Power Supply Case Mod

Introduction

A few months back, I was faced with a strange predicament! This was before had gotten that Digital Camera, but I decided to tell you about it since we have one now! Let me start from the beginning...

A friend of mine, lets call him "Billy Bob" (Gotta change names to protect the innocent!), Well Billy Bob was building a computer, but Billy, well how should I put this_ Billy is Cheap! And after he got all these nice parts, he didn't want to shell out the dough for a new ATX case, "HOWEVER!" he said very loudly with a cocky grin on his face and his finger pointed upward triumphantly... "I do have an old Mini Tower AT Case!!"

Being very Perplexed, I asked Billy boy how he planned on fitting that ATX motherboard AND the Power Supply into his old AT case, he simply replied... "Your the one with the know-how!"

Thus began yet another adventure into the PC frontier!

Motherboard Installation

The first thing that needed to be accomplished was to get the ATX motherboard into the AT case. This poses problems as most of you know because the old AT cases had no need for Boilerplates and didn't come with them. Instead the ports were on cables coming off the motherboard and screwed into place in holes on the case, or they would have a mounting bracket so that they could take up a slot, and rob you of an ISA.

What I did was cut the back of the case out a bit so that the connections on the motherboard would be able to be seen from outside the case. You can see this in the picture below.

Here is a clean view!

I placed the cardboard there so that curious hands don't put fingers in their and hurt anything! Hey, kids are always around here!

Here you can see where I cut

That part wasn't too hard. Just make sure you have your trusty Tin snips within reach, and make sure there aren't any PC components around, such as the motherboard... the shavings from the cutting has the potential to be dangerous to them!

Power Supply Installation

The Power Supply posed a new problem! It wouldn't fit! There were no two ways about it, It wouldn't be able to fit in the case! At least, not where it's supposed to fit.

I toyed with the idea of duct taping the PSU to the top of the case and just cutting a hole in the cover for the wires. Although it would work, it was not quite as stylish as I was hoping to be!

That's when I had a brainstorm! The 5 1/4 inch bays were the same height as the PSU! Hmmm... Will it fit_ Try as I might the bay's weren't wide enough for the PSU, but only by a very tiny bit! I decided this was the way to go! I had to make it fit, so out with the trusty tin snips again, and I hacked away a bit at the bays so that I could bend them out, and then I shoved that PSU in there good and tight like you see in the picture below!

A nice front view