P182 water cooled

Hi there,

This is my first water cooled machine. It used an Antec P182. I got some of my ideas from looking at other peoples setups, so in case its of use to anyone - here's what I did. It's got 2 radiators - a 3x120 on top, plus a 1x120 where the raid cage was.

The design is for i7 (with just the apogee cpu cooler). I had a Q9550 in it while I save up for i7.

It was stable 100% 24/7 @ 4.1GHz @ ~60degrees with Q9550 for a couple of weeks but is now getn lock ups every day or so. I think the mobo is upset and needed more cooling on the NB (which of couse isn't an issue with i7). I had 2 of the asus little blower fans running but suspect they weren't enough. It's currently parked awaiting funding for i7 internals.

Some stuff I did was:
- Reverse the back fan to keep pressure up inwards (+ cut out metal grill so I could fit fine dust filter)
- cutouts to wire the cabling around the back of mobo plate
- internal dust covers on fans (bit retentive yes)
- sound proofing foam (it lives in lounge)
- put res + pump where raid cage was
- karma bay fan in place of top 3 5.25's blowing inwards
- all fans replaced with nocua's fluid bearing ones
- loop goes cpu->3x->swiftech res->1x->swiftech MCP655pump->cpu


Stuff I didn't like (but not real issues) are:
- res flows backwards, not ideal but bled it aok
- had to put one 90degree bend in tubing in raid cage


Thanks to these guys for ideas:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/guides-how-tos/979-water-cooling-680i-antec-p180-build-log-guide.html
http://www.radiical.com.au/projects/AntecP180CaseProject.asp


Here's how I plumbed it, hopefully its of use to others:



Marking out top before cutting




Some of the cutouts




Covers on internal fans cause I know I'm too lazy to want to stuff around getting dust out of radiators




Plumbing 1




Plumbing 2




Radiator, reservoir + pump in raid cage space




Finished, with 3x120 rad on the top

 

Looks pretty good.
Im looking at water cooling my P180, but i would like it to be all internal.
So i was thinking 3 or 4 single rads or 1 single and 1 double (double mounted under the roof with a hole cut for the 2nd fan)

But i do like the look of the rad on the top there...

 

I too would WC my P182 if I could figure out how to get it all internal. Does anyone know if you can fit a 3x120 along the roof of the case, inside?

 

I doubt that 3 will fit on the roof, i am most likely going for 1 on the roof 1 on the back then 1 in the bottom part between the PSU and the hard drive cage, then maybe 1 more where the middle hard drive cage is (pump is going to be replacing that anyway)

I will most likely be doing this during the week so i'll post up some pics and what not...

 

So dude, where did you hide the hard drives?

 

+1
cant see them?
also how do you take the top panel off?

 

There was space for 2 drives in the middle level cage that slides in behind the noctua fan.

Yeh, I had originally wanted to have everything inside but there was some reason why I didn't - think it was cause the rad height plus the fan height hit the mobo. And you couldn't shift it sideways cause of the fan hole already in the top of the case.

The plastic top bit just lifted off. It was stuck on and had some teeny little plastic lugs to align it. It stuck back on without any trouble.

I've ordered an i7 920 so will put a pic up when its all together again.

 

Im running an internal 3.120 rad in my P180 with external fans. Pics are in my sig and update pics of the loop Here

You need a thinner radiator im running a swiftech, a fesser or similar wont fit.

 

nice. i'm investigating water cooling for my p182 but it's looking pretty tough with 4 hard drives and a gtx280. there isn't much room at all. i might have to just run a 3 fan rad outside the case. can you show a pic of your hard drives?

 

So i have been working on water cooling my P180, all internal

Cooling:
- Apogee GTX
- Swiftech MCP655
- 1x 120mm Rad (front)
- 1x 240mm Rad (top)

Just need to get a GPU block that fits my 9600GT and i'll be set.

I had to drill a few holes in the top to move the top Rad over a bit as it was hitting the motherboard a bit and i could only fit 1 fan on it because of the 4in3 Module and i couldnt be bothered cutting a fan hole in the top.

Dropped my temps about 20 degrees from my Blue Orb 2


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