5 yr old uATX case compatible with current mobos?

[EddyKilowatt]

I have a 5 year old HP D5100 Core2/Yorkdale system that I've nursed along with memory and disk upgrades, but it's finally showing signs of shakiness (random blue screens from the Radeon graphics card) and perhaps the time for an upgrade is here. My use is mostly photo/video editing (Lightroom/Premiere) with the occasional Flight Sim session, no gaming. The HP system has a uATX mobo with 470W PS, and has met my needs in terms of performance, noise, and heat (though who wouldn't mind faster renders).

The upgrade I have in mind is i7-4770 on an Asus Gryphon Z-87 with an SSD; no graphics card since I don't game. My question is: how many plug, connector, and other incompatibilities am I going to run into when I go to put this stuff into my old case? The one I've noticed so far is no front-panel USB 3 ports, but I can live with that. Have there been other industry changes in terms of connectors or wiring for things like USB 2, power, reset, fan control, audio, etc? Without a graphics card, I think I should be fine for power and heat with the new guts, but I'd hate to blunder into a connector, or worse yet electrical-incompatibility minefield.

It'd just be a few hundred more to pop for a new case and PS, but then my costs pull up pretty even with just buying another prebuilt system... and where's the fun in that? Plus why send the old case to the crusher when it still works fine.

Anyway, any comments appreciated. Things like new connector styles don't exactly make the headlines, or even the spec sheets, so if anyone can warn me off of any issues that'd be a big help.

Eddy

 

[aigomorla]

the problem im running into is the flight sim in helping you design a cheap but effective unit.

Care to share how GPU intensive the flight sim is? you say no gaming.. however that flight sim is about high level in gaming territory as one can get if u rack up the settings.

Also just looking though google at internal pics.. its not looking very good....

The fan / shroud would need to be removed.
Each of the headers you see would need to be checked, which one is the HDD LED, which one is the reset switch, which one is the power LED....

This will not be an easy job for you, unless you have modding skills.
Also the Haswell also requires a new gen PSU, again... i see you can run into some problems.

If u liked the size / form factor we can match it... that case style is not difficult.
We would just need to know if you can get away with the IGP on haswell, or if you would require a new gpu, which then we would need to find a case that can fit a full sized pci-e card.

 

[Vinwiesel]

I built a 2500k system into an old HP workstation case, and it definitely required modding. First off, the case only had one 80ish or 92mm shroud in the front for a fan. I cut/welded in new grills to fit a 140 and 120mm fan. I dremeled a custom panel in the front for dual USB 3.0 ports, into a 5.25" bay, which also holds 2 2.5" SSD's. The HDD cage only holds 2 3.5" drives, so I threw in a HDD hot-swap bay into one of the 3 5.25" bays. The header for the front power/reset/hdd LED/power LED is non standard and had to be ohmed out and rewired into new jumpers to fit the new motherboard.

The ATX mounts, power supply mounts, rear panel opening etc were standard ATX for me. The motherboard popped right in, and videocard, CPU fan mounting, etc were a non issue. I did have to remove one bracket that was in the way of my large cooler. I believe there was also a bracket behind the motherboard that fit the old OEM pentium 4 cooler which had to be removed. There is also nowhere to hide any cables, but there is plenty of space and no obstructions to cpu/video cooling.

For those wondering why to go to all this trouble to use a dinosaur case, the answer is silence. The steel is THICK on this case, and is further layered with a heavy plastic outer shell with hollow pockets in between. This does wonders for eliminating noise. For my next build I think I'll start with a good case, and Rhino-line it to add mass to dampen the noise.

 

[aigomorla]

For those wondering why to go to all this trouble to use a dinosaur case, the answer is silence. The steel is THICK on this case, and is further layered with a heavy plastic outer shell with hollow pockets in between. This does wonders for eliminating noise. For my next build I think I'll start with a good case, and Rhino-line it to add mass to dampen the noise.

shall i tell u what problem i ran into when sound insulating the case?

sound insulation also typically goes with heat insulation.
So if u didnt have good fans moving air in and out quickly.. it accumulated heat.

And as u had those fans to do that job, they got louder, so it was a dog chasing its own tail type scenario.

What i think is a truely silent case... passive cpu sink, passive psu, highly vented case.. under or near an output on an AC vent in the sound room.

 

[EddyKilowatt]

Thanks for comments so far. My current rig looks more like this one... two case fans, one top one rear, both exhaust, plus a fair amount of empty space:


HP d5100t by cheukiecfu, on Flickr


HP d5100t by cheukiecfu, on Flickr

My understanding of the Haswell power supply issue is 1) only affects new very-low-power deep sleep state, 2) only some PSUs, 3) only if there are other loads that might go out of regulation due to light load... anyway, I think I can work around it if it happens.

It does look like I'll be doing a bit of sleuthing regarding what miscellaneous functions (disk activity light, etc) are on which wires... still hoping the connectors are compatible pin headers.

 

[aigomorla]

looks like a 4 pin and a 20 pin psu...

not looking very good....

the 4pin on some boards u can get away.. the problem i see tho is we changed atx psu standard from 20 pin to 24 pin.. meaning ur missing 4 pins on the psu which should goto the board.

and if ur board uses both a 8 pin and 24 pin ... ur missing a total of 8 pins... which are extra 12V to supply power to the board...

ummm at least... id buy a corsair CX430 for 40 dollars as insurance vs, have to recycle that psu.

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Builde...keywords=cx430

 

[A5]

Yeah, we'll need a close-up on the PSU sticker to get some specs.

It is extremely likely that you'll have to (at a minimum) replace the PSU. Modding OEM cases to handle custom systems is a chore.

 

[EddyKilowatt]

Hmmm, guess it might've been smarter if I'd led off with these specs for my existing mobo:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...c=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3750363&lang=en#N55

Looks like power is 24 + 4 pin, so maybe I dodged that bullet. I'm sure there'll be lots of Google queries from me before this is over, though.

At any rate, new parts arrived from the Egg yesterday, so I'm committed at this point. I won't have time to try them till the weekend, but I'll take pics and let folks know how I make out.

 

[The Day Dreamer]

Well, everything looks fine. I would advice you to get a new Power Supply. Other connectors and sockets comes with it.