I'm using two fans with it, push/pull, with the Kama Bay. As it happens, one can also fashion a plastic tube of exactly the right size from the packaging for a 100 pack of DVDs. The thrill of appropriation and all that, like the phone hackers using the Cracker Jacks whistle back in the day. One could glue this onto the Kama Bay fan, as an air flow guide, without a second "pull" fan.

My theory is that the tube couples the fans, and reduces turbulence, increasing their efficiency and decreasing noise. In practice I'm still tweaking how to assemble the tube (glue gun rather than cable ties) and I needed to remove the front filter to keep the front fan from making noise. I may or may not use an exit filter; I'll post pictures when I'm done.

I'm going to 8 GB. In practice, this air tube does a great job of injecting ambient air into the memory and processor area of my case. Even at low fan speeds I see better cooling performance. People sell fan flow "straighteners" and claim they help (over-eager enthusiasts like us, not snake oil salesmen) but I'm not convinced; this is the DIY turbo version.

The entire middle P182 drive and plastic assembly removes, down to bare metal floor and ceiling. I'm using the floorspace now, and may take it over completely for water cooling, but one could rig a second push/pull fan tube in this space instead. The primary heat source it would address is the graphics card.

Don't assume you have a problem until you do. Yes, the stock P182 runs warmer than its potential, but there are ways to overclock your processor without frying the rest of your components, which are designed to be used unmodified in a stock configuration. For me, processor heat is the main issue.

 

[ZebuluniteV]

Originally posted by: Syzygies
I'm up to 8 Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F fans on each P182 case; I replaced the three Antec fans and went on. In one location I don't care about the noise. In another I have WAF issues (a stereo term originating as a speaker spec), and I step down the noise and cfm to SFF21D or SFF21E levels.

Observing my temps with the case open and closed, I got better core temps open, so I bought a Scythe Kama Bay and used it with three 5.25" bays like shown here.

Actually, I had a 5.5" length of 5" diameter acrylic tube cut for me at TAP Plastics, and I'm using two fans with it, push/pull, with the Kama Bay. As it happens, one can also fashion a plastic tube of exactly the right size from the packaging for a 100 pack of DVDs. The thrill of appropriation and all that, like the phone hackers using the Cracker Jacks whistle back in the day. One could glue this onto the Kama Bay fan, as an air flow guide, without a second "pull" fan.

My theory is that the tube couples the fans, and reduces turbulence, increasing their efficiency and decreasing noise. In practice I'm still tweaking how to assemble the tube (glue gun rather than cable ties) and I needed to remove the front filter to keep the front fan from making noise. I may or may not use an exit filter; I'll post pictures when I'm done.

I'm going to 8 GB. In practice, this air tube does a great job of injecting ambient air into the memory and processor area of my case. Even at low fan speeds I see better cooling performance. People sell fan flow "straighteners" and claim they help (over-eager enthusiasts like us, not snake oil salesmen) but I'm not convinced; this is the DIY turbo version.

The entire middle P182 drive and plastic assembly removes, down to bare metal floor and ceiling. I'm using the floorspace now, and may take it over completely for water cooling, but one could rig a second push/pull fan tube in this space instead. The primary heat source it would address is the graphics card.

Don't assume you have a problem until you do. Yes, the stock P182 runs warmer than its potential, but there are ways to overclock your processor without frying the rest of your components, which are designed to be used unmodified in a stock configuration. For me, processor heat is the main issue.

Wow...thanks Syzygies for the VERY detailed reply!

I didn't even mention it before, but I was looking for something like the Scythe Kama Bay as well, to provide better cooling for my CPU and memory (and would probably get some air over to the northbridge as well).

From reviews on Newegg it seems that the fan that comes with the Kama Bay is pretty weak...is that your experience, or did you swap what came with it out for one of the SFF21Fs you mentioned? Likewise, how well (or not) does the Kama Bay filter dust? That's my main concern with getting something like that, though I imagine it shouldn't be a huge issue.


The SFF21F fans look pretty nice, though somewhat expensive (at least relative to my P182 itself, which I got on sale at Newegg for $60 with free shipping).

I was planning on removing the middle drive bay to place a front intake fan, as soon as I finish backing up some files from my 200GB PATA drive and move over to my new SATA 640GBdrive (since my ATA isn't long enough to allow me to have the 200GB drive in the bottom compartment and have a PATA DVD drive above).

The acrylic tube setup sounds interesting, though I'm not sure if I need to go to that extreme. In any case, I look forward to seeing those pictures when you're done.

At the moment it doesn't seem like I have any major problems. I had the system running Folding@Home 24/7 for most of February and March with the CPU (E2180) overclocked to 3GHz and my memory overclocked to DDR2-900 speeds, with little issue (the northbridge heatsink was barely warm). Though I thought it seemed much hotter recently when I ran F@H (or maybe it was some other demanding software). In any case, I feel that system could probably use better air intake at least during these hotter months, and might well need it when I eventually get a Q9450 or something (which along with the 8GB of RAM will put a ton of stress on the northbridge). Do you use anything for cooling your northbridge beyond a passive heatsink? I imagine with 8 120mm fans in the case there's plenty of airflow, but still.

 

[Syzygies]

Originally posted by: ZebuluniteV
From reviews on Newegg it seems that the fan that comes with the Kama Bay is pretty weak...is that your experience, or did you swap what came with it out for one of the SFF21Fs you mentioned? Likewise, how well (or not) does the Kama Bay filter dust? That's my main concern with getting something like that, though I imagine it shouldn't be a huge issue.

The SFF21F fans look pretty nice, though somewhat expensive (at least relative to my P182 itself, which I got on sale at Newegg for $60 with free shipping).

No idea about the stock Kama Bay fan, I swapped in Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F fans everywhere without even trying the existing fans. I believe the reviews, and I wanted the cfm. There are cheaper 120mm fans that are highly respected.

The Kama Bay does filter dust. I moved the filter to the exhaust end of my DIY fan tube.

Yes, I jumped all over that $60 Newegg P182 sale; I own two.

 

[Zepper]

The stock fan in the Kama Bay is very low CFM. There are other fan holders out there that you can get and put your own fan in - a much better way to go.

SVC.com has the up to 110CFM LED fan kit I reviewed here:
http://www.techimo.com/reviews/ the main review is under the black one --on sale this weekend for $10. +sh. (MSRP - $18.99, regularly $13.99 + sh, so it is a good buy) . It can be set to run very quietly using the included controller or your own fan controller while having plenty in reserve if needed. The LED leads can be cut if you don't care for the light show. Unfortunately they seldom have the need put the black version on sale - must be far more popular than the LED version though there really isn't a nickel's worth of difference between them functionally.

I'm not sure, but the included controller may allow the LED's to run full bright, while a 3rd party controller will dim the LEDs while reducing the fan speed.

.bh.

 

[Syzygies]

Originally posted by: Zepper
There are other fan holders out there that you can get and put your own fan in - a much better way to go.

Do you know of a source?

All I use from the Kama Bay is the front grill, with screw holes aligned to accept a 120mm fan, and screw holes positioned to accept guides to glide into 3 bays. If an alternative fan holder can't be configured to glide into 3 bays, it can't be used this way.

It would be nice to not pay for a fan I'll never use.

 

[ZebuluniteV]

Originally posted by: Syzygies

Originally posted by: ZebuluniteV
From reviews on Newegg it seems that the fan that comes with the Kama Bay is pretty weak...is that your experience, or did you swap what came with it out for one of the SFF21Fs you mentioned? Likewise, how well (or not) does the Kama Bay filter dust? That's my main concern with getting something like that, though I imagine it shouldn't be a huge issue.

The SFF21F fans look pretty nice, though somewhat expensive (at least relative to my P182 itself, which I got on sale at Newegg for $60 with free shipping).

No idea about the stock Kama Bay fan, I swapped in Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F fans everywhere without even trying the existing fans. I believe the reviews, and I wanted the cfm. There are cheaper 120mm fans that are highly respected.

The Kama Bay does filter dust. I moved the filter to the exhaust end of my DIY fan tube.

Yes, I jumped all over that $60 Newegg P182 sale; I own two.

I see now what you were talking about as far as the fan tubing, since apparently I missed the link in your sig (unless you added that recently). Looks simple enough to do, and as you suggested a 50 or 100 pack CD/DVD case lid would probably work fine. Has the tubing made a noticeable difference?

So, barring finding a better/cheaper alternative, I'll probably order a Kama Bay, in addition to 2 or more fans - haven't decided which models yet (haven't had much time to look this weekend).

Since I'm really not sure what to do with the northbridge, or even if anything should be done in the first place, I'll probably wait on that to see how the would-be new intake fans work out.

 

[Syzygies]

Originally posted by: ZebuluniteV
I see now what you were talking about as far as the fan tubing, since apparently I missed the link in your sig (unless you added that recently). Looks simple enough to do, and as you suggested a 50 or 100 pack CD/DVD case lid would probably work fine. Has the tubing made a noticeable difference?

I tried cutting a "50 or 100 pack CD/DVD case lid" and it shattered, one might need to use heat. It would be fine to direct one fan, but for two, I'd stick to a 5.5" length of 5" diameter acrylic tube. Here's the thread where I give links:

DIY Kama Bay push-pull fan tube

I did see a 5 C difference opening my case, as a controlled experiment, so something needed to be done, two fans are better than one, coupled is better than uncoupled. But this was a complete rebuild of the guts of this rig, moved from NY to CA, and I didn't control for any of this. After also lapping, I'm seeing 10+ C improvements on 3 of 4 cores, still puzzling out how to bring Core 0 into line.

 

[SolMiester]

Originally posted by: Syzygies



Actually, I had a 5.5" length of 5" diameter acrylic tube cut for me at TAP Plastics, and I'm using two fans with it, push/pull, with the Kama Bay. As it happens, one can also fashion a plastic tube of exactly the right size from the packaging for a 100 pack of DVDs. The thrill of appropriation and all that, like the phone hackers using the Cracker Jacks whistle back in the day. One could glue this onto the Kama Bay fan, as an air flow guide, without a second "pull" fan.

My theory is that the tube couples the fans, and reduces turbulence, increasing their efficiency and decreasing noise. In practice I'm still tweaking how to assemble the tube (glue gun rather than cable ties) and I needed to remove the front filter to keep the front fan from making noise. I may or may not use an exit filter; I'll post pictures when I'm done.

I'm going to 8 GB. In practice, this air tube does a great job of injecting ambient air into the memory and processor area of my case. Even at low fan speeds I see better cooling performance. People sell fan flow "straighteners" and claim they help (over-eager enthusiasts like us, not snake oil salesmen) but I'm not convinced; this is the DIY turbo version.

.

Syzygies, one of the best property of my TJ06, in the Wind Tunnel, Similar to your tube, however mine draws cool air from front over memory & HSF with another fan blowing any warmer air out the back totally isolating any air from the chamber that holds PCI\Video cards.

I really am amazed that so many enthusiasts miss the benefit of separate air for their CPU!

 

[ZebuluniteV]

Alright, well after spending probably way more time than was necessary researching fan options, I went with 5 Yate Loon D12SM-12 fans link, and a Kama Bay. The 5 Yate Loons are probably far more than I need, but at $3.50 each I found it too hard to resist buying a few extra (and I could now replace the Antec TriCools with the Yate Loons, though I'm not sure how necessary that would be). Noise may be an issue, though I don't mind too much my TriCools running at the "high" speed, which will probably be as loud as the Yate Loons. And, if it does become an issue, it shouldn't be too hard to undervolt them to D12SL-12 levels (or even lower).

Thanks everyone, especially Syzygies, for your help. Now all I need (at some point) is a videocard upgrade, since my E2180 @ 3GHz and 7900GS-based system at the present is pretty lopsided. Granted, I don't play games a ton (though probably will do more now after a hard year of college), but I ordered a 22 inch 1680x1050 LCD monitor, which will further degrade the performance of my 7900GS. There have been several good deals on 8800GTs and 9600GTs, but I'm tempted to wait until the Radeon x4000 series comes out, supposedly later this month or early June. But that's a matter for another thread...

 

[Syzygies]

Originally posted by: ZebuluniteV
Alright, well after spending probably way more time than was necessary researching fan options, I went with 5 Yate Loon D12SM-12 fans link

Hey, fans are a gateway drug, you should really look into water cooling! :roll:

(I've been been making arrays of ten 80mm fans $1.29 shipped to go in various windows to exhaust our house on summer nights, I've had my eye on that exact fan deal for upgrading to 120mm in a few rooms. Yate Loons are a respected fan and you can't beat the price...)

 

[ZebuluniteV]

Originally posted by: Syzygies

Originally posted by: ZebuluniteV
Alright, well after spending probably way more time than was necessary researching fan options, I went with 5 Yate Loon D12SM-12 fans link

Hey, fans are a gateway drug, you should really look into water cooling! :roll:

(I've been been making arrays of ten 80mm fans $1.29 shipped to go in various windows to exhaust our house on summer nights, I've had my eye on that exact fan deal for upgrading to 120mm in a few rooms. Yate Loons are a respected fan and you can't beat the price...)

Ugh, buying any parts for a "cheap new system" is a gateway drug itself. I originally went for this when I saw an E2180, 4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 set, and an IP35-e each for about $60 after rebates. I initially planned on using the case, powersupply, hard drive, etc from my older Athlon 64 X2 based system, to allow me to finally jump on the crazy Core 2 overclocking scene, and get a large boost in Supreme Commander. And then...

I see the P182 on sale for $60, and have to jump on that. Then I decide to get a new power supply, figuring that it seems somewhat stupid to use an older one I plan on using in the Athlon 64 system later anyway. Then I decide to get another 4GB of Ram, figuring that it would make more sense to max out now rather than waiting until DDR2 prices rise like DDR1 did. Then I see the new Western Digital 640GB drive come out, and figure that would be worthwhile as well. Then the 22 inch Dell monitor at Best Buy for $200 (which would allow me to use my $50 gift card). And now all these fans...

And to think this was originally going to be a less than $200 upgrade...at any rate though, hopefully with the excessive 8GB of Ram, and the ability to upgrade later to a quad core processor and newer videocard, I'll be able to force myself to stick with this system for a long while. Maybe...:roll: