For anyone with an Antec P180 or 182 case, if you notice
your video card and CPU temperatures increasing, it's
most likely time to clean the upper filter, especially if
you have an extra fan in the middle drive bay. The
filter may not look very dirty, but it will have an affect
on temps. A good check is to remove the filter and
watch the temps. The lower filter does not get as dirty
if that fan is set at lowest speed.

On Sun, 24 Feb 2008 11:41:52 -0500, "Ian D"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>For anyone with an Antec P180 or 182 case, if you notice
>your video card and CPU temperatures increasing, it's
>most likely time to clean the upper filter, especially if
>you have an extra fan in the middle drive bay. The
>filter may not look very dirty, but it will have an affect
>on temps. A good check is to remove the filter and
>watch the temps. The lower filter does not get as dirty
>if that fan is set at lowest speed.
>


This is good to know, and one of the caveats of having a
filtered system in that you have to either clean the filters
on a regular basis (per environment, pollution) or set up
the system such that it has more cooling margin, moves more
air through it than necessary when the filters are clean so
it's still moving enough once they start getting
progressively more clogged.

Frankly the thing I find most dissappointing about most
filtered cases is that the filter area is insufficiently
small and thus impedes airflow quite a lot even when they're
clean. On other cases with more filter area they often use
several filters and it becomes more laborious to remove and
clean them all. One solution I found was to take a case
with a large unchambered inner cavity, cut out the intake
for more area, and install a generic filter panel I found
cheap (meant for window A/C units) at the local hardware
store. By having a second panel I can pull one panel and
install the second clean panel without having the
(fileserver) down while the /other/ filter is being cleaned
and drying.
http://69.36.166.207/usr_1034/filtered/

"kony" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Sun, 24 Feb 2008 11:41:52 -0500, "Ian D"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>For anyone with an Antec P180 or 182 case, if you notice
>>your video card and CPU temperatures increasing, it's
>>most likely time to clean the upper filter, especially if
>>you have an extra fan in the middle drive bay. The
>>filter may not look very dirty, but it will have an affect
>>on temps. A good check is to remove the filter and
>>watch the temps. The lower filter does not get as dirty
>>if that fan is set at lowest speed.
>>
>
>
> This is good to know, and one of the caveats of having a
> filtered system in that you have to either clean the filters
> on a regular basis (per environment, pollution) or set up
> the system such that it has more cooling margin, moves more
> air through it than necessary when the filters are clean so
> it's still moving enough once they start getting
> progressively more clogged.
>
> Frankly the thing I find most dissappointing about most
> filtered cases is that the filter area is insufficiently
> small and thus impedes airflow quite a lot even when they're
> clean. On other cases with more filter area they often use
> several filters and it becomes more laborious to remove and
> clean them all. One solution I found was to take a case
> with a large unchambered inner cavity, cut out the intake
> for more area, and install a generic filter panel I found
> cheap (meant for window A/C units) at the local hardware
> store. By having a second panel I can pull one panel and
> install the second clean panel without having the
> (fileserver) down while the /other/ filter is being cleaned
> and drying.
> http://69.36.166.207/usr_1034/filtered/

I found that with my Antec P182, removing the upper filter
when it's clean reduces my video card temp by about 4*C.
There's only a 1*C reduction on my CPU cores. However,
I would rather have a slightly warmer filtered system than
having to frequently unclog cooler fins and fans of dust
that could cause more serious cooling issues. Even with
the filters, some dust does sneak in. Living in an apartment
with wall to wall carpeting doesn't help. I have a desktop
electrostatic air cleaner which does help to a degree.
Another sort-of advantage of the air duster is that I
can't hear my system fans or drives when it's running,
and you don't notice it after a while.

I am pretty happy with my P180 and the MB temp is down to like 25c. My old
case, it was about 32c.

The inside of the case stays pretty clean but I was surprised to see the top
fan blades had dust on them. The fan blows air out and one would think the
blades would stay pretty clean.

Overall though, the case gets an 'A' in my book.

--g

Hmm. Good to know. I just built a lab of 11 of them.
How often do you need to do that ? Environ is fairly
clean here, and boxes are up on desks.

johns

"johns" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:2b6b6edc-5f73-405e-8c21-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hmm. Good to know. I just built a lab of 11 of them.
> How often do you need to do that ? Environ is fairly
> clean here, and boxes are up on desks.
>
> johns

It's easy to tell. Just open the door and look at the
grilles. If there's much dust in the grooves, check
the filter. The grille sort of acts as a pre-filter.
Also, the dust buildup will be faster if you have a fan
installed immediately behind the upper filter, but it's
still fairly slow. I've cleaned my filter 3 times in the
past year, and it was only partially clogged each time,
although I was a little tardy in the last cleaning, and
that's when I noticed the rise in system idle video
and CPU temps.

It's not a big issue in a clean environment, but anything
to keep the temps down helps.

ID

On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:22:59 -0800 (PST), johns
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hmm. Good to know. I just built a lab of 11 of them.
>How often do you need to do that ? Environ is fairly
>clean here, and boxes are up on desks.
>
>johns

How often they need cleaned will vary with the following:

Dust level in the environment
Situation of the systems in the room
Heat level, what parts are in the box vs cooling as replated
to the margin until parts overheat
Amount of airflow at any particlar % flow blockage, margin
until parts overheat
Acceptible noise level (when fans are thermally controlled)

It's not necessary to clean them the moment they start
having a little dust on them, but better to be conservative
and clean once the temp goes up more than a few degrees
(assuming room temp is a constant).