Antec P180 Cable Management

[Spacegoast]

The Evolution Of My Antec P180 **Lots of Pics**

This here is a guideline for how owners of the Antec p180 can wire their case. I have had my case for wellover a year now and I have had numerous ideas on what I can do it. It almost came to a point where everytime I opened the case I saw something I could change. I did just about everything I could with the limited resources I had. I have had several upgrades now and I tried to make revisions on cabl managment each time. So lets start from the beginning.


Revision 1 March 2007:



Back in the day, before I got my greasy little hands on power tools, I was forced to resort to "ghetto tactics", lol. I had to improvise a little with everything. I couldnt find a pic with the case completely stripped down in this moment in time so I will start with this one.

I know, I know, it looks ghetto with all the tape, but it served its purpose. Here I have the front panel wires for the USB and speaker taped down. Those are the grey wires. I also have the top and rear exhaust taped down. That group of colorful wires is the actual front panel wires for PWR, RES, etc. I tried hard to hide the 24-pin power wire, but it is just too damn big! So I opted to hide it behind the upper hard disk drive cage. Also you can see that the fan that is normally down right in front of the psu has been moved up as an intake fan.

Here is the back with the other side panel off. You can see a flat ribbon cable that goes to the optical drive. The thick 24-pin atx power cable is hidden back here too. There is also a red and blacl fan cable to.

In this shot I am pointing at the power cable for my video card. I have it hidden right above the lower hdd cage and it goes up through the upper hdd cage to connect to the GPU. You can also see the red, white, blue, pruple front panel wires and how I have them going down. I shoved them through a small crack and pulled them through to hide them. In later pics a cut a small hole there to make it bigger and easier to put wires down there. If you are wondering what that red, black and yellow cable is, that is for a small fan I have mounted in frontof the lower hdd cage to cool the hard drives.

In this shot you can see that I removed a part of the anti-vibration tape so the gpu power cable could fit in there, and not make the side panel bulge out.

Sorry I couldnt find a shot with just the mobo in. But everything is in now LOL. The 24-pin atx power cable is plugged in, the 4-pin power cable is routed under the sound card and the video card and crawls up the mobo. My rounded IDe cables are plugged in and I tried to hide that behind the hdd cage as well. I have the SATA cables are in, the front panel cables are in, so is the USB and speaker cable. In the bottom left is a molex connector going into the mobo, which is for one of the exhaust fans.

Here is how the back looked with all the wires plugged in. That blue wire you see is a y-splitter for than 2 front intake fans.

Here is a shot of the lower intake fan for my hdd's. I have it wedged right in there and it fits perfectly. It is a 10cm fan. Im not sure if a 11cm fan would, it may though. 120mm definitely would not fit there.

Time to lighten the mood and turn off the light . Here I have the antec fan with red led's to light up the case. No point thoguh since there is no window on the side panel.

Finally, here is a shot from a little lower and you can see all the wires at the bottom of the mobo. Also you can now see the 4-pin power cable running up along the left side of the mobo.

So this was the first time around with my cable management attempts.


Revision 2 October 2007:
This time around was a whole different story . I finally got my greasy paws on a good drill and hole saw And here is an example of the magic I worked:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Cali2na/September-October2007119.jpg
I have the case completely stripped down excpet the power supply. But I used a 1 inch hole saw to drill a couple of holes in the case. I also added some 1 inch rubber grommets to prevent wire snags on the rough edges.

Here is a better look at it.

A look from the back.

This is a good shot of the front panel wires and how I routed them right along side the floppy drive bay. I did some filing and sanding to make all those wires fit there.

Now you can see where those wires come out. I also taped the USB and Speaker wire in black, dont ask why .

Now you can see all the wires coming through the holes I drilled. I also have the 8-pin power cable in the top left (not 4-pin anymore as I upgraded components.) I pulled the USB and Speaker cables through and I also have a small hole the front panel wires.

Notice anything different in the 2 pics above? In the top pic I have a fan wedged in there. In the bottom pic I completely removed the piece that I had the fan wedged in to. It came off easily with a flat head screw driver. Just pop the rivets out. I did this so I could fit a 120mm fan down in front of the lower hdd cage. But by doing this, I can no longer screw in the lower hdd cage since the part it screwed in to was taken out .

Close up of a 120mm fan in the lower chamber. In order for it to fit down there I took off the rails of the lower hdd cage and I installed it back wards so that the cables to the hard drives would have to be on the otherside. Now this may look like a problem with the fan right there next to the wires but I have never had one from this. I also have the SATA cables going around to hide them.

Here are some shots of the back side. The wiring is all hidden behind the lower hdd cage so it looks little messy but is not seen.

Now I have the fan cables connected to the power supply running along the bottom and the right side of the case.

Still no mobo installed mind you.

Now I have everything in, and again no transition shots of putting in piece by piece . Guess I got a little anxious lol. But here it is. I put a Silverstone FM121 on my Big Typhoon, but that fan is now broken. I also have a Thermalright Hr-03+ on my 8800GTS 640mb. ALso got some Crucial Ballistix in there now.

And here is the final shot. Now that I look back at it, it looks pretty crappy with all that junk in there. I have an 80mm fan pointed at the RAM to cool it, but later took it out as it was not necassary. I moved the location of the fan speed controller for the Fm121 too. I drilled another hole and mounted for easy access on the back ofthe case as shown here:

This is the back of the case from a top down view. I have drilled out a hole and put another rubber grommet there and the knob for the fan speed controller fit perfectly. Also I snipped away the grill from the top and rear fans, as you can see in this photo. Well you can see the grill for the rear fan anyway.

And that was attempt number 2! Onward and upward.



Revision 3 February 2008:


Now that I got my feet wet, I felt it was time for a little more and a I turned to the help of a dremel and some paint

Here I cut out a good portion of the case with my dremel. With this I was planning on running the big, fat 24-pin ATX power wire through here. It looks a little rough but I cleaned it up quite nicely.

The paint and primer of preference..... Get lots of paint. It goes quick. I had 2 of each and that was barely enough. I wanted to go for more but didnt have the time. Still havent had the time to do anything else .

Before the paint and primer.

All is primed. Let the painting begin

Now there are afew blemishes but I didnt really sand in between coats and it was freezing/raining at my parents house when I did this. Dont paint in the rain or when it is cold. I did both . Its cool though, this was just the test run. I plan on painting with other colors this summer.

Now for the installs.

New Silencer 750 power supply, not modular .

Front panel is on now.

A little blurry but you an see I am using the same wiring techniques as last time.

Now the mobo is in and the power cable is in on my nice and shiny new Foxconn Mars mobo. Not to mention the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme cpu cooler. Also the front panel power, reset, hdd, wires are plugged in, as well as the speaker wire in the bottom left of the mobo.

Now I have the rest of the cables plugged in (SATA, gpu power, dvd burner, and the 8 pin power cable in the top right.) All of the unused psu wires were tucked away underneath it.

That's all folks.



Future plans: new paint job on the case (again) and the side panels havent been painted at all yet.

Questions, comments, suggestions....pm me or simply write something in this thread or I will lol.


New Pics 08/11/2008

Now I have An Asus P5E motheboard in there and a VisionTek HD4870. Also threw in an HR-05 SLI Nb cooler and an Enzotech SLF-1 SB cooler. Will probably get another HR-05 for SB too.

This is how my rig looks as of yesterday.

 

[Spacegoast]

Updated with more pics.

 

[Demos_sav]

Nice but why aren't the sides painted? Also cut a hole to the side(if it doesn't already has one) so you can see the guts of this beauty

 

[Spacegoast]

i havent had time to paint the side panels. that is my next project. i may try to put some designs on the side panels too, when i have time that is. i am still in the planning stage though. it will happen soon, guaranteed. and i will update with pics so rest assured

 

[Braveheart]

nice, i wish i had a removable mobo tray

 

[Spacegoast]

nice, i wish i had a removable mobo tray

i do too, lol

 

[mk_ln]

wow, very nice!

was there any sanding needed on the bare metal inside the case as part of the preparation or was it just primer and paint?

 

[Spacegoast]

wow, very nice!

was there any sanding needed on the bare metal inside the case as part of the preparation or was it just primer and paint?

thanks. i sanded a little, but not much. i had a few scratches that i wanted to get out, but i was lazy and it was really cold out in my garage on that day, . i had 3 coats of primer and 3 paint.

 

[mk_ln]

thanks for the reply.

is there a particular hole saw and drill that you would recommend? what did you use? i have a coulple hole saws laying around but, iirc, the ones used for doors (door knob slots) cannot be used for metal.

 

[Spacegoast]

thanks for the reply.

is there a particular hole saw and drill that you would recommend? what did you use? i have a coulple hole saws laying around but, iirc, the ones used for doors (door knob slots) cannot be used for metal.

well i used a 1 inch bi-metal hole saw i bought at lowe's for like 8 bucks. it is made by Lenox. works wonders. i would like to have a hole saw kit but they cost like $60-100, so just go with one or 2 that you think you will need. the drill i have is a 2500rpm hitachi (corded). i had an older drill but the rpm's was way too slow to make a hole in the case. so i suggest a drill with at least 2500rpm's. i got mine for 49.99, also at lowe's.

 

[angelkiller]

Wow, nice job!

I want to paint my P180 black too. But.. I literally know nothing about painting.

You mentioned earlier that you used 3 coats of primer and 3 coats of paint. That means you cover the whole case in primer. Let it dry. And do it again two more times? Same with the paint right?

Any help/advice/links you (or anyone else) gives would be great! I think a little procedure would be most helpful.

Thanks!

 

[Spacegoast]

Wow, nice job!

I want to paint my P180 black too. But.. I literally know nothing about painting.

You mentioned earlier that you used 3 coats of primer and 3 coats of paint. That means you cover the whole case in primer. Let it dry. And do it again two more times? Same with the paint right?

Any help/advice/links you (or anyone else) gives would be great! I think a little procedure would be most helpful.

Thanks!

I didnt really know much about painting either, I just jumped off the cliff. I primered 3 times, letting it dry in between each coat. You can sand it between each coat too, but you will have to do more coats. I didnt care to do all that. But some prep work invlovles removing everything and cleaning the stripped down case of all dirt and oils. Use some soap and water and some alcohol to get the oils off. I suggest wearing gloves as well. But its pretty simple, point and shoot the spray can/gun. I would have done more coats but i didnt have enough time. I have a link for a good thread on painting, give me a minute to find it.



edit: check out this thread. its pretty good. http://www.overclock.net/case-mods-general-discussion/69626-spooky-s-computer-painting-guide.html

 

[angelkiller]

Whoa, that was fast.

Yeah, I had to send my mobo off for RMA, so I needed to do something with my time. I've already stripped the case. I have a bit more cutting to do before I paint, so I'll clean it after that. A couple of questions. 1) What does sanding do? 2) What's the advantage of having more layers?

Thanks again!

 

[Spacegoast]

Whoa, that was fast.

Yeah, I had to send my mobo off for RMA, so I needed to do something with my time. I've already stripped the case. I have a bit more cutting to do before I paint, so I'll clean it after that. A couple of questions. 1) What does sanding do? 2) What's the advantage of having more layers?

Thanks again!

Sanding gets the surface smoother for a cleaner looking coat of paint. you dont want a paint job to look all rough and uneven right? sanding makes the surface flat too. well when you try painting and you lay the first coat on, it looks pretty crappy. when you paint you dont want to get everything at once. it takes a lot of time and patience to paint. also you want to spray a good 8-10 inches away from the case, other wise you might spray too much in one area and cause the paint to run/drip. doing several coats will also ensure that you dont have any missed spots. and i think with more coats of primer the paint sticks better. more coats of paint just makes it look better. in the link i posted that guy used i think 7 coats of primer and paint. so it does help

 

[commandercup]

I thought sanding was for making the primer/paint adhere better to the metal... its not so that its flatter or smoother... (well it is kind of smoother I guess)

 

[intel igent]

im no pro but a few things i know (or think i know ) and would like to add are :

sanding can give many results, it depends on the grit of paper used and the technique/tools. grits of paper usually range from like 120-2500. you can sand with your bare hands or for a flat even finish you can use a sanding block in a horizontal manner.

something like 120 is a very coarse grit and good for roughing a surface (prepping for primer) or removing material.

higher grits are used (sanding/wet sanding) to provide a smooth finish and an even look to the paint.

you can also post in this thread and get more tips from more knowledgeable people

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=56727

 

[FatForester]

Lookin' good, that Dupli-color paint is awesome! I too wish PCP&C Silencers were modular...

 

[angelkiller]

Ok, I've been doing lots of reading... and I'm more confused than ever.

I stripped the case. I cleaned the case. I bought the paint and primer.

Now what? Is sanding really necessary? Do I have to sand the P180 before I paint? How long do I have to wait in between layers? I'm not after a professional paint job, I just want the inside black. I'm just confused about what to do next. Thanks!

Sorry if I'm bugging you....

 

[angelkiller]

Ok, I did it. With the help of Spacegoast and others, I got my case painted!

I think I did a decent job. I wasn't expecting anything fancy, I just wanted the inside black.

Just some things I'd say to someone who was considering a simple paint job, but was really unsure what to do.
1) I got the paint and used 600 grit sandpaper. Paint, wait an hour, lightly sand, paint again.
2) Avoid heavy coats! It's tons better if you have lots of light coats than a few heavy ones. Don't worry about covering everything in a singe coat. You can get it in another.
3) Just do it! It's not as hard as it sounds. Get the paint, get the sand paper, and paint!

I took lots of pictures, but I don't want to hijack this thread. Thanks for eveyone's help!

PS: How permanent is the paint. When I tried to screw in a PCI slot cover, I stripped all the paint where the screw was. Luckily, I haven't put anything back together yet.

 

[Spacegoast]

ya it will come off in parts like that. same thing happened to me. maybe some gloss or some kind of protective coat will prevent the paint from coming off.

 

[commandercup]

angel killer... you probably ruined the paint's bond with the metal when you sanded it...

you should wait a minimum of 24 hours before sanding... since the paint's outside may be dry, while the inner layers are still moist...

not to mention, you should wait another 24 hours after a coat before handling or scraping for that matter

clear coat also helps protect the finish

finally... I've noticed some spots of overspray and chunks of running paint, that can be avoided if you paint a case fully disassembled... or you can just do it by spraying quickly and in short, short bursts over and over...

 

[FuManChuu]

Alright... my turn.

First off... A few before shots...

I'm not really super organized... and I have a few more cards/drives in my computer than your average joe, so my whole setup was a little bit messy to begin with...

Note the thugstyle fan down below... for some reason my Antec bracket wouldn't ever stay in place... so I made do. I also always HATED that 4 pin going up to the top that blocked all my cards.

Then, essentially following Spacegoast's setup... I put some holes...

That right there is a 1-1/4th inch hole....

Naturally, I bought the wrong size grommet... a 1-11/16ths... :shadedshu so I had to snip them, and it ended up working out just fine I suppose

When all was said and done... I suppose it sorta worked out

Now onto the tape job...

I wanted to keep my case as stock as possible, save for the 2 holes which I justified being fairly well done... so the HDD cage wall was staying, and I wasn't going to dremmel out any of that little railing on the back... so this was the end result...

Fans, usb, firewire... so far, halfway decent looking.

As the night went on... things took a slight turn for the worse... too many stupid fan connectors I started rushing it a bit, and moved on to the fan.

The Fan

Like I said... I wanted to keep that lower HDD cage fully functional... so I wasn't going to sport a 120mm fan down there... I ended up with a Scythe 100/90mm that fit just fine(ish). This idea looked fine... but I quickly realized that cable wasn't going to sit there peacefully.

Ended up punching a hole in the side, and running it right along that edge... worked well enough I suppose.

Final Outcome

Sorry about the horrid pictures here... it was 2:30, moon light was playing hell with the camera, didn't realize how shady they turned out until now...

Thoughts

Well... When I first got the p180 a couple years back I built a pretty beefy machine, that ran dead silent. A couple years later, a few harddrives, and a fan or two later... it is damn near as loud as the rest :/ I love dealing with the inside of the case now *I've still got a few pci cards I need to swap in and out for one reason or another, and no obnoxious cables in my way now *... But I am halfway disappointed with a couple of my purchases since the initial build. When I grabbed the new harddrives, I needed more sata, so I ditched my enermax noisetaker for this corsair... and I'll be damned if it isn't the loudest thing in my case. In addition to my noise complaints, for a 14cfm fan, this scythe sounds like a jet engine :>

But to end on a positive note... the majority of driving force behind upgrading my cabling was to cool down my harddrives. I run those poor suckers into the ground, and 47c just wasn't going to keep them healthy for long. The two drives getting direct impact from the fan have dropped about 15 degrees, and the others about 6. The inside of my case looks sexy as hell, and I had an excuse to buy a new drill bit (holy lord hole drills are scary ).

Thanks again for all those that influenced the clean up. I'm out

 

[Spacegoast]

Looks good Fu, lol. I am impressed. It is actually a lot easier than it looks. I updated mine yesterday and got a few snap shots. Will add shortly.