My new Antec p180 case mod, adding an air duct!

Hello all, thought i would share my idea for modding my p180.

I was thinking about another post where someone added a side vent to their case and it got me thinking. I then read a post about someone adding an AIR DUCT from outside to feed cool air into their case. That got me thinking even more. So i take a look inside the p180 and realize theres not really enough room to get any kind of air duct in there the way I would want it. I am definetly not cutting up the side of my case, so thats out of the question. My 7800GTX is a long card so it doesnt leave much room between the end of the card and the 5.25" bays and harddrive enclosure.

I have never ran the upper HD tray, i keep my 4 drives in the lower chamber with the psu. So i have the tray removed and also the plastic sliders to slide in the tray. I did this so i could add a 120x38mm fan to the front intake slot.

Not happy with my current cooling setup, I realized that the 5.25" tray on the bottom is actually a seperate tray from the rest of them. The top 3 bays are one metal piece, with the 4th tray at the bottom being seperate. I take a look around and realize its not just going to slide out, they have engineered it not to do so!

There are 2 rivets on both sides of the tray holding it to the front of the case. I punched out the rivets and tried to pull the tray out. DOH! The tray will only come forward ( ie out the front of the case instead out of the back), and metal is in the way preventing it from moving anywhere. So i grab a pair of pliers and bend the tray a bit in both spots, and VOILA! Out its comes, easy as pie.

Now I have a decent amount of room above my intake fan since i only run 1 optical drive. And now theres room to feed a duct from the fan directly placing the air output over the HSF.

Now i just gotta go buy some dryer vent ducting and do some testing to see if me hacking up my case was worth it. Total time spend, about 20 minutes. I can also replace the tray if I ever have to, but I dont ever see myself doing that. I just dont have need for room to store 3 optical drives and 7 harddrives.

I will post pics later when I get home to give people an idea of what I am talking about.


Another good idea for this case to cut down on noise, is to remove the upper exhaust fan, and cover that and the back area next to the PCI cards with something heavy. I have both spots blocked off with a few layers of cardboard and i noticed a drop in audible noise. It will also help improve air flow direction without letting the air escape out of the case.

pix will help out alot

I will post the pictures up tonight after i get off work. I did not get time to add the duct this weekend, i was very busy. I will also do some before/after testing to see if its helps any.

currently i have the antec tri-cool fan that was in the lower bay current in the front intake slot. We will see how well that works, I have a few other 120s laying around to try as well.

after bay has been cut out

close up of bay cut out

test placement of duct

duct bent around for better direction of airflow

duct taped to fan with super adhesive duct tape

so pretty isnt it?

pics of duct installed



Overall, I havent had a chance to really test the results, but its not what i am looking for currently out of this mod. I think i need a higher powered fan since there is some restriction at the front of the p180. I am going to swap it out with my sanyo denki and put another 120 on the heatsink. The denki has a high static pressure and is designed for moving air through tight places. I think itll give me better results because the Antec tri-cool fan just isnt cutting it. I dont feel much airflow through the duct at all. I will swap the fan tomorrow and see if the results get better.

Ghetto air duct for teh win!

Personally, I find that a strategically cut 92 or 80mm hole on the side panel is like a thousand times easier and more effective and pretty.

It doesn't however, carry the "whoa WTF is that?" factor.

I think it would have been better to duct the heatsink to one of the exhaust vents, since this gives the video card a chance to get some fresh air too, and makes the duct shorter and simpler.

if i duct it to an exhaust vent, then the exhaust fan is going to pull the air out of the case while the heatsink fan tries to suck air in and blow it down. I have a few other ideas that i will tinker around with and see how they work.

Seems like that setup hogs all the cool air for the CPU and will not leave any for the graphics card. It wouldn't necessarily be bad if there was another intake fan, but that's the only one (at least on the top compartment).

lol, good mod. Not the prettiest but if it works gj

yeah the side fan blows mainly on the cpu but also on other stuff like ram and sometimes video cards if you position it in the right place.