Antec Sonata II ATX Case Review
 

AMD or Intel; ATI or Nvidia; Water Cool or Air Cool; Huge heatsink or Normal size; it does not matter here; we are talking about a new Sonata II ATX case from Antec. Unless, you are one of those fanatics who doesn´t need a case at all. Armed with 1x120 mm fan and room for one more it comes with unique fan duct. Can Sonata II be a quiet case?

http://www.madshrimps.be/gotoartik.php?articID=351

had the same problem with the door , got a reaction from antec immediatly !

Great costumersupport !

They sent me the wrong replacement door - Sonata I with smaller intake opening:)

The steel pin (insert) works out much better :D plus my own fan duct.

slightly larger motherboard?
 

Hi there, I was curious if a slightly-larger than ATX (12" x 10.5") motherboard would fit into this lovely sounding case.
(Looking in particular at the Asus K8N-DL (I wouldn't need any of the off-the-side-connectors on it, so it could abutt against the drive cages))
many thanks!
j

I would not recommend this case to multi processors setup; the slightly wider width may not be the problem although I can't gurantee, the thermal output from dual processors and power supply as equiped steer me to look else way.

thermal concerns
 

Hey there--I knew that was going to be the first post, but didn't bother to post my issues last night because, well, I was rather tired after looking at lots of cases & cooling stuff.. :-)

So basically, I have an Iwill ZMaxDP with dual 246 HE (low power) opterons and it is lovely and nice but the noise has finally gotten to me--I don't particularly need the SFF--I got it because of the cool/dork factor, but I just am frustrated by the noise, so I wanted to move the processors to a slightly larger and quieter case.

Can anyone here recommend a better smallish case? I was thinking of Antec's P180, but it is slightly too large and somewhat overkill (I only have 2 drives)

fwiw, I'm not above trying & failing miserably at something--I finally managed to put a mini-pci scsi card into the ZMaxDP & route the scsi cable under the motherboard so I could have the PCI free for a dual-height video card blower :-)

The new P150 sits right in between the Sonata II and P180

http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=81500

it's also build for silence like the Sonata and P180, but it's larger then Sonata II yet smaller then P180

here's good review of the P150: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article272-page1.html

hmmm
 

hmm, white is the new black, huh? :-)
how silly.
at least it has the covers so my black dvd burner won't look horrible.

Anyway, the P150 does look better than the sonata ii as far as cooling goes.. slightly concerned again about the fitting of the board... anyone have one of these cases & can measure it? :-)

thanks for the pointer!
more suggestions are appreciated!

P150: "Supports up to Standard ATX motherboards(12” x 9.6”)"

server board is Extended ATX standard if I'm not mistaken.. maybe fire of your mainboard's dimensions to the sales department at Antec,

their Titan supports EATX
http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=91550

only slightly E-ATX!
 

it's definitely E-ATX, but only slightly! :-)
it's mostly the bottom half of the board that's over standard ATX... (it's supposed to be 10.5" (26.6cm) at the bottom)
From what I've read, I believe E-ATX is anything up to 12"x13" (30.5cm x 33cm) so they of course can't say that they fit E-ATX boards in normal cases, but they might be able to fit slightly-larger-than-standard-atx in, but not have a good way of saying it, as "slightly-larger-than-standard-atx" doesn't exactly roll off your tongue ;-)
I guess thing to do is wait a little bit & see if anyone has one they can measure & if not, buy it & have dremel at the ready

8-D <--safty goggles and mask
heehee

Jonathan

you come from Bit-Tech forums? ;)

not that I'm aware of.. I'm just strange & not afraid to break stuff with my lovely dremel. or hammer.
:-)

Re: only slightly E-ATX!
 

this is the reason I ask:



a smiley from their forums;)

oh! Lol! no, I just thought it was appropriate..

I am actaully really bad--I live in a carpeted apartment in manhattan and so generally just toss on some sturdy looking sunglasses & sit over the bathtub to catch all the metal filings. (and obviously trust to my good luck)

the 'mods gone wrong' on the bit-tech forums are hilarious! mine usually don't end quite so disaterously.. they just quietly stop working & get put farther back in the crammed closet.

That depends on which direction you apartment windows are facing and which floor you are on ...... you don't have to sit over the bathtub :D

Friend of mine lives on the 31st Floor Downtown Chicago, opening the window to do some cutting on a large window sill works out great :)

One question, I'm trying to install a Nexus 120mm fan on the front of my Antec Sonata II. This fan does not have open-thru holes like the one that was used for the review.

Where did you get those rubber band with knots? I'm trying to find a solution to mount this fan. It's not easy at all considering that it's very difficult to use the typical fan screws, and use a screwdriver. There is no enough space for that, and the more difficult to install, the more impossible it would be to take the screws out.

Please help, I'm stuck... Thank you!

Regular heavy duty rubber band :)

Tie one knot big enough so that it won't pass thru the hole; press the other end of the "cut rubber band" thru the hole, pull the rubber band so that the fan sit tight against the frame and tie a second knot, trim the excess afterward.

Glad I spent six years in the boyscout :D

Can I just run with no duct?
 

Good review. Wondering if you could please help out some more....

I have just purchased the Sonata 2 case.
The review recommends not using the duct. Can I just use the default fan and remove the duct?
Would this cause air to be sucked in through the unfiltered duct outlet?

I am putting in the following:
AMD Athlon 3700 Socket 939
ASUS A8N SLI Premium
250G HDD Seagate with 8mb Cache Leadtek Geforce 7800 GT PCI Express

Nothing is overclocked. What would be enough ventilation?
Should I just block the duct outlet and remove duct or use the duct?

hey there, glad you liked the review. If you are using your stock Athlon 64 cooling than you can safely remove the duct; the duct outlet would cause cool(er) air to come in for your 7800GT to be cooled down; the CPU area sits to high and is not affected by it. But I doubt if it'll make any major difference because of the small duct holes, odd positioning and low airflow in that area.

you could do a simple test by taping of the duct outlet and checking CPU/SouthBridge/Video Cards temperatures ([g]speedfan+download[/g] can do this easily for you) and then removing the tape and checking again.

make sure room temperature does not change a lot >2°C and stress your system/GPU at least for 1 hour after each change to allow temperatures to become stable and reach a maximum.

Just for kicks -

I volt modded a second handed R9800 pro.

With and without original air duct I found no difference; both situations did not yield the highest mem and core Oc'ed speed as to using my own Chill Vent with merely the 40mm fans.

The second R9800 pro with identical volt mod returned the same result although the settings were a bit different from two different cards rather than temp and air flow effect.

Door on Sonata II broke off here too, was not doing anything spectacular with it either.

My steel pin fix is still working okay :)
The wrong (Sonata I) replacement panel is sitting here.

I like it better without the door :)

slightly off-topic
 

Hey... I found this forum because I was looking for information on the ASUS K8N-DL motherboard with the Antect Sonata or Sonata II case... I just wanted to post to future netizens that I have started a wiki for K8N-DL information at http://tastytronic.net/k8ndlis/ ... I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds... but I also hope that future searchers will find this message and be directed onward.

Thanks for a great forum!

this would be a better place to submit good links:)
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=hwfaqaddlink

thanks
 

I didn't know about the HW FAQ... sorry.

Sonata II Question
 

After reading the review here for the Sonata II. I have a couple of questions. Are the fans that are to be installed inside the Air Duct supposed to be blowing onto the CPU and onto the Video Card or blowing away into the Air Duct and out the back. I think I read somewhere that the fans blow onto the devices. However, if that the case then the air comes in from the back of the case through the Air Duct. How is the problem of dust solved in that situation. Wouldn't dust be pulled in through the back of the AirDuct and blown right onto the CPU and video card? Right now I have the Antec Solution SLK3700-BQE which is pretty much like the Sonata II with a few differences such as no Air Duct, front Audio, etc. I had before considered getting the Sonata II but decided on the Solution. I want to be sure I made a sound choice. My final question is regarding the front Air Filter. In the Antec Solution case has the very thin filter that sits flush with the inside of the front bezel. However, the bottom of the has that crevice that one would think an air filter goes in there just how it seems to appear on the bottom of the Sonata II. Air flowing through that crevice completely bypasses that filter I mentioned before. Would it be possible to maybe get the air filter from the Sonata II and slip it into crevice of the Solution case. It looks like it might fit. I would appreciate any information. Thanks!

Re: Sonata II Question
 

hello and welcome to the forums :hello:

the optional fan you can install should suck air into the air duct and blow onto VGA/CPU

no dust filter there indeed, so dust would get into your case easily this way.


I would direct this question straight to Antec support, they are quite reponsive and can give a much more accurate answer, I've no experience with the case you bought.

Thanks for your reply. It looks like the Sonata II is not worth the trouble. It seems to me and feel free to correct me or what not, but it seems to me that the price you pay for silence is a lot of dust in your tower and the trouble of taking the Air Duct out cleaning it and it's fans, etc. LOL As for the air filter thing I will shoot an email to Antec Support to see what they say. Again, thanks for the welcome and information.

In our testing the air duct was actually counter productive... having little to no effect on overall temperatures, even increasing CPU temps.

After reading more reviews on the Sonata II, other people have also said the Air Duct was useless. I am planning to stick with my Antec Solution SLK3700-BQE. Like I mentioned before, its almost the same as the Sonata minus the Air Duct, front Audio, Front FireWire. I am now trying to find a good 120mm Case fan that does not have the onboard thermal control but will allow the motherboard to control the fan's RPMs.

for that 120mm fan you might find this useful : http://www.madshrimps.be/gotoartik.php?articID=421

I was looking the pix of the Sonata II in your review again and I have another question. Does the fan slot for the VGA fan in the air duct have a cover in case you choose not to use it. In other words, is what I saw in one of your pics a piece the closes the VGA fan slot off? I am still considering this case. However, if it is possible to close off the opening in the air duct in front of the video card. I would like to use the air duct as an exhaust air duct for the CPU instead of intake. Would that work?

if you remove the fan duct you are left with an opening in the back, Antec does not include a cover. A sticky piece of adhesive tape will take care of it though.

LOL, thanks for your reply. However, I don't believe you understood what I was asking about. I thought maybe my post wasn't typed clearly. Anyway, I was referring to the square piece you have to remove from the air duct itself for the VGA fan. I was wondering if there was a piece to remove or not because I wanted to use the air duct as a CPU exhaust duct only and didn't want the hot air blowing in on my video card. However, I saw that there is a piece to close of the 80mm slot in the air duct for a VGA fan. Now my thought was if I bought this case, I would like to use the air duct as an exhaust duct for the CPU only and not a intake duct. I was wondering if that would work.

That will be counter productive, that's why we did not test it the way you described. Because, the air sucking from the VGA card area will be sucked in by the CPU at the same time.