P180 Problem

[THERESONATOR]

I built my PC at the beginning of last year. It consists of this:

1x Antec P180 Case w/ 4 120mm case fans running at highest speed (very noisy!)
1x Tagan 550w PSU with modular cables
1x Microsoft Keyboard and Mouse (ps/2) (from old Dell)
1x DFI LanParty SLI-DR motherboard (such a nice motherboard)
1x BFG nVidia 7800GTX SLI OC DVI-Out
1x AMD Athlon Dual Core 3800+ Socket 939
1x Samsung SM348-B CDRW/DVD (from old Dell)
1x Maxtor 7200rpm 60GB HDD (out of a Sky+ box!)
1x Western Digital WD600BB 7200rpm 80GB HDD (from old Dell)
2x 512mb Single Channel DDR Memory (some Maplin bargain)
2x Harman/Kardon Speakers (from old Dell) using onboard sound
1x Creative Webcam Go Plus
1x Dell LCD 17" Monitor supporting resolutions up to 1280x1024

This was the first ever PC that I built and at the time I wanted to get together some decent components and hopefully upgrade, to make use of the SLI graphics and maybe add in more memory and water cooling. I chose the Antec P180 case because it was the best quality for its price which was relatively low (a £95 eBay steal, ~£130 in shops) compared to the Lian Li's I avidly drooled over. I had no problems mounting my motherboard, and only minor difficulty inserting the graphics card. The real difficulty came in feeding the modular cables through the strange compartmentalised system of the case.

I struggled to find use for the sliding black plastic "thing" that sits on the bottom of the upper chamber, and mistakenly ripped it off after breaking it whilst playing with it. I couldn't see the point of it anyway. REALLY wish I didn't do that, could anyone tell me its purpose? Anyway, the problem I'm having lies in the lower chamber.

When I built the machine I really didn't like all the cables jutting out over the motherboard and freaked at the possibility that they would somehow restrict airflow over the main components, so I decided to feed through and shove all of the excess length of modular cables into the lower chamber. This, at the time, was a worry because I feared I would be running a pointless 120mm fan down there - the modular cables completely block all airflow from fan to PSU. They are just one big jumble, and I have no clue as to how I'm going to manage to tidy them up, their constricted nature makes them almost impossible to shift! What was I thinking?!

So now, naturally, I have worries that my PSU is getting completely shrouded in dust. So what I want to do is clear out that space that the cables are taking up, whilst not having them lurking over my motherboard. Now cometh the key question: is there any other place to route them?

I've seen a few posts where people somehow feed them round the back of the motherboard? How is that done?

 

[Daverino]

Most people feeding them behind the motherboard have the P182, the second version of the P180 that had much better cable management. I have an original P180 and yes, cable management requires some thought. I don't have a modular power supply either, so some forethought is required when putting everything together. Here's a pic of my case. Not the best P180 in the world, but I think it's fair.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albu...iwaza/CasewoHDCage.jpg

A band holds all the cables together as they exit the lower chamber, but there is quite a traffic jam in the lower right quadrant. I used plastic hold-downs with adhesive backs to secure the cables to either the back of the case or the space where the bottom-most drive would be (under the lower drive cage). You can see that when the lower cage is put back in, most of the cabling is behind it.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albu...ishiwaza/Casewcage.jpg

I keep that cage empty to keep the airflow unobstructed. Another hold-down between the lower cage and the back of the case holds the power and SATA cables for the lower cage taking up all the slack. Power to the rear exhaust fan is routed under the mother board and the CPU and top fans run along the top using another plastic holder. USB and front audio (which connect along the bottom of the mobo) also run under it and emerge between the bottom of the mobo and top of the lower chamber. Many people have used extenders on the 8-pin power connector to avoid it stretching across the mobo. I ran it under my graphics card instead. That was a very tight fit, especially considering the heat sink I have in this shot blocks the connector completely (needle nose pliers ftw).

That said, if you want to pull out the tools, you can modify the old P180 to have some of the 'behind-the-mobo routing that the P182 has. Check out this thread:
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2136683&enterthread=y

Hope this helps.