Fitting a H100i into an Antec 1200 V3 perfectly (for me anyway)

[danno81]

So, having moved very quickly from air cooling on my new build to an H100i I had to find a way of installing it correctly in the Antec 1200 V3. I have it installed now and couldn't be happier with it. It's in a push/pull setup with the case fans pushing and the H100i fans pulling.

For those who own or have seen a 1200 case in action may know it's not really H100(i) friendly, however having banished my spindle drives from the system I can now easily mount the rad against the front fans. This has the added benefit of being positioned against the air intakes instead of the outlet fans, making the effective ambient temp the radiator is working with much lower than the air taken from the case. Importantly there is no longer anything covering the 1st PCI-E x16 slot which was preventing me from running anything in SLI.

For the first week I mounted the radiator against the rear fans, this caused the bottom of the rad to cover the 1st PCI-E slot leaving me with little space. It was also against the left most RAM module which is not good. I though long and hard about what to do, considering taking a Dremel to the case and mounting the rad on the back I decided to try it another way. Pics below before and after.

The mess that was the pre-water loop setup:


Steps to mount this (sorry, not many step by step pics as I was in flow and powering through my build):
- Remove all hard drives from their bays
- Locate boot drive to the top of the case, you can fit 3 devices here so 1 optical and up to 2 hdds. You may be able to pile lots of SSDs out of sight here though if you wish
- Now tackle the 3 x 3 HDD bays. For each one:
- Remove HDD bay and then unpin the fan cables from the HDD housing by bending the metal clasps back (should be obvious how)
- Seperate the drive housing completely from the front fan/grill assembly
- Take the opportunity to vacuum and clean the dust from the fan and filter
- Now I mounted the H100i to the centre fan assembly. To do this I:
- Moved the 2 diagonal screws to the other corners in the fan assembly (you need to do this or the next step may damage the fan control dial)
- Remove the dust filter and top and bottom grill and with the Antec supplied fan securely attached to the assembly drill out the 2 unused fan holes from the front so they’re big enough to fit the H100i supplied “long” screws in the widened holes
- The long screws will now fit far enough through to reach the radiator so you can securely mount it against the middle front fan assembly. Do this by mounting this fan to the top position on the radiator and it will be secure inside the case once put in.
- Now fit the middle fan assembly to the middle position with the H100i attached, using the bottom fan assembly underneath to make sure the spacing is correct.
- Push the air filter back in (due to the screw heads it may take some force and wiggling but it will go back over the screw heads)
- Screw the assembly in with the standard case thumb screws. There are pre drilled holes Antec have kindly put on the assembly with corresponding holes on the chassis. Secure with 2 screws each side
- Now install the top and bottom assemblies with thumb screws in the same way and you’re done with mounting! Now cable tidy, attach block to CPU, finish your build and you’re ready to go.

Removed hard drive housing with H100i mounted to the centre fan (can just about see it inside the case):


H100i from the inside:


Finally neat, tidy and complete (just waiting for a couple of 780 when released):


I hope this can help someone out who's struggling with a similar thing. Comments and questions, as always, are very welcome.

Thanks,

Dan.

[Chino]

Worksmanship at its best. 🙂

[Retired]

Yes, thats the way to go..

Still Antec is marketing wacky/poor solutions on many of their products........

[danno81]

I was surprised how little allowance there was for fitting something like this in a case of this size. Wherever it went something had to be sacrificed, in this build I finally decided it was the HDD bays. I've had enough of spindle drives in my PC anyway so I'd already decided to remove them. For other people with more than 3 drives in total this may not be a solution.

I guess this case is stuck in the past, which is a shame as I like the look. It goes well with my other electronics so I want to keep it. It should be fine as it is now though, I won't be changing the core hardware until +2 generations (3-4 years hopefully). If something amazing happens and there's a new, compatible and awesome 2011 chip I may consider it but the mobo is staying put for a while. Otherwise GPU's are my only near future upgrades.

In 3 years I will be in the market for a new case then. Assuming the tablet world hasn't made our PC hobby somewhere on the way to obsolete (I doubt it, but it's a back of the mind concern for me).

[movieman03]

Well...

I am not getting a H100i, but if I do I know where it will go in my Antec 1200!!

I just removed the cages and now I sit in the high 20's compared to low 30's. I cannot believe I got 5C drop!!!!



blue is Intel i7 970 Venomous X
red is AMD 7970 Accelerro Xtreme

Amazing!!!!


Thank you again

[movieman03]

970 is stock currently
7970 is OC a little

[danno81]

Hi Movieman,

Glad my post helped out. I guess it can be surprising the airflow benefits you can achieve by removing even some of the smallest obstructions.

5C is a decent drop. Good stuff 🙂

[n113]

your Silverstone 1500w are BEAST dude !!! very nice...

[Alan]

Hey Dan,

Very nice indeed mate.

I mounted my Antec 920 to the front of mine too (You can see the fan on my radiator next to the PSU) )but now also have a similiar problem as I'm going to use a
Antec 1220. I've recently decided to go for an alternative (but very difficult) strategy for a couple of reasons...

Later in the future I'm planning to use a custom watercooled solution for my GPU, with a dual bay reservoir at the front and the radiator on the exterior rear of the computer. In order for me to keep my other 2x3 drive bays I've decided that I'll top mount the
Antec 1220 beneath the big boy fan.

Unfortunately our case doesnt have the right screw holes to fit either of our coolers to the top so I'll have to remove everything, drill the holes in, reverse all the fans (except the side GPU Fan) and then put everything back, including the new cooler. I thought its going to be a perfect time to tidy/hide any wires too which are left on display. Here is mine as it looks now - sorry about the glare, it was quite dark when I took it.


Its a big ol' job but it wont be expensive to do the main part 1 🙂

[danno81]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the reply, it looks like you've basically done almost the same as I did with the radiator placement, except it's further inside the case (if I've got that right?). That area's the most logical place to put it in that case I think, as long as you don't need the drive space.

The lens flares give the pic a J. J.Abrams new enterprise bridge sort of feel to them.

I’m going to go into story mode now:

In terms of drilling holes in the case; I recently cut a hole in the bottom of the case and added feet so I could turn my PSU upside down and draw air from underneath the raised case instead of from the inside. It was harder than I expected as the sheet steel of the 1200 is a devil (as is probably any sheet steel)! I started with a 120mm hole saw which would have been perfect, but the center drill bit sheered while drilling sending the drill skimming uncontrollably across the bottom of the inside of the case. I ended up using a vibrational cutter (like a Dremel) and cut a 120mm-ish hexagony-esk shape. I then rounded off several metal drilling drill bits trying to make screw holes for the fan filter I was attaching and for the feet. I only made one successful hole and used 3 bits doing it.

In the end I super-glued the fan cover over the new PSU hole using a single bolt in the successful hole and used a 2 part metal epoxy to attach the aluminium feet. It was a work around, but the result works functionally.

My drill bits were Bosch ones for drilling into metal and the hole saw was this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Diameter-Bimetal-Cutter-Cutting-Holesaw/dp/B006Z4I73W

I mangled the hell of the bottom of my case trying to do it, but at least no one will see it unless they turn it upside down or take out the PSU!

It may be the quality of the bits that prevented me from doing it properly plus the fact that it's made out of steel. The bits are probably better with non-ferrous metals. My experience tells me, if you're doing anything that involves cutting into or drilling into the 1200, make sure you have something rated for steel!

Unfortunately I don't have photos of me doing the job, but I’d happily take snaps of the bottom when I get home this evening if you’re interested in seeing it?

To add to my original post. I did put the 2x 780 GTXs into the system as I had planned (I spend 4 months with 3x 7970 1ghz, but I’m happier now I’m back with nVidia and their nice 3D monitor support and SLI seems better than xfire, although it's somewhat subjective)

It’s another long post from me! 🙂