Sital's Watercooled Antec P180

[sitalchauhan]

I watercooled my Antec P180B a few months ago (my first ever water cooling build) and took pictures during the process but didn't have time for a build log during. So I thought I would post up the details now I have a bit more time

I had the bug for doing something with my computer and had a bit of spare money burning a hole in my pocket. But I didn't really feel the need to upgrade any of my components apart from the ram because I hardly game anymore and just use my PC for web surfing and video/photo editing. I decided to watercool it, but didn't want to spend loads on buying new watercooling equipment which would cost more than my pc was worth, so bought most stuff second hand for cheap which was very easy to do since my components are quite old!

I'll start off a bit backwards since I have already finished it, so here is what the final watercooled system looks like!




And here's a list of everything I bought during the process of watercooling my pc:

• EK-FC8800 GTX (GPU Block)
• XSPC Edge V2 (CPU Block)
• Swiftech MCP655 (Pump)
• EK X-Top Rev.2 (Pump Top)
• Thermochill PA120.3 (Radiator)
• Swiftech MCRES-Micro V2 (Reservoir)
  ____________________________________________________________
• Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C4DHX (4GB RAM)
• Asus P5K-E Wifi (Motherboard)
  ____________________________________________________________
• 1L Feser One F1 UV Acid Green
• 5L De-Ionised Water
• 500ml White Distilled Vinegar
  ____________________________________________________________
• 2x EK-UNI RAD Holder 120
  ____________________________________________________________
• Sharkoon 12" UV CCFL 4in1 Kit
  ____________________________________________________________
• 14x EK-PSC 12mm G1/4 Black Compression Fittings
• 2x BP-MB90R Bitspower G1/4" Matte Black Rotary 90 Degree
• 1x BP-MB45R Bitspower G1/4" Matte Black Rotary 45 Degree
• 2x G3/8 To G1/4 Black Nickle Adapters
• Black 1/2" Drain Barb
• 20x Phobya O-Rings UV Green
• 5x G1/4" Plug Black
  ____________________________________________________________
• 4m Primochill PrimoFlex Pro LRT Clear Tubing 7/16 ID x 5/8in OD
• Pulse Modding 99.9% Silver Kill Coil
  ____________________________________________________________
• 1x Yate Loon D12SL-12C
• 6x Nexus Real Silent D12SL-12 Black/White
• 8x 120mm Fan Guard Black
• 6x 120mm Black Rubber Fan Gaskets
  ____________________________________________________________
• 3x U-Pol Power Can Grey Primer Spray Paint
• 3x U-Pol Power Can Matt Black Spray Paint
  ____________________________________________________________
• Dremel 300 With 25 Accessories
• 10x Reinforced Resin Dremel Cutting Discs
• 10x PCI Backplates
• Black Acrylic Sheet 210x148x3mm
• Lamptron Advanced Slot Protect Black
• Arctic Cooling MX-4
• Phobya M4 CPU Kit Black
• Phobya Mobo Backplate 775/1366
• Pulse Modding Anti Vibe Damper Pad
• 4m Neoprene Rubber Edge Trim (U Channel)
  ____________________________________________________________
• BitFenix 8-Pin EPS12V 45cm
• BitFenix 24-Pin ATX 30cm
• 2x Molex To 2x SATA Power Connectors
• Molex To 2x SATA + 2x Molex Power Connectors
• 15m Molex Wire AWG 18 Black
• 5m 4mm and 5m 2.5mm Pulse Modding Cable Braid
  ____________________________________________________________
• LEDs: 50x Blue/Green
  ____________________________________________________________
• 12x M4 80mm Long Allen Key Bolts
• 20x M4 Nylon Lock Nuts
• 100x 4mm ID, 1mm Thick Rubber O-Rings
• Wiring Grommets - 10x 6mm, 10x 9mm, 10x 12mm, 10x 16mm, 10x 20mm, 10x 25mm
• 50x Black Nylon M4 Washers

[dave87]

Looks good, would be interested to read the build log

[sitalchauhan]

So this is what my Antec P180B looked like to start off with:








First thing I did was mark out all of the cuts I wanted to make into the case to help with cable management:











I bought some primochill tubing, blank pci plates and EK compression fittings all new:



I bought an EK black for my 8800gtx off forums from somebody who had bought it years ago but never got around to fitting it so it was still brand new:



And I won 4gb of corsair ram off ebay:



Next I bought another lot of stuff, most of this is new from online stores. The Swiftech pump and EK X-Top were used but in very good condition. The thermochill radiator was used and in really bad condition - scratched paint and very badly corroded inside, but I got it dirt cheap! As you can see I initially bought all Yate Loon D12SL-12 fans, but I later returned these and got Antec Real Silent fans instead as the YL fans I was sent were not "genuine" YL fans and were quite a bit louder than my orange "genuine" YL fans I have been using for years in my system.





I got to work on the Thermochill radiator, flushing it out with hot water and vinegar. It seemed no matter how many times I flushed it through there was constantly black bits still coming out, and I could still see the corrosion inside. After flushing it through at least 20 times and bits were still coming out, I decided to fill it with white vinegar and leave it on a hot radiator overnight. Next day I poured it out and the fluid coming out was disgusting! I could see the corrosion had almost completely gone inside. I flushed it through with hot water a few more times, left it overnight with vinegar on a radiator again, flushed with water and it was coming out clear now and the insides of the radiator looked sparkling clean. I left it overnight with some more vinegar once again just to be certain, and finally flushed it with distilled water a few times to clear the vinegar etc.

I then set to work respraying the radiator (outside only, never respray the fins!). First I masked off and protected all the fins, and wetsanded off the old paint:



Here it is all wetsanded, so nice and shiny!



Then I drilled the 4 holes on the top fan position, enlarging them to 4mm so that I could use my M4 bolts to secure the rad to the back of my case:



I masked off all the fins again and the barb holes, and cleaned it all ready to spray paint:



Primer:



Matt black:

[sitalchauhan]

I also sanded down, primered and painted the PCI plates matt black:





And I got some UV cathodes and Feser F1 Acid Green coolant:



Next I set about cutting up my P180 and respraying the internals black.

First I disconnected and removed everything from inside my P180:



And then set everything up again outside the case so that I could still use my pc while I was modding the case. I was getting some nice temps with it in the open air!



Then I roughly cut out the rear exhaust fan grill, and drilled 3 holes. 2 are for the inlet/outlet tubes to the rad, and the third hole in the top left of the pic is where the fan cables from the fans on the rad will enter the case. I used some rubber grommets in the holes:



Then I tidied op the rear exhaust grill cutout:



And I tested out the U Chanel edging trim, it covers the cutout it perfectly:



Next I cut out the fan grills on the front, leaving the clips for the dust filters to still fit:



I cut out all of the markings I had previously made to improve cable management in the case. I cut out a lot of metal!:



This just shows what parts I have cut out if anybody wants to do something similar:



Next I sanded down the whole case and drive cages etc:



Primered:



Also sanded down and primered the right hand case panel:



And here is everything painted matt black:



Refitted the grommets and fitted the U-chanel edging trim for the rear exhaust:



And I used some draught excluder tape on the PSU bracket to help reduce vibrations:

[sitalchauhan]

One annoying thing with the P180 was that the power and HD leds would flash out of the side even when the front door was closed. So I wrapped up a piece of card with some black electrical tape and wedged it down the edge to stop the light showing when the door was closed:





I used a yate loon slim fan as an intake for the lower section just in front of the HD cage. A normal size 12cm fan does not fit in this area, but the YL slim fan does. I sleeved it and used draught excluder tape to reduce any vibrations:





Then I sleeved an Antec Real Silent for the front upper intake:



And sleeved another for the top exhaust, you can see the hole that I cut that helps hide this fan's cable:



Then I started work on mounting the fans for the radiator. First I made 2x shapes out of card and coloured them black, which would go in between the fans to block off the gaps that are between the fans when you are using a thermochill rad, improving the airflow through the rad. I am using zip ties to mount the fans to the rad, using rubber fan gaskets in between to remove vibrations:



I needed to extend the fan wires for all 3 of the rad fans in order for the cables to reach, so cut the wires and soldered on some more cable:


And sleeved all the cables:



Here they are mounted onto the rad:



I decided the remount all of the heatsinks on the motherboard with some MX4. The heatsink above the cpu slot came off very easily and then I secured it back down with zip ties with MX4 since the original plastic clips couldn't be used again:



The large heatpipe system was harder to get off, especially the northbridge which felt like it was glued down. I managed to get it off eventually after a lot of wiggling, but it made a crunching sound as it came off...


The northbridge die had smashed in half!!!



R.I.P my p5k deluxe. But I managed to find a P5K-E/Wifi on ebay for cheap with next day delivery, which is basically identical to the deluxe apart from only having 1 LAN port instead of dual LAN.

I cut the black acrylic sheet that I had bought and drilled 4 holes into it. This is going to be used to block off the rear exhaust fan hole at the back of the case where the rad is going to be mounted off:



I cleaned up the EK 8800gtx block:



And removed the stock HSF from my GPU:



Cleaned it all up and attached the EK block to my GPU:

[sitalchauhan]

The new mobo arrived the next day so I mounted the XSPC block to the CPU:



I used a seperate backplate so that I could tighten the screws without worrying about the mobo flexing:



Fitted the mobo into the case, threaded through the wires for the rad fans, and mounted the CCFL transformer towards the top of the case:



Put the EK and Bitspower compression fittings onto the micro res. The bottom 90 degree bitspower is for a drain so it is easier for me to empty the water in the future. And put a silver coil inside the res:



I then mounted the micro res into the case using zip ties. Put the GPU in. Mounted the rad to the back of the case using M4 bolts. And got the PSU inside the case:



Here is a close-up pic of how I got the case usb/firewire/audio/power/etc cables to pass backwards through the holes I had cut into the case:



Then I started fitting the Primochill tubing:



Tubing all finished. The Swiftech pump with the X-Top is located in the upper HD cage hidden away. I mounted it in there between two anti-vibration foam things, and I can easily adjust the pump speed through the front of the case:



Ready to fill the water and leak-test it, using an old PC to power the pump:



Watercooling system all filled with Feser F1 Acid Green and UV lights on (there are 2 12" UV cathodes, one on the left of the case that you can see, and another secured to the top of the case using sticky velcro):



I wrapped both of my DVD-RW drivers with black electrical tape so that they matched the matt black internals of my case:



I then started making my own custom power cable that would be the exact length to power both of my DVD-RW drivers and 2x Sunbeam Rheobus fan controllers:







I then braided all my SATA cables:





I changed the LEDs in my Sunbeam fan controllers to green, but I forgot to take pictures of it.

Here are the DVD-RW drives and fan controllers inside of my case with the custom made power cable and the SATA cables:



All 4 of my hard drives mounted inside the HD cage:

[sitalchauhan]

Now everything is inside the case and ready Here is the right hand side of my case through which I have hidden all of the wires. I have used bitfenix 8pin and 24pin black braided extension cables for the PSU cables:



Here is a view of Sunbeam Rheobus fan controllers, dvd drives and where the pump is hidden inside the upper HD cage:




And here is the finished system








Here are the temperature stats. All of these are with the e6600 overclocked to 3.3GHz (standard is 2.40GHz) and the 8800GTX core clocked to 626MHz (standard is 575MHz) and all fans running at 7v
The CPU air heatsink used was a Theralright Ultra 120 Xtreme

Air Cooled Temps
CPU Cores: Idle 38 / load 65 (Using Intel TAT)
GPU Core: Idle 64 / load 90 (Using OCCT)

Watercooled Temps
CPU Cores: Idle 22 / load 42 (Using Intel TAT)
GPU Core: Idle 35 / load 43 (Using OCCT)


As you can see the CPU had a decent drop in temps, and the GPU had a huge decrease in temps once watercooled!

[HoldenBurn1000]

Amazing mate. Exactly the kind of thing I would love to do with my old case. Really enjoyed reading the log.

Do you mind if I ask how much you spent on the wc loop?

Good work.

[sitalchauhan]

I actually kept a spreadsheet of how much each of the parts cost me so I'll just paste them here.
I slowly bought the parts over a few months, keeping an eye on the forum's Classifieds section for the parts that I wanted for the right prices.

All of the blocks, pump, radiator and reservoir cost me £136 in total because I bought most them them second hand (I imagine they would have cost close to £300 if I bought them all new from online stores):

EK-FC8800 GTX - Hexus Forums - £25
XSPC Edge V2 CPU Block - Hexus Forums - £15
Swiftech MCP655 With EK X-Top Rev.2 - Hexus Forums - £40
Thermochill PA120.3 With G3/8 To G1/4 Adapters - Hexus Forums - £30
Swiftech MCRES-Micro Reservoir V2, Black 1/2" Drain Barb - TheWaterCoolingShop - £26


However, by the time I had bought the above items I had saved up some more money, so I decided to buy the top of the range tubing (Primochill) and compression fittings (Bitspower and EK) new from online stores which cost me £110 alone. I bought 3x spare EK compression fittings, 1 which I use when filling the reservoir, and 2x spare in case I ever add another block to my loop.

4m Primochill PrimoFlex Pro LRT Clear Tubing 7/16 ID x 5/8in OD - TheWaterCoolingShop - £27
14x EK-PSC 12mm G1/4 Black Compression Fittings - SpecialTech - £42
Pulse Modding 99.9% Silver Kill Coil, 2x BP-MB90R, 1x BP-MB45R - Specialtech - £41


If you went with barb fittings instead of compression fittings, but still using good brand EK fittings (and not buying any spares), and use XSPC tubing, I worked out that it would have only cost me £25 (+£5 shipping) for all of the tubing and fittings:

11x EK 1/2" Barbs - http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/...productid=5088
2x EK 90 Degree Adaptors - http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/...roductid=14043
1x EK 45 Degree Adaptor - http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/...roductid=13860
4m of XSPC 7/16" ID Tubing - http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/...roductid=13031

(In case you are wondering, I have selected 1/2" barbs with 7/16" ID tubing because it gives a tighter seal and so safer from leaks. But when using compression fittings you have to get the exact right size compression fittings for the size tubing you are using)

So if I went with barb fittings instead of compression, it would have cost me £166 in total for all of the mentioned items.
But because I went with compression fittings it actually cost me £246 in total for the above.

.

[spoon_]

Wasn't the idea of externally mounted radiators popular in ekhm.... 2009?

Good looking rig but the electrical tape is pure bodge.

[HoldenBurn1000]

Fantastic thanks for the info. Very complete!

This is exactly the kind of loop I want for my new rig this month but am a complete water cooling noob so no idea what brands are good ect.

Will do some research on the brands you have used.

Again nice work.

(and nothing wrong with a bit of electrical tape :-p and I personally like external rads!)

[sitalchauhan]

This is exactly the kind of loop I want for my new rig this month but am a complete water cooling noob so no idea what brands are good ect.

I would say stick with EK for the blocks, fittings, etc.
Laing for your pump (Many companies re-brand and repackage the laing pumps with their own model numbers. The Laing D5 Vario was the best pump when I was buying my WC stuff 5 months ago).
Reservoir brand doesnt really matter, just go with whichever reservoir fits your build.
Radiator brand doesn't really matter either, just check reviews and select a radiator with fin spacing specific to what you are planning (high speed fans work best with small fin spacing. silent low speed fans work better with large fin spacing). This is a large radiator comparison review that has just started so should help you decide once the review is finished: http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/02/...ootout-begins/
The popular brands for tubing are Tygon, Primochill and Masterkleer. I think I went with Primochill because it was the most kink-resistant. And tygon and masterkleer tubing turn quite cloudy after a while due to plasticisers in their material leeching out. I used this review of tubings to help me decide: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ed-56k-warning

Wasn't the idea of externally mounted radiators popular in ekhm.... 2009?

Good looking rig but the electrical tape is pure bodge.

And how exactly would you mount a 360 radiator in a p180 internally whilst still using the upper 5.25" bays? I bought my p180 along with most of my other hardware back in 2006 when triple radiators very uncommon and this case was specifically designed for optimum air cooling. I don't feel I need to upgrade anything as the PC still serves me fine for what I use it for. I actually still prefer the design of the p180 over many modern cases. Obviously I could have bought a new case specifically designed to hold a 360 radiator internally, but the whole point (and enjoyment) of this project was to modify my existing case to my needs.

Fair comment about the electrical tape though. I did contemplate spraying the dvd drives with the same matt black spray paint, but the drives are not visible at all once mounted inside the case. I was also worried that the spray paint would scratch off each time I was sliding the dvd drives out of the bays. My case is on the floor backed up close to a wall. There is no way anybody would know that the dvd drives were taped up unless they were lying down on the floor with their head on the carpet against the wall looking back into the case into the 5.25" bays!

[Pob255]

Very nice.

Must admit I not a fan of a big rad hanging off the back of a case or a large square window like that, still it's very nicely done.

Surprised you wrapped the dvd drives in tape, it's very easy to take them apart to paint the cases.