OT But WTH Computer cases

I have put stuff in cases that were pretty strange. The buttons on the front are just switches but the headers may be different. If they are discrete wires in a Molex, you can pop them out and move them around. If it is ribbons, you are pretty much stuck with the layout you have unless you want to get creative. The other thing is the format of the board itself. A lot of time all of the screw holes will not line up when the card slots do. If you can get a few going that is usually enough as long as you understand where you need support and are careful plugging in the cards. I insulate any spots on the case that might hit the board in a bad spot. Most power supplies are pretty much plug and play. The other thing is older cases may not have enough cooling. I have one of those indoor/outdoor thermometers with the remote probe. Put that probe in various places, button it up and run the toughest program you have for an hour or so to be sure you don't have any hot spots. Particularly look at the video chips and drive bays. I stuff a fan in any hole that looks like it will take one and then make sure everything is cool.

On Wed 24 May 2017 08:23:42p, told us...

For years I amassed a collection of computer parts, cases, etc., as I had always bought new computers. The last two computers were those I built from the ground up. When I was going through my storehouse of parts and cases, it occurred to me that I was spending a considerable amount of money on virtuallyy every part because next to nothing was current enough to utilize the latest technology. Most new cases don't really cosr that much, and with all the new equipment I was adding, it didn't make sense to me to try to stuff it in an old box that may or may not be the perfect match or fit, so housecleaning was my answer to junking everthing I'd been storing for years, including the cases. The result for both of the new ones I built was that they were absolutely brand new and I wasn't having to "make do" with something I might regret. For me it made complete sense to spend the money up front for everything.

Of course, some people like to tinker to the inth degree just to prove that they can.

to work.

Unless building for a high end gaming or video edditing computer, you are wasting time and money fooling with the old stuff. Most likely the power supply will not work with the newer mother boards. Then you have to buy the operating system.

Insted of building the computers, I look on ebay for the ones that are refurbished and sell for around $ 150. They are powerful enough to do most work. The will have the operating system on the hard drive. Usually with a CD that has the operating system so they can be restored if need be.

I have been involves to some extent with the computers from the time before the so called IBM/Micorsoft computers. Used to build the computers, but found that for my usage the used ones are plenty for what I do as I do not do games so to speak of.

As being a packrat,I still have a few 3 and 5 inch floppy drives around. I do have a couple of laptops with dos6.2 and WFWG on them , but they are mainly to program some old equipment that newer/faster computers will not program.

When you're done building a new computer with old parts, you'll still have an old computer.

I suppose if you have a need for an old technology computer it might make sense but otherwise, what's the point?

So because I used an old case for my new computer - new motherboard , RAM , CPU , hard drive , optical drive , and power supply - that makes it "old technology" ? Guess again Binky .

I too have a pile of old network cards , video cards , etc . I did toss almost all of the modem cards though , the time for hooking a telephone line to the computer is over ... and for now only 2 of the 7 devices we have that use an internet connection actually have a wired connection , everything else is running on wifi . And since the wifi connections now are faster than the wired , I'm considering putting cards in the last 2 desktop comps too .

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Snag

I do occasionally have use for modem, although I do throw out the controllerless modems ("Winmodems") and just keep the real RS232 modems.

Are you sure it's faster? Did you do tests? WiFi claims higher speeds, but the actual speed is much less. Also, wired is simpler and more reliable. I find that WiFi doesn't make sense in a device that stays in one place.

Well , I'm basing that on what I see when I look at the connection status . Is that not accurate ? I guess it's not really all that important to have a 300 mb/sec intranet connection when my ISP only supplies 10 Mb/s . It does make a difference with comp to comp transfers though ...

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Snag

When you have to run a cable through three room and a floor it makes a lot of sense.

I lot of that depends on planning. I am a "wire" guy and every time I have a wall open or any other opportunity I run some 3/4" smurf tube to a convenient spot in the attic. Running wire becomes trivial after that. I am currently pulling out some somewhat obsolete stuff and replacing it with more modern stuff. I have WiFi here for my guests but it is firewalled from my wired network.

I threw away four 3 1/2 floppy's that don't work. A few years ago I threw away some 5 1/4 floppy's, and a working 8086 Tandy computer and monitor that I wish I'd kept and tried to sell on eBay.

When I took my old standby 500 MHz computer out of moth balls and plugged it in, the power supply blew out, so I grabbed another old power supply I've been saving, and used it.

I went ahead and ordered an ATX mid tower case and new power supply for the one I'm building.

There are SO MANY motherboards and processors to choose from, it's difficult to choose. I'm probably going to get an octa core, so I'll have plenty of power to run virtual machines, and get at least 8 gigs memory. Amazon has some good charts that tell how fast the processors are, but eBay has better pictures of motherboards. I was only planning to use an AMD processor, but have started looking at Intel, so that gives me lots more options. Some quad core processors have eight threads, and some octa core have eight threads, and some have sixteen threads. I want a full ATX motherboard with lots of expansion slots, even if I end up never using all of them.

There are lots of micro ATX motherboards that don't even have one expansion slot. Now motherboards are coming out with USB 3.1.

Oh well, I'm not going to rush into anything, and make sure I get what I want, even if it takes a couple of months.

No, it isn't, especially with WiFi. You need to actually test it. What you actually get depends on several things, including other nearby networks. IIRC, the WiFi connection is half duplex too (bandwidth is shared between upstream and downstream).

I have 50Mbps internet, and a WiFi-connected PC that showed a 72Mbps

Wired ethernet can use a much greater part of the advertised speed.

I'm frequently transferring large video files, as well as Linux and Windows DVD images.