Waiting on Case - How to build PC without?

[mooseAndSquirrel]

I have most of the part for my new system except for the coolermaster case.

So I'm thinking I'll just put it together on a table without a case. But as I think about it I wonder what I can do about the power switch? I have an enermax power supply. But what about the power switch wire that normally connects to the case's switch? Any way around that?

Any way around that which doesn't involve buying anything? I'm in couch potato mode today.

 

[Confused]

Look in the manual for the pins for the power button on the motherboard.

Touch these two pins together with something conductive (i normally use a screwdriver)

et voila, your computer will power on.

 

[Alphazero]

Keep the motherboard insulated, and the drives and cards steady. Use a screwdriver for the power switch. And remember, you'll have to pull everything apart and rebuild it when your case arrives.

 

[mooseAndSquirrel]

Thanks. so simple and works like a charm.

Now that I'm doing it this way, I'm thinking this may be a good technique, even if I had the case ready. I have really bad eyesight and big hands. So once the motherboard is mounted, I have a hard time reading and finding jumpers, and an even harder time moving them around.

And doing it this way, you get to POST quickly and avoid wondering if you've shorted against the case. Also, if you have a DOA mobo, it saves a couple of anger management classes by not having to remove it from the case!

One thing I just learned doing this is how damn loud the thing is already! I just have an enermax power supply, a Pal HSF with a thermaltake 80mm fan and a radeon 9700 card (also with a fan). I just did a quick power on to test the POST and look at the CPU temperatures to make sure I got that all on o.k. It POSTed fine, but boy is it loud! Later today I'll try to see what's the main culprit - I suspect the thermaltake - and see about replacing it. It will of course be quieted by being inside a case, but yowza it's loud!

 

[Derango]

Originally posted by: mooseAndSquirrel
Thanks. so simple and works like a charm.

Now that I'm doing it this way, I'm thinking this may be a good technique, even if I had the case ready. I have really bad eyesight and big hands. So once the motherboard is mounted, I have a hard time reading and finding jumpers, and an even harder time moving them around.

And doing it this way, you get to POST quickly and avoid wondering if you've shorted against the case. Also, if you have a DOA mobo, it saves a couple of anger management classes by not having to remove it from the case!

One thing I just learned doing this is how damn loud the thing is already! I just have an enermax power supply, a Pal HSF with a thermaltake 80mm fan and a radeon 9700 card (also with a fan). I just did a quick power on to test the POST and look at the CPU temperatures to make sure I got that all on o.k. It POSTed fine, but boy is it loud! Later today I'll try to see what's the main culprit - I suspect the thermaltake - and see about replacing it. It will of course be quieted by being inside a case, but yowza it's loud!

Its loud because you've got it out of the case

Wait untill your case gets in, put everything in, close it up, and then see how loud it is.

 

[dpopiz]

just wait for the case!!!1 sheesh!

 

[Maverick]

lol and I thought I was impatient

 

[Bovinicus]

I understand his position. I cannot live without my computer and would do the same thing if I had to wait on a case as well. One good thing about building a computer without a case is that the ambient temparature of the system will always be equal to the room temparature. That way quieter fans can be used for just as effective, if not more effective, cooling.

 

[BZeto]

I would set the jumpers and install the cpu(of course) on the mobo before I put it in the case, but not actually hook everything up and power it on, lol.

 

[mooseAndSquirrel]

Well, couple of things. First, the thermaltake fan was the culprit for noise. I replaced it with a "silencer", which certainly moves less air but live up to its name. The enermax power supply is very quiet too. I used to be overly concerned about temperatures, now I'm more about noise. Or at least finding the right balance. If I had put everything in the case, including case fans, I would have had a harder time isolating the main noise culprit. And replacing it on the alpha hsf would have been more of a pain.

And yes, I'm bizarrely impatient. But as I said above, this has actually had some advantages for me. So I now have the entire PC - sound card, RAID card, SCSI boot drive, et. al., connected up on a table. I loaded Windows XP, SP1, and all my applications. I had time to flash the RAID card BIOS and tweak my BIOS settings. Today I'm going to be copying data to the RAID array.

Sure, the basement table looks like a mad scientists lab. But this weekend would have otherwise seen zero progress on the new PC build. Now, when the case shows up (damn harddrive.com is letting me down with their lack of customer service) it should be only an hour to get everything put in there and nicely cable tied and all of that.

I'm not a case modder or a furniture builder, but as I look at my table I think how you could have a glass top table with all the guts of the pc spread out underneath. I used to have a Bulova watch that showed the guts through the face - it would end up kind of like that.

 

[SocrPlyr]

a much better idea than a screwdriver to turn it on is us a spare jumper to connect to the pins... just after it powers up pull the jumper off... this works especially well when you have jumper that have the little tabs to pull them off easily...
i ran two machines like this for weeks completely configured... here is what i did
i put out a board that was about 3/4 of an inch (soemthing like a bookshelf shelf works great) in thickness and then placed the pink foam that came w/ the board on top and then the board itself. the extra height allows for you to plug in pci and agp cards w/o a problem...
other than that there is nothing to it...

Josh