How can I make it all fit?

[MJO]

Well I have a Aopen HQ08 case.
It is nice and big and I like it.
But now I have problems.

I purchased a new motherboard a Abit NF7-S, and it is wider than my old KT7A-Raid.
So I cannot use my drive cage in the bottom of the case then the drive push and/or break the ram modules.:scratch:
I also have to optical drives, a cd-rom and a writer.
Now I have no space in the front to move them up or down.
The cable is just long enough.
Then there are the three harddrives.
Well until now they have been sitting free around the case but I am going to a LAN party and I cannot have my drives rolling around inside the case.:)
There is of course the second drive cage above the PSU it has room for four hdd's, but there isn't a lot of room there because of the optical drives.
Right now I have mounted one of the drives up there with the sata connector.
Would it be the best to get a longer cable for the two other drives and move them up as well?
Or should I look into another way of fitting it all in the casing?

Hope to get some feedback from people with the same case and the same problem.

Btw: sorry for the lengthy post, hope I have made myself clear.

[TheLostSwede]

Is there a chance to move the harddrives to the lowest 5 1/4 slot and use long screws? Would the hd cable reach?
Or, just for the lan, can you just use one of those opticals and give more space for the harddrives?

[profdlp]

24" cables might help you out. I know they are too long for the IDE specification, but I've never had trouble using them.

Here's a picture, if anyone else has ideas.


Prof

[MJO]

I did find out that my Ghetto drive bay, or lack of a drive bay was no good in the long run.
It is to noisy without the casing and it gets very dusty.

I could remove one of my optical drives, that would be a temp solution.

At present my cable is too short but I think I will go get myself a 80cm round cable that should do the trick.

What really puzzles me is that this casing seems so big and then it is cramped inside.
How the heck do people get their wide NF7-S motherboards to fit?
Does everyone have enormous cases?:confused:

[MJO]

Thanks for the picture I will return shortly with a sketch.
I will mark where my drives are at present.

[MJO]

Here I am again.

This is a sorry excuse for a sketch but it will do.

Original placement=where the drives were before my upgrade.
Temp placement=the ghetto floating drivebay placed vertical.

I have also marked how wide the new motherboard is.
And the drives in the bay is pushing the ram modules.
Btw there is another problem with the upper bay, if I want to place a drive there so it is not in the way of the optical drives I have to place it a far to the back of the case as possible and then I cannot secure that cage with screws.

Here comes the worst sketch I have ever seen
:D

[profdlp]

...you have a fan in the bracket at the lower front of the case in the "temp placement" area?

If not, could you mount the drive bracket there vertically with the cable end of the drives pointing up (or down)? You could use small sheet metal screws to attach it. If you don't have a drill, there are what are called "self-tapping" screws which have a drill point built in. A little elbow grease and they'll go in with a regular screwdriver.

Does anyone remembers the old Compaq (yuck:shakehead ) super-small cases? They didn't have room to add ANY extra drives. I once mounted a second hard drive to the back of the case in a vertical arrangement. It actually looked cool.

The drives are designed to operate fine vertically. (Though not at any angle between 0 and 90 degrees.


Prof

[MJO]

Hmm I have a fan placed there.
But thanks for the advice I will consider it.

[OldDog]

Why not put the two opticals in the lowest 5 1/4" bays? They appear to be below the level of the hdd's so interference woundn"t be a problem. Long cables have never seemed to cause any problems in my experience, so with a little wire management you should be able to make it all fit.

[Kristof2]

I have the same case. I also had to take out teh lower drive cage as it would hit the RAM. It really does get crowded up top having the hard drives and CD and DVD so close. Sorry I don't have any great solutions for you.

Kristof2

[Geeky1]

3.5 -> 5.25" adapters/drive coolers etc.

Move the 2 optical drives to the 2 lowest 5.25" bays, and put the hdds in the other drive cage, starting with the topmost mounting point and working down. That way you'll have as much room as possible between the hdds and the cds

Also, get some rounded cables...

[Geeky1]

Oh, one other thing. This is ghetto beyond anything I've seen, but try this:

Get some cardboard. Make a "U" shaped thing that goes across the top of the drive and down either side to the screw holes. Screw the drive into the cardboard. Duct tape the whole assembly to the bottom/side of the case. problem solved. Ghetto as hell, but it should work. if you duct tape it to the side of the case, you may want to mount it facing down and put another piece in front to keep it from falling out. I have to leave for summer school in a few minutes, but when I get back, I'll post a sketch of what I mean (knew I got that 12x12" Wacom Intuos 2 tablet for something :rolleyes: :D) If I don't post it by like 8:00 PDT tonight, PM me and yell at me because I probably forgot :rolleyes:

[TheLostSwede]

MJO said
I did find out that my Ghetto drive bay, or lack of a drive bay was no good in the long run.
It is to noisy without the casing and it gets very dusty.

I could remove one of my optical drives, that would be a temp solution.

At present my cable is too short but I think I will go get myself a 80cm round cable that should do the trick.

What really puzzles me is that this casing seems so big and then it is cramped inside.
How the heck do people get their wide NF7-S motherboards to fit?
Does everyone have enormous cases?:confused:

Tell me about it! :shakehead

The Antec´s and Chieftec´s are just the same. Big and massive but cramped like Bente´s shoes inside. I had a midtower Coolermaster Aluminum before and it actually felt bigger inside sort of. It was much deeper. I want a Lian-Li 70 or whatever it´s called.

[TheSmJ]

I have a SOHO Antec case and an NF7-s. While the HDD does sit very close to the DIMMs, all 5.25" drives are removed from the front of the case by means of rails. The 3.5" bays themselves are removed with latches, making the need to install/remove a hard drive or floppy drive pointless -and impossible- as the bays themselves are removed vertically from the mobo.

Here's my case. You can see the latches used for removing the bays.

[TheLostSwede]

I have the slightly bigger Antec and as you can see, its cramped even if i have removed 2 of the harddrive cages and even drilled out the rails for them:

http://www.mackanz.com/cramped1.jpg

http://www.mackanz.com/cramped2.jpg

I want to move the harddrives up to the 5 1/4 slots but i haven´t found any cheap sollution yet.

[TheSmJ]

Well damn... Mine looks nothing like that in terms of clutter.. although I only have one HDD, and use air cooling.

It's starting to seem like computers are "outgrowing" the current ATX spec. What if mobo's had a daughterboard w/ all the floppy/HDD drive connections, that could be mounted close to the top of the case? It would be connected to the mobo itself by a very well shielded, long cable. as it could be mounted near the top of these large cases, these cabling issues would be gone.

[profdlp]

TheSmJ said
Well damn... Mine looks nothing like that in terms of clutter.. although I only have one HDD, and use air cooling.

It's starting to seem like computers are "outgrowing" the current ATX spec. What if mobo's had a daughterboard w/ all the floppy/HDD drive connections, that could be mounted close to the top of the case? It would be connected to the mobo itself by a very well shielded, long cable. as it could be mounted near the top of these large cases, these cabling issues would be gone.

I think most of the members of S-M (and geeks in general) would like to see things of this sort. The only hitch I see at present would be that the general trend seems to be toward smaller cases.

I would love to see both ideas (bigger & smaller cases) grow in popularity.


Prof

[TheLostSwede]

TheSmJ said
Well damn... Mine looks nothing like that in terms of clutter.. although I only have one HDD, and use air cooling.

It's starting to seem like computers are "outgrowing" the current ATX spec. What if mobo's had a daughterboard w/ all the floppy/HDD drive connections, that could be mounted close to the top of the case? It would be connected to the mobo itself by a very well shielded, long cable. as it could be mounted near the top of these large cases, these cabling issues would be gone.

The clutter is mainly because the darn SATA adaptors.
1 big cable would be near impossible, it would have to be as shielded as San Quentin and you wouldnt be able to route a cable like that. Thats where i see the big problem. If the cables from the psu would be twice as long, we could route them around inside the case and hide them that way to make it more efficient.
Anybody know if making the cables longer somehow makes the voltages worse? That could be an idea otherwise. Just use sugarcubes to make the cables longer. Piece of pai.

[TheSmJ]

As long as the wires you were to lengthen used a gauge equal to, or larger than the existing cables, the voltages will stay just as they are now. Someone a while back figured out a nifty way to solder connectors to all of his PSU cables, that way when he didn’t need a string of cables, he'd just remove them. I'd imagine that extension cables could be made in the same manner.

As far as a cable connecting such a daughter board, with advances in cable technology, a well-shielded, acceptably flexible cable could be possible. It could also be two or three smaller cables rather than one large, rigid one.

[TheLostSwede]

I hope you are right with a "uni" cable. That would make life a lot easier.
Thanks for the tip!

[OldDog]

While DC voltages drop faster with wire length than AC, which is why your utility power is AC, you'd have to put your drives in the next room before you had any noticable voltage drop. If you truly want to have removable power harnesses, why not install a set of molex connectors close to the power supply so that you can unplug any unused harnesses and reinstall them later if you need them. If you keep the connectors close to the power supply they'll go unnoticed in the upper portion of the case.

[profdlp]

OldDog said
...you'd have to put your drives in the next room before you had any noticable voltage drop.

Now that you've said that, how long do you think it'll be before someone tries it?:vimp:


Prof

[Geeky1]

30 seconds. tops.

[Geeky1]

How to mount your hard drive ghetto-style, part 1

The <strike>prisoner</strike> err, I mean <i>volunteer</i> and the cardboard

[Geeky1]

part 2

[Geeky1]

part 3

[Geeky1]

Taped down. You could tape it down to the bottom of your case, using duct tape. I didn't have any duct tape sitting around, so I used masking tape instead.

[Geeky1]

Extensive testing went into the development of this fine product. Use at your own risk. Levitating drive with screwdriver not recommended. Void where prohibited. Chances of winning are approximately 1 in 100,000,000,000. I like cheese.

:D ;D ;D

[Geeky1]

No comment huh guys?

[MJO]

That is ghetto allright.

Great stuff :D

Dunno how durable it is though?

But it sure passed the screwdriver test. :rolleyes2

I will take it into consideration if everything else fails ;)

[profdlp]

I think everyone was just too amazed to say anything.

Ghetto, yes. But if it works, it works. Doesn't take any money, and not much time!


Prof

[OldDog]

Duct tape and cardboard sure don't dissipate heat very well, but I guess heat is a bigger problem here in sunny So. Cal. where it's blazing! Not quite sure why you need the cardboard if you're going to tape to the bottom of case?

[profdlp]

OldDog said
Duct tape and cardboard sure don't dissipate heat very well, but I guess heat is a bigger problem here in sunny So. Cal. where it's blazing! Not quite sure why you need the cardboard if you're going to tape to the bottom of case?

I guess the cardboard keeps the adhesive tape from getting the drive all sticky. Brings new meaning to the phrase "Let me stick another drive in there".:p



Prof

[Geeky1]

I guess the cardboard keeps the adhesive tape from getting the drive all sticky. Brings new meaning to the phrase "Let me stick another drive in there".

Yup. Right on both points.

OldDog; for a temporary solution, if it were taped to a metal surface, it should be ok. If nothing else, you could always tape a fan in front of it or something...

[j]

I would not use the card board, for static reasons. Use an anti-static bag. But cool idea