What size case do I need?

[LungGuy]

I am ordering a 3/4 baby AT motherboard. What size case will it fit in? I assume it will fit easily into a full size AT case, but I don't need one that big. Will a mini-tower AT case be too small?

--Mark

[Randy_tx]

Nope......It will work just fine( I usually use the Mid-Mini size with 3 IDE size bays)......make sure the case has at least 2 or hopefully 3 IDE/CD sized bays so you will have enough room to put both a CD Rom & a CD Read/Write unit if you want to...Also, be sure it has at least a 250 Watt Power Supply (300 if you are using other than socket 7 cpu).

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"As hard as a rock & dumb as a brick"...Windows CEMeNT

[hiredgoonz]

It will fit, but how much fun will it be putting it all together? I prefer to have room to work...and a larger case certainly makes upgrades easier...I've seen cases where you had to remove the power supply or ide cables just to add RAM...And heat tends to be more of an issue in smaller cases...

I've got 3 desktops running at the moment: full tower, mid tower and mini tower...guess which one gets the least upgrades...I'm not gonna dismantle the mini tower unless I have to...

[Paleo Pete]

The baby AT will fit any case except a Micro tower. Only a micro AT board will fit that one. I like the mid size towers myself, enough room for drives, and not too big for the average desk. Mine has three 5 1/4" bays, all externally accessible, one externally accessible 3 1/2" bay for floppy, and one internal 3 1/2" bay for a hard drive. That gives me room for all my goodies, and it's packed...2 hard drives, 3 1/2" floppy, CD ROM, 5 1/4" floppy and tape drive. It's about an inch taller than my 14" monitor. OK, got curious and measured, it's 14 1/2" tall.

As far as access and working room, it's a bit cramped if I need to swap memory chips, because of the placement of the sockets, otherwise I've had no complaints. All but the two internal bays are accessible from the front, and cables aren't difficult to access inside.

And of course make sure you get a case with a bracket for a secondary case fan. I like a front mounted fan best, but after looking around through a Tiger Direct catalog I got recently for some strange reason, I found that very few were available, at least from Tiger Direct. Most had rear mounted secondary fan brackets.

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