Old Gateway 2000 Full Tower Case...Possible Server Case?

Hey ya'll! We have this old Gateway 2000 Intel 486 sittin around so I thought it might make a good server case?

I have some pics that I will try to post of the case stripped down.

Thanks

he he looks nice
now mod it!!

Its certainly big enough.

That will make a great server case. You will have to do some fairly extensive modding to the back of the case so that it will accept an ATX MB.

Biggest couple of problems will be mounting a mobo, and remodelling the back I/O panel for ATX. Takes time, but is very doable.

stool said:

Biggest couple of problems will be mounting a mobo, and remodelling the back I/O panel for ATX. Takes time, but is very doable.

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I have converted three of these cases to ATX and trust me, your best results will come from having a whole new rear panel made.
Doing this will obviate the need to work around the many awkward holes/gaps now present and make life simpler in the long run.

I was able to get a sheetmetal shop to make a virgin backplane for $30 which I then grafted a I/O/PCI slot panel from another case into.
If you can find a donor ATX carcass which has a removable motherboard/back panel assy...then you're golden.

I agree, your best bet will be the removable ATX tray type with back panel I/O ports built in or attached to it. That way all you have to do is cut a hole for the tray's back panel and find a way to mount the tray, which shouldn't be that hard assuming you can get it lined up well. There's really not much option for drilling and tapping your own ATX layout holes with all the big gaps and the old aluminum/steel sheet spacer holes.

The old case I have that is similar to that has HUGE power supply in it (3 times as large as the usual ATX formfactor). IF yours is similar, a good bet is to make an adapter of sorts out of good sturdy sheetmetal. Cut holes in it to match the wider case holes (Or wherever you can find the space to make your own mounting holes for bolts/rivets if the supply isn't as large), then put in your ATX sized holes for exhaust, switches, plugs, and mounting in the middle (Either one large or several small individual holes, as you see fit). Also a good idea to make L-brackets to help support the power supply while you're at it.

Ok, its time for an update!

I picked up a donor comp. from my school the other day for $20!

It is a PIII 450 or 500MHz, its an old gateway, 64MB RAM (hahahah), 6GB HD! lmao

The main reason I got it was it was cheap and is much faster then our present server (PI 100MHz). I was talking to my dad and were going to put 512MB of RAM in it and Gigabit LAN cards (I had to do convincing here, I want gigabit sine my A8N has it built in). Im thinking og getting a SATA card for it and running 2 200GB SATA HD's. We use our server to back-up all of your files from 3-4 comps. I will put all of my msic and stuff on there so I dont fill up my 36GB Raptor.

So do you guys think this would be a good choice with the hardware?

Ill get picks tomarrow of the donor comp.

Thanks

Well it looks like this project has been scratched, I picked up 2 more PII's today! I got both for $20 today and am going to go back tomarrow and the lady in our tech dept. said she would give them away tomarrow if there were any left. So it looks like im going to make a mini cluster! Look for a new thread on this project soon!

Thanks

oh gawd!

flamerail said:

oh gawd!

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Oh ya! hehe Im finding PIII cpu's on ebay for like $10 a pop so I think I might upgrade to 600's or so.