Gateway Case

[thom]

I am going to build a new home computer. Presently, I have an outdated Pentium II Gateway. My first thought is to strip it out and use the old case. Is this feasible? Are there any parts that I can save for my new build.

Thanks,

Thom

[freakitchen]

It probably won't be feasible to use the Gateway case, brand computers often use proprietory parts making them incompatible with common ATX standards.

The only parts you'll be able to save from that system are likely to be the hard drive, and optical drives. That being said, you'll probably find that these are sufficiently outdated to warrant purchasing new.

I'd suggest starting completely afresh with your new build. If you have a list of parts, you can post them here for consideration.

Freakitchen

[Panama Red]

I've done it with a PIII GW case and it's a bit of a pain. The I/O area is riveted in place so you'll have to drill out the rivets and grind/cut that area to fit the new I/O shield in place. The power supply bolt pattern doesn't match standard ATX dimensions so you'll be modifiying that area to - more cutting/grinding. The front panel wiring on the GW case won't match up to the replacement motherboard wiring so you'll end up making individual wiring connections or fitting up ends from other cable sets. And finally, the GW case won't have provision for front panel USB's.

Is it worth it? Not to me. I wouldn't do it again. Much easier to just buy a qualtiy case and qualtiy power supply.

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by Thom I am going to build a new home computer. Presently, I have an outdated Pentium II Gateway. My first thought is to strip it out and use the old case. Is this feasible? Are there any parts that I can save for my new build.

There is a lot of potential in some of them, however there are beaucoup roadblocks. The i/o panel is among the easiest parts to fix. The Power Supply mounts are non- standard and harder to modify by far than opening up the i/o panel. The MB's for the most part are totally standard, so the connectors are standard, both for the front panel and from the power supply, and the mount holes for the MB are standard.

If the floppy or CD are inoperative, you can usually use the bezels from the Gateway CD to replace those on many of the branded CD-ROM and DVD drives. The floppies' front ends are not standard enough to swap around easily, however (in my most recent upgrade to such a box, I used a SECOND 3 1/2" external bay for a replacement floppy and left the existing broken one filling its own spot, with just a piece of wide clear plastic packing tape covering the slot to avoid confusion).

You won't have the option of building a high performance PC in a typical Gateway box, because the power supplies tend to be wimpy, and the replacement psu situation is awkward. The most simple replacements are mATX (micro size) psu's and SFX psu's. At present, the selections among smaller sized psu's are simply inadequate to support high performance! (Max 265 Watts from Enermax).

[MaxRat]

www.pricewatch.com 1000's of cases...it'll take the work outa work...

Listen to PR...we have both done it....not worth it for the headache and the return isn't what it should be....