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The Antec 300 Mod
Today I will show a little modification I made to an Antec 300 case.
I bought the case for a dedicated folding computer which is dedicated to our support of the Folding@Home Project.
There are several people we support with this project and are currently or their families are currently effected by cancer and/or related diseases.
On to the actual Mod.
First, the case.
I did a bit of research on the case and other cases.
This case was the best fit. I wanted at least one 5 1/4 drive bay or 3 if I can fit either a small radiator into it or can extend an existing radiotor. The Antec provides 3 bays but below it are two 120mm fan mounts.
The spacing, positioning and removability turned out to be a good match.
Here you can see the two fan mounts below the drive bays.
The fan screen has wide and large holes and needs little to no modification.
These make for good airflow and provide enough room to install a fan filter if you prefer.
I will be using a DangerDen 240 radiator for the Water-cooling setup.
This is were the fitting of the radiator comes in.
It is very difficult to determined ahead of time if a particular radiator will fit into a certain part of a computer case.
Most manufacturers do not make the particular measurements available to the public.
I did a little guestimation work on this. I actual took the exact measurements of the radiator and went to a store that had a Antec 300 on display.
It still was a close call but have a look.
In this picture you can also see the panel for the 3 1/2 mount bays which I had to remove to fit the radiator.
The panel is not screwed but bolt on. Those are very lightweight aluminum bolts that are pressed in place in a screw hole. A very inexpensive method to replace a more expensive but useful screw.
Time to bring out the Dremel. These bolts can fairly easily be drilled out. The material will give pretty easy but the angels can be a bit tricky.
This is what it looks like with the panels removed
Time to move in.
Unfortunately the hole spacing of the two fan mounts on the Antec and the hole spacing on the radiator are not perfectly lined up. Who would have expected? Antec obviously did not know of my plans.
Good enough, one fan mount will do. Lining up the radiator.
Mounting it.
I used an old fan as a shroud. I removed the blades etc.
Aaaand .. she's done.
Moving some of the rest of the parts.
This is a nice, easy and clean way to get water cooling for a decent mid range system.
The modification itself is not to complicated and could be accomplished by someone who is a little bit handy with tools and has knowledge of computer components.
The internal mounting also conceals the water cooling and makes the case appear just like any other case.
It also further helps to reduce the noise and makes this build near silent.
Enjoy and let me know what you think.