I might build a new PC

[J T]

Did the Dell originally have a standard motherboard or a proprietary one? I've heard that dell often use things that are slightly non-standard to make user-upgrading hard.

I don't know if this is true, or just anti-dell moaning (possibly the truth is somewhere in between)

don't worry, I won't use any sellotape

Awwwww, not even a little bit, just in the corner of the case, for old times sake?

[Harrison]

Dell often use their own Motherboards and it has been common practice for them to design their cases so that only their own components will fit. Normally this means standard PSUs don't fit and Dell motherboards fit up-side-down compared to a standard ATX motherboard.

However Steve's existing PC is quite old, so it might be from before Dell started doing this.

[Stephen Coates]

I havn't done an exact comparison, but the size of the Dell PSU should be identical to an ATX one. I believe the only proprietry thing about the Dell PSU is the pin layout on the connectors and the colour coding. The voltages and connector are otherwise the same as an ATX one.

As for the motherboard, I'm not sure about the exact sizes of it. All I know is that it is manufactured by Intel. I will wait for the new Gigabyte board to come tommorow (hopefully) and find out. If it doesn't fit I will get a new case.

My Radeon HD 4550 came today. As often happens, I was in the shower when the postman came, and fortunately, he left it in the electricity meter box . Saves waiting 48 hours and a trip to the delivery office. Do postmen tend to carry keys for meter boxes?

[Stephen Coates]

Slight change of plan. I decided to get a new case. Then I will be able to keep the old Dell system together.

This is what I bought: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...EOIBSA:GB:1123

[Demon Cleaner]

I always liked the Lian Li tower designs, although this one really looks very basic.

[Stephen Coates]

I can't say I am too keen on many of the fancy designs that are available and prefer simpler designs.

[Demon Cleaner]

I also mean the case design, how much space there is inside, and how the components fit, I mean that design, don't know what you would call it, inside design? I don't like the meant to be "nice" looking cases either.

[Stephen Coates]

Layout perhaps?

I can't say I have had lots of experience of working with ATX cases but they all seem pretty similar to me (as should be expected since they are all ATX).

This Lian Li case certainly isn't the biggest available but it has more drive bays and its dimensions are bigger than my current Dell, so there will probably be plenty of room for the new system. But even if my new system were to go in my old Dell case, there would probably be lots of room left over. The Dell system currently is a bit over crowded with ribbon cables and PCI cards.

[Harrison]

Lian Li tend to male nicely constructed cases, and while as DC said, your new case is quite plain, that is also a good thing as it won't look dated over time and is easy to keep clean.

The internal layout seems OK and the addition of a HDD drive cage is always very useful as it saves needing to open both sides of the case to secure HDDs.

The main issue with cases these days is graphics cards. A lot of graphics cards are now getting very long. Some over 11" in length! My 4870 only just fitted inside of my Thermaltake Tsunami case, and even then only by moving the HDDs down in their cage, as the 2 graphics card power connectors needed the room the HDDs were occupying.

However your new graphics card should be much shorter Steve, so your new case should fit fine. Also I noticed they have designed the internal layout with a bit more space in line with where the PCI-E slot will be exactly for this reason.

Having fans already fitted is also good. If possible try to connect the case fans to the motherboard if they have the 3 pin motherboard headers. This will allow the motherboard and the OS to monitor their speed and adjust their speed when case temp rises or falls.

As I mentioned before, make sure you install the PSU before the motherboard, or you won't be able to get it in.

Good luck with the PC build.

[Stephen Coates]

My case and motherboard arrived today.

The case is nice. I have become quite fond of aluminium recently. The paint on my silver painted plastic items tends to come off after a while. I recently acquired my Dad's thirty year old HiFi system which has been sat in the garage for the last 10 years. It is a really nice bit of equipment and looks nice in aluminium which is in good condition. The Lian-Li case is of good quality and should be a massive improvement over the old Dell case.

Fortunately my graphics cards is about the size I would expect a graphics card to be. Perhaps a little bigger than my TNT2 or VooDoo 3000.

I doubt the rest of the stuff will come until at least next week as the memory I ordered from Novatech is still on backorder.