Antec Mini P180 Very stylish MicroATX enclosure.

Author: Jouni 'Jipa' Vasama Published: 26.03.2008 Manufacturer: Antec Product Group: Computer case In English Suomeksi

Intenal Layout

Everyone who's familiar with the original P180 layout will be familiar with the internals of the Mini as well. The case is still separated in two chambers, the top one houses the motherboard and all the hard disks, whereas the bottom chamber now only has room for the power supply and two 5,25" drives. In the new design, with all the hard disks in the top chamber, only the top chamber has extra ventilation. Power supply now has to pull its own air through the dust filter in the bottom of the case. This should work well with normal power supplies, but passive ones may not like this configuration.

From this image, with the drive cages removed, it's easier to see how the air travels through the case. There are two dust-filtered 120 mm ventilation holes in front of both HDD-cages, one 120 mm fan in the back, and a huge 200 mm fan on the top. The latter will move huge amounts of air even at low RPM, so it is an ideal choice for a quiet system. Most likely no extra cooling will be needed, but there is still room for two optional 120 mm fans behind the front panel. Adding those will mean removing the HDD-cages and sacrificing either two or three HDD-bays.

With the right side panel removed one can see the great cable management system of the Mini. This way of routing cables behind the mothetboard tray was first introduced in the P182 model and I'm glad to see Antec also used it with the Mini. Routing the power- and other cables behind the tray makes changing the hardware a lot easier and also allows better airflow through the case. The P1xx-series cases don't come with pre-modified window kits, but for a true enthusiast it still matters how the internals of his/her PC are assembled. From the image one can also see the small box behind the lower drive cage that can be used for screws, cable ties and other small things that otherwise are all too easy to lose.

Slight quality issue...

Our test sample had a nasty little flaw right out of the box. It seems there's been a slight mishap on the assembly line, and the composite side panel hasn't been put together properly. A small bulge like this is an unfortunate surprise and atleast the one in the image proved to be hard to repair afterwards.

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