Yes you can fit a full-size ATX motherboard into an AT case
I guess normal people don’t spend their time doing this kind of thing but you know I had an old desktop case which was for an AT motherboard and I wanted to make myself a new web server and a tower case would be too big to fit into my server cupboard. So the old desktop case went under the knife - a power jigsaw that is, with a metal cutting blade.
After butchering the back panel, I neatened it up a bit with a hand-held hacksaw blade and a metal file. After that, I vacuumed the case out thoroughly to make sure there were no metal shavings inside.
As you can see, the bigger motherboard fits now. Removing a large chunk of the back panel allows the connectors for the keyboard and other ports to be accessible.
Unfortunately, the CPU cooler sticks up too high so I could not fit in the PSU. However, I am a computer nerd and always have plenty of odd spare parts lying about such as a Micro-ATX PSU which fitted in just nicely after I drilled a few new mounting holes.
Once I put in the hard drive, CD-ROM, PCI cards and everything, the box is getting rather full but it does all fit.
And here it is in my server room - uh, I mean server cupboard. It’s running a PIII 667 overclocked to 750MHz with 384MB of RAM and a 250GB hard disk. Debian Linux of course (if you have been reading my blog, you must realise by now its my favourite OS). And it is all working great. After all, it has just served this web page to you!
Now all I need to do is enter the new machine into the Linux Counter.
nice job, you look quite dangerous with that tool :-), i am doing the same thing, and your page is inspirational !
Great job dude!!
Thanks for posting your work here and let us access it =D this is a great contribution for a work i’m running right now, in fact I’m just snapping out of my disappointment after finding out that no holes from the AT case would fit the ATX Board…
However I’m still wondering how’d you fit the insides, I’d be glad if you cuold mail me or post here some shots of that :)
thanks again and hope to hear from you soon
Carlos E. // El_Dark // HardModding.cl member
heh.. forgot to quote bleskone :) you look quite Psycho’ish with the hacksaw in your hands and that look in your face =P
The motherboard fit OK except some of the screw holes were not in the right spot so I glued a block of rubber under the board at each corner. You might just be able to see one of these in the photos above. Enough of the holes were in the right place so the board was mounted securely.
I couldn’t use the bottom drive slot because the motherboard came across too far but my biggest problem was the power supply, it was right in the way. I ended up replacing it with a Micro-ATX power supply because that was much smaller. Even then it was a tight fit!
Yes, I do like my power tools.
These are all the photos I have. I don’t have this machine anymore, at least not all of it. As is my nature, I pulled it apart a few months later and made something else with the bits. I can’t remember what happened to that case, I think I put a different motherboard in it and gave it away to someone. That’s just the kind of thing I do, some people like to collect stamps or polish their car all weekend, I like to pull computers apart.