Can I use an older case for a new system?

[DarcMetal]

I was wondering if it's possible to use an old Dell Dimension case for a new Athlon 64 system I am building. It looks like it'd fit. It used to house a Pentium I 166MHz. Now, I like the design of the case a lot but is it worth the time and effort to do the upgrade and gut it out?

By the way, the official model number is the P166v.

Any questions would be appreciated? Thank all of you in advance for the Q&A.

- Chris

 

[Amaroque]

NO

Dell makes proprietary cases, and motherboards. Even if it isn't proprietary, it is probably a baby AT case, not an ATX.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

How old is the case?

 

[wisdomtooth]

Surprisingly, the P166v Dimension system from Dell uses a standard 20-pin ATX power supply and ATX form factor.

However, I would caution the OP that even though it is theoretically feasible to use that case for a more modern system, you still might run into Dell-proprietary details here and there that might make things hard as Amaroque says.

 

[mechBgon]

you still might run into Dell-proprietary details here and there that might make things hard

The case's front switch & LED wiring, for instance.

 

[DarcMetal]

Well, I did a little research, and it looks the same as a case I am using for the other system I had built, even the screw placement for the motherboard.

Basically, NOTHING of the actual old system is going to be used other than the floppy that is in it now. Everything else is brand new.

 

[Amaroque]

Even if it would fit ... I highly doubt the cooling could be brought up to snuff to run a modern MB, & CPU at reasonable temperatures.

 

[DarcMetal]

Amaroque, I don't want to to sound like I'm arguing, I'm not, but I just have a couple of questions:

1: On an average, what do you think is a good CPU Temp?
2: Could I add another fan to boost the cooling?

 

[mechBgon]

Is the case's front switch & LED wiring all coming into one monoblock plug? If so, do you feel like manually re-wiring the plug to get it to work on the new motherboard?

 

[DarcMetal]

Even if it does, that's just a slight formality. I have a friend who could do the rewiring for me. I mean at $3, it's worth a shot. That's how much it would cost me to even buy the computer.

And even if it doesn't work out, $3 is not exactly a big loss for me.

 

[mechBgon]

If you do end up needing a different case for one reason or another, and happen to live in the US, CompUSA carries Antec cases without power supplies for pretty reasonable prices ($25-ish). Personally, I'd rather not have anything that even looked like it was a Dell

 

[DarcMetal]

Are you kidding me, it's the only Dell computer design I liked, everything else looks cruddy. Remember the old Optiplex?

 

[Amaroque]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Personally, I'd rather not have anything that even looked like it was a Dell

I couldn't agree more.

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Is the case's front switch & LED wiring all coming into one monoblock plug? If so, do you feel like manually re-wiring the plug to get it to work on the new motherboard?

Yea, I was going to say that. I wanted to reuse my old Dell case also, but with the entire front switch assembly comimg as one piece, I gave up.
Here is where I asked the same question a while ago.
Link

 

[DarcMetal]

Thanks for the link, I think I'll let my friend give it a try and see what he can come up with. Thanks again.