microATX board in ATX case

[Deathexplosion]

will it work or does ATX only work in ATX cases?i have an Aspire X-Dreamer II case.



<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Deathexplosion on 01/14/05 05:34 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Unolocogringo]

Most ATX cases will accept Micro-ATX boards. Just make sure you remove any stand-offs that do not line up with a screw hole in the board. And you will only be able to use the first few pci slots. The board will not rreach the bottom slots in the case.

I aint signing nothing!!!

 

[Crashman]

All ATX cases accept ATX, Micro ATX, Flex ATX, and Mini ITX boards. The later boards have increasingly fewer slots, which mean they mount with increasingly wasted space in the bottom of the case.

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[endyen]

Dont look on it as wasted space. It's a great place for that water cooling system, that most smaller boards really need.

 

[Crashman]

Uh, d00d, taking 3 slots off the bottom doesn't make a board run hotter, and the components they have to move up aren't very good heat producers.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[supremelawfirm]

I was in a hurry one day, because a bargain Systemax
from Office Depot failed during our move to a new office.

I had a new Antec SX-835-II case in waiting, and Fry's
Electronics was almost giving away the ASUS P4SGX-MX
microATX (~$45. as I recall). So, I salvaged what I
could from the failed Systemax (it was a power supply)
and got the new machine built in about 2 hours.

Yes, there are unused slots in the case, so I filled
one of those with a "slot fan" (way cool man!):
about $12 and 2 minutes to install: piece o' cake.

The 3 PCI slots now host: (1) Promise ATA/133
controller (2) Linksys Gigabit LAN adapter and
(3) Belkin combo card w/ 2 external USB 2.0 ports
and 2 external Firewire ports, plus 1 internal
port each.

Like other microATX mobos, this one has
on-board video, audio and 10/100 LAN.

The only hitch was that I had to "hot wire"
the Firewire cable from the front panel
to the standard female connector on the
Belkin card: with a conductivity tester and
a pin layout from Apple's website, it was
relatively easy to crimp male pins to
stripped wire, and connect those pins to
the corresponding female pins on the Antec
cable. (Hardest part was finding those pins!)

This Antec case is also cool because the
drive cage has an integrated 80mm fan bracket:
so, I put three HDs in that cage, and they're
all running fine. I also added a 4th HD
to a 5 1/4" bay, and I'm planning to add
the Antec drive cooler to that bay, because
it presently has no fan blowing directly
on that HD.

Last but not least, most recently I upgraded
to a Radeon 9200 AGP card from ATI, and after
upgrading all necessary drivers, this machine
has become my favorite: with Windows XP/Pro,
Intel P4 2.8GHz and 1GB Corsair PC2700 DDR333,
it's not only fast but ultra-reliable.

If you're on a budget, and you like to fiddle,
these smaller mobos can be fun and challenging.

I probably should not have bothered with the
"hot wiring" because the Belkin card already
comes with 2 external Firewire ports, and I
don't really need or use this machine for
Firewire connections anyway.

One success story to share with you folks.
Good luck!


Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library