TR Forums

Hello
recently I have been wanting to purchase a new case
the P182 caught my eye at the microcenter but near 200$ turned me off.
the case is currently around 140$ on amazon and that I can do.

Anyway, there are two reasons I want a new case
first, I have a large power supply, it is not modular and feels like medussa is reaching out from inside
so I want a case that can hide the lines behind the motherboard and keep them out of the way
second, I need more hard drive bays

So now the powersupply I have is the Corsair 750tx
in my opinion it is quite the monster

Now I read that large power supplies will fit if the fan is removed from the bottom hard drive cage
but wouldn't that be a bad thing? I plan to run all 3 bays with hard drives
So what should I do? Will there be a heat problem or should I wait it out for an Antec P183 or go with a different case?

on another note, I plan to run an Asus4870 DK, that should fit without problems right?

I've got the Corsair HX520W in a P182 and it is a fairly tight fit in behind the fan even with the modular cables - it's just about possible to plug and unplug the cables without removing the fan. I'm not sure how the 750TX compares in terms of size. Being able to get cables in behind the motherboard is a great feature of the case, but I wouldn't count on being able to hide all your spare cables away in there because there's only a limited amount of space to feed them through from the lower chamber. You'll probably end up trying to cram some spares in on top of the PSU which could get messy. As far as the lower fan goes, I'm running it on the low setting and my single HDD never gets up to more than 30deg and the PSU fan never ramps up to the point where it's audible, so I'm not really sure the extra fan is entirely necessary. If you cram in the HDDs it could be different, but you might well find that the airflow generated by the PSU alone is sufficient. You can of course get HDDs in the upper chamber as well, unless you've got a really long graphics crad or two. The lower chamber is the only area of the case that is slightly troublesome, and I think it's well worth the effort to cram everything in because once built up it is a great case.

The Corsair 750TX and 520HX are both ATX12V power supplies. You will have no trouble with these units in the P182. Just be aware that it may take a half hour of patient prodding to get all of the wires routed just the way that you want them.

The PP&C S75CF power supply recommended in the TR system guide is not an ATX power supply. It is a deeper EPS12V unit. Shoehorning the Silencer 750 and its large bundle of cables into the case requires more patience (and more zip ties) than using a standard ATX12V power supply.

Just do what myself and most of the people on SPCR do, remove the bottom fan and do your best to seal the bottom section from the middle section. Your powersupply will pull enough air through to cool itself and a full hard disk rack down the bottom. This opens up better air flow and makes it much easier to thread the cables to where you want them.

Some sound deadening foam around the power supply at the back of the case is also good to force all of the air to go through the power supply instead of the power supply getting some of its air from the back of the case. Sign up on SPCR (SilentPCReview.com) and go through the forums to see what people are doing.

This guy has a nice clean style.
http://www.overclock.net/case-mods-gene ... orial.html

I did that on my mom's computer, and it lost a HDD. Could be coincidence, but we plugged a fan in there now to be sure.

I got my case set up and it's great.
Routing the wires was not that hard and was fun.
I have my old board in for now until I decide on my next processor
but I have a few issues though

the case comes with a three prong Power LED plug
but my motherboard is only two
the antec cord is actually two wires but there is an empty spacer in the middle
what should I do? It's unhooked right now
here is my board
the f_panel is at the bottom right

another question I have is when I run both IDE DVD drives off the same power line, one does not get enough power to turn on
also the plugs are very loose and fall out if tinkered with
why is this?

and lastly, the case has HD audio front panel which I hooked up to my HT omega sound card
but I was wondering what does that mean? is the cable better than the AC97 plug? they were running off the same line

thanx for the help

I'm guessing from the HP website that your old board comes from an OEM PC, which originally had the OEM (HP) case? Perhaps the front panel connectors were therefore not industry standard. You could probably modify the power LED cable to get it to work (e.g. cut off the connector from the old case and attach it to the Antec cable), but if you're planning to upgrade soon anyway and can live without a power LED for the time being, I'd just leave it disconnected.

I've never had a problem with loose molex connectors on HDDs - usually it's the reverse problem that they're hard to push in, and then require a disconcerting amount of force to remove. Does the 750TX have the same type of molex plugs as my 520HX? They have an extra flexible plastic shroud around the plug which you squeeze when disconnecting the plug to help push it off. Perhaps these extra shrouds are clashing with the drive casing and preventing you from pushing them fully home. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to cut the shroud off if necessary.

(Edit: you can see what I'm talking about in the picture of the "4-pin peripheral" connector on Corsair's product page here)

I'm not familiar with your soundcard, but you need to find out what type of connector it's designed to use. AC97 and HD Audio are two different connection specs, so one will work properly, and one won't.

MrJP wrote:

You could probably modify the power LED cable to get it to work (e.g. cut off the connector from the old case and attach it to the Antec cable).

It can be easier than that, if you're patient. The metal inserts in the plastic connector can be unlatched and forced out the back of the connector. You can then re-insert them in the location that you want.