P180 build - Tuniq, HR05, Opty... etc 56K

L31mr0d · 15-12-2006 2:33pm #1

Pictures from my recent P180 build... all in all its been over a month getting the parts together, i've chopped and changed a lot of things in the process, the mobo got replaced with the DFI in my sig, went from using the stock nb cooler to the HR05-sli to the HR05, got a dominator fan for the RAM, replaced DVD drive with sata DVD-RAM drive, went from using 2x250GB Caviars to 1x74GB Raptor to now 2x36GB Raptors in RAID 0... and things are still changing. I just want to get to a point where I can put the side door back on and know it won't have to come back off for at least a week

anyway, pics as promised:

The guinness is purely for size comparison, I don't drink the black stuff all the time... honest :rolleyes:

The reflection is the plastic wrap used to protect the paint job, the sides are as reflective as the top of the case.

*drool*

L31mr0d · 15-12-2006 2:33pm

here are the 3 drives in the lower HDD cage

This is the upper HDD cage with the 12cm Scythe Sflex fan attached

View of the front panel with DVD-RW, Zalman fan control and SB Fatal1ty sound I/O

Just to show how easy it is to remove the front bay, just press on the metal tabs either side of the bay and pull it out, no screwdrivers needed

This is just to show that the OCZ Xstream 700w PSU will fit in the P180, some people where saying it would be a tight fit

Close up shot of the Dominator fan over my mushkin ram

The trio of cooling here, the Tuniq and HR05 are both lapped and put in place with coollabs liquid pro

The mainboard in the case, there is about half an inch of clearance between the Tuniq and the side panel.

Everything installed now. Keeping with my 7900GT for the moment until I get HS for the 7900GTXs

This is where all the mess went. I removed the toolbox from behind the upper HDD cage and used that space to store any extra length on the cables.

Zonko · 15-12-2006 2:44pm

That is some giant cooling lad.

L31mr0d · 15-12-2006 3:04pm

lol... I don't think people can actually fathom how large the Tuniq is until you see it first hand... I should of taken a picture of it next to my old Zalman 9500, it made it look as small as the stock Heatsink

The NB cooler is one of the largest you can get also

The benefit of the Tuniq and this mobo is that I can set it to leave the fan off until the CPU gets to 40'c, and then set the fan to go on full at 49'c. So the majority of the time when i'm on the net or just idling the fan is always off as the heatsink alone is good enough to keep the temps below 40'c on idle. Makes for a much more silent PC, with the added noise reduction the P180 gives.

Endurance Man · 15-12-2006 4:01pm

Why did u make the system silent with the fanless CPU and Northbridge, and then stick those noisy little ram coolers on which do feck all

.

L31mr0d · 15-12-2006 5:14pm

lol... the CPU cooler isn't fanless, it has a 120mm fan in the middle of it. The RAM fans are more for the PWM then the RAM. When you don't have the fan blowing down onto the CPU heatsink, the PWM heatsinks don't get a lot of air circulated over them, the RAM fans turn on and blow down onto the mobo and RAM when the PWM gets to 50'c. So they only come on when i'm gaming or benching.

There are 5x120mm system fans, the 120mm CPU fan, a 92mm fan in the front of the bottom HDD cage, and the fan on the graphics card... this system is far from fanless. I just have them all on fan controls or controlled by the mobo, so when idling the system is near inaudible

awhir · 15-12-2006 5:20pm

Endurance Man wrote:

Why did u make the system silent with the fanless CPU and Northbridge, and then stick those noisy little ram coolers on which do feck all .

fanless CPU???

wa its got 1 feckin noisy fan in it.

Endurance Man · 15-12-2006 7:11pm

Doh, didnt even notice those 120mm. Still though, after a few months of collecting dust and wearing on their bearings those little ram fans are gonna sound like mini vacuum cleaners. I would rather have the 120mm running at lower speeds as it will move more air and make less noise.

L31mr0d · 15-12-2006 7:53pm

Do you know nothing about the P180? Its got washable dust filters on the intakes. Also these are pretty much the best ram fans you can get, they are meant for the Corsair Dominator RAM. I can honestly say at full rpm I can barely hear them at all. Plus its very rare that my PWM gets up to 50'c, with all the other 12cm fans working.

Either way, i'm going to leave it in for a month or so and monitor temps. Then after that i'll take it out. If it makes no difference with it being gone, i'll leave it out.

awhir · 15-12-2006 8:56pm

man you paid nearly 30e for them little fans over the ram you could of paid 12-20e and got theAntec Spot Cool which would of probly gave ya a larger raduis of cooling and better:rolleyes:

grr i wana show of my case its sooo cool

you can take out apart nearly anything in it so easy to work in

L31mr0d · 15-12-2006 9:14pm

I paid €10 for it actually

the antec would of taken up more space also blocking the Tuniq airflow path

awhir · 15-12-2006 9:26pm

10e were cool.sorry there is 1 on ocuk for 30e and thought it was the same.

L31mr0d · 15-12-2006 9:57pm

Komplett is also selling it for €20.

Just looked up the specs of that Antec fan... 33dB at full rpm, ouch thats loud

From reviews the Dominator fan was shown to only change the system noise levels by 3dB.

Anti · 16-12-2006 5:58am

Nice looking build very nice. Make sure you register yourself over at dfi street and post it there. I know there is a mod for your nb to add a fan to it to cool it more.

Nice and tidy

L31mr0d · 16-12-2006 1:37pm

thanks. I'm already registered over there. The DFI forums was one of the deciding reasons why I went with getting a DFI mobo. I can usually get any question answered in detail in less than an hour.

Yeah they have a pretty long thread over there about the HR05. It turns out now that i'm going to have to change over to the HR05-sli, as I just got a 7900GTX, and even with my Zalman VF900 on it, it won't fit in the first PCIex slot with the HR05

Didn't realise the 7900GTX was so long. Luckily I sold a HR05-sli to a guy on here who isn't going to use it so he's selling it back to me. Will post pictures when I get the new one installed with the 7900GTX.

Here is a pic I took with the 2x7900GTX's installed, i've already sold one of them on to a friend. As you can see, NO room for the HR05

awhir · 16-12-2006 2:48pm

cool bad look on the heatsink....

were ya get the 2 17900gtxs

L31mr0d · 16-12-2006 2:58pm

same place I got the Dominator fan for €10

*taps nose suggestively*

Like I said i've replaced the stock HS on the 7900GTX with a Zalman, and i'll be installing the HR05-sli, which should work perfect. Should have pics this evening.

awhir · 16-12-2006 3:03pm

and were did you get the dominator fan for 10e ???

Anti · 16-12-2006 3:33pm

back of a lorry

gline · 17-12-2006 3:26pm

whats the purpose of this thread? lol

hopeful · 17-12-2006 4:34pm

gline wrote:

whats the purpose of this thread? lol

Originally i assumed it was L31mr0d pimping his latest creation...no bad thing IMHO....although it has deteriorated into a discussion of RAM cooling.

Personally I feel all the photos should be edited to eliminate that hideous bed spread and rather nasty rug

L31mr0d · 17-12-2006 5:29pm

gline wrote:

whats the purpose of this thread? lol

what's the purpose of that comment? .... lol

I personally find it helpful when i'm looking up information on a case or component to see peoples first hand experience with it, and see what it looks like, find out how easy it was to build in and what it can accommodate. I wasn't going to post any pictures here first but a few people had mentioned they where interested in the P180 or the Tuniq so why not... and before you say this belongs in the b&u section, I plan to post benchs and screenshots here as I overclock it.

hopeful wrote:

Originally i assumed it was L31mr0d pimping his latest creation...no bad thing IMHO....although it has deteriorated into a discussion of RAM cooling.

Personally I feel all the photos should be edited to eliminate that hideous bed spread and rather nasty rug

Agreed

It's not my choice but the missus likes it.... I suppose it is better to deteriorate this thread into a discussion about rugs and bed covers rather than RAM cooling

Pokes · 19-12-2006 11:26am

Why have you got the zalman controller in upside down ?

L31mr0d · 19-12-2006 11:46am

Pokes wrote:

Why have you got the zalman controller in upside down ?

rofl... you should really get a prize for noticing that. Glad to see someone is actually looking at the pics :rolleyes: Its been turned the right way up since, I noticed it was the wrong way up when I went to plug in the fans. The P180 makes it great for pulling in and out bay devices though, it uses a kind of latch system istead of screws.

Pokes · 19-12-2006 11:54am

Thought i was going mad , had to look at it a few times

Yeah screwless cases are the job.I couldnt afford an antec so i got a chieftec CH-03 instead.

Col_Loki · 20-12-2006 2:20am

Im due an upgrade myself, overlooked the P180 until now..... hmm might be back in the running.

Great work btw, alot of thought went into your build..... some tasty choices

zappb · 20-12-2006 9:45am

Hi L31...nice nice nice, glad to see it finally came together! Very professional looking build - I'm looking forward to seeing how far you can push it!

To bring this back on topic...the ram coolers look pretty good imho - so personally I would keep them in there anyway for cosmetic reasons.

Let me know when you want to sell it on because you'll be upgrading it again soon (2-3 weeks)?

L31mr0d · 20-12-2006 1:34pm

Thanks Zappb, but I won't be selling it anytime soon, i'll only sell it once it gets noisy... which could be 2 years

I'll be leaving my system as is for about 6 months now as i'm going on a few holidays in the next few months which will take priority. Plus once I get my (or another stepping

) Opty 165 to 3Ghz I think i'll have pretty much reached the usuable life of skt939. Can't really get much better than that on this socket. Once a game just won't load on my rig then i'll upgrade.

Anyway heres some more pics of the build:

Picture of the whole rig and cable management:

I replaced the HR05 with the HR05-sli (funny name as because of it I wont' be able to go sli

) because I couldn't fit my 7900GTX in, even with the VF900 on it

Heres a pic to show you what I mean, the core on teh 7900GTX is further down the board then the 7900GT, the HR05-sli is the same width as the HR05 but out from the NB, so the zalman VF900 can pass behind it.

Picture of the NB cooler in place

The method I used to secure it, I found the spring loaded clips supplied where too loose for my liking so I replaced them with some 3mmx30mm nuts and bolts, I used 2 plastic washers on the underside of the board to stop the bolt head from touching it.

Richard Dower · 20-12-2006 7:02pm

What SATA optical drive is that?..model #.

L31mr0d · 20-12-2006 7:16pm

Funny you should mention that, I just updated the firmware on it yesterday to allow me to use this utility that sets it in either quiet mode or full performance mode. Got it from OCuk but they don't stock this model anymore.

It's the TSST SH-S183A

hopeful · 24-12-2006 8:42pm

L31mr0d wrote:

Funny you should mention that, I just updated the firmware on it yesterday to allow me to use this utility that sets it in either quiet mode or full performance mode. Got it from OCuk but they don't stock this model anymore.

It's the TSST SH-S183A

I have the same one...must look into the firmware upgrade when i get a chance.

P180 build - Tuniq, HR05, Opty... etc *56K*

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P180 build - Tuniq, HR05, Opty... etc 56K