fschiola

I'm working on an old Gateway machine that the motherboard has gone bad. I see a lot of motherboards and processor combinations for a good price but, I'm unsure of what to get that would fit in this case. I know that I'll probably have to get new memory as well, but how do I know what size, etc. will fit in this case?

crobtex

There are only a few different size cases. Look at the MB that is in there now and see how big it is. I think there are only two sizes...one is almost square and the other is rectangular. Also, you will need to know what board the power supply supports. It will have it on the PS case.....it's probably an ATX.

I PASS GAS

If the only thing you are going to reuse is the case, you might just look at replacing that as well. A case with a power supply already in it can be had for about $50. Also, there is a VERY good chance that if you are replacing the motherboard, the ports are not going to line up with the holes cut in the gateway case. Plus if it's really old, you might not have USB ports on the front, which really come in handy these days with so many USB devices.

Sea:\>Drive

I concur with the gas man above. Replace the case too - cheap insurance. Some OEMs use standard ATX design, and some have slight differences to make you buy parts from them. Salvage your drives, and move on to a whole new computer.

AlpineRAM

I agree with buying a new computer- I'd go for a completely new system and get an icy box or the like (external USB hard drive enclosure) and install the old disks there.
The advantage is that you have a clean setup and access to your old data. At least over here the complete systems have a much better warranty than the single components.

HTH

AlpineRAM

fschiola

I was just basically going to use the case, but these Gateways have thin cases and I thought that would be a problem with getting the holes to line up, etc. Where is a resource for the cases and power supplies? I'm trying to help a friend out on this project, trying to get something to work for them at a low price. Thanks for all of the replies so far.

Pentastar

You can buy an ATX PIII board on ebay with processor for less than 20 bucks including shipping.The key to stay cheap is to reuse all of your old components and memory as you have already figured out.
The memory can be critical depending on what you have now and if a motherboard needs PC100 speed memory and you have PC133 memory in some cases it will not run so you have to know what works and what does not.PC133 memory is cheaper than PC100 memory however.
If your old Gateway board has ISA slots and you need ISA slots for a scanner card for instance then that will be a factor in your purchase.
Most of the ISA slots that were occupied in your old system were to provide hardware such as sound and video that you will now find onboard the newer ATX boards,the only thing that may need to be replaced would be a modem with a PCI configuration or maybe a capture card or SCSI card if you need them.
I like the Intel D815E** boards because they are easy to get drivers for and there are a zillion of them out there,in fact that may be what you already have.
The only caveat is that Dell also used them in their PIII computers and they had a proprietary power supply and pinout so if you happen to buy a Dell motherboard from that era be sure that you use the correct power supply for the board that you have.You can make the swap for cheap if you buy the right parts.Ron G

spunbearing

This deal ends today. You will probably need new memory and possibly a video card depending on what you have.http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...CCODE=WEM1366H