Motherboard mounting

[DemonEater]

I'm starting out building a totally custom case, and I'm trying to solve a few issues.

The first is how to mount the motherboard, and support the AGP/PCI cards. The easiest way is probably to find a removable motherboard tray that has the expansion card slots attached like on my old Inwin A500. So I need to track down a case that has a tray that's not much bigger than an ATX motherboard itself, because the size of the tray would dictate the size of the rest of the case. Any suggestions for a case that fits this bill? Or better, somewhere that sells a tray like this seperately for cheap?

Or even, an alternate solution?

Ta,

- Demon

 

[mosin]

I have an old case that fits the bill, but I don't know the brand. Maybe you could start a WTB thread at the for sale/trade forum, and someone might respond. Such an animal does exist. One like mine should go cheap, too. It is most likely circa 1998-99. Mine houses my backup rig, so it isn't up for grabs yet.

 

[xonik]

The way I see it, you have two options if you want to go the easy way:

1. Find a cheap case, and cut out the motherboard tray and back panel. This would probably be the cheapest way.
2. Addtronics and Lian-Li (there may be others) offer their motherboard trays and backplanes for sale at various retailers. Here are a couple of links to get you started:

http://www.addtronics.com/parts.htm
http://www.silverpcs.com/product/CA_LIANLI_MD_TRAY

 

[R@Mo]

Check out this thread.

 

[cybertron]

Check out this thread.

wow i love that rod idea, wonder how i could make that work for 3 drives in the same setup

 

[DemonEater]

Check out this thread.

That'd be awesome if the poor guy's photobucket bandwidth wasn't exceeded for the day. I'll look again tonight I suppose.

Also, I found that Linkworld makes uber-cheap ($13 from newegg without PSU) cases with removable trays... I can't tell from the pics if the backplane is attached or at least removable, though.

Thanks for your suggestions everyone, keep 'em coming