Go SATA or hack case pegs?

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boyceman

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I have an ABIT7 MAX3 motherboard and bought a new case today so I could build my dream DAW. The case states its "ATX" compatible and the motherboard is an "ATX" motherboard, so I'm thinking I'm off to the races. Well it turns out that the case is designed with a pull out motherboard tray that has a 2" by 2/3" latch on the side to "release" the tray from the case. Problem is that this lovely latch blocks the IDE2 port on the motherboard. Furthermore, there is one mounting peg that doesn't have a matching hole on the motherboard, and the pegs are fused with the tray, so removing one would require a bolt cutter or maybe a sledgehammer (I'm at that point).

Mouting pegs aside, I have two IDE drives, an 80 and 250 gig, and I wanted the 80 for the OS and programs and the 250 for recording. But I'm thinking that each drive should have its own IDE channel otherwise what's the point, two IDE's on one channel would result in a time-slice situation, no? So my next thought is maybe I should return the 250 IDE and get a 250 SATA as those ports are not blocked on the motherboard and are available.

Am I right in thinking that hooking both drives up on the same channel would negate the throughput benefits of having them on different channels? If you were in my position, would you try to cut off the bastard peg that doesn't fit, or would you try to seat the motherboard and have that end of the motherboard slightly sticking up in the air? I checked underneath the motherboard where the peg would rest and I don't see anything that the peg could come in contact with and short anything out, but who knows? Crap, I remembered I also have an IDE CD writer to hook up so I'll definitely have to go SATA on one of the hard drives. CRAP!!!

The motherboard is not returnable so I'm kind of stuck with it.

I'm bummin right now. Thoughts?

:mad: boyceman :mad:
 
Well I would return the case.

But the throughput will hardly be adversely affected by having them both on one channel. Not even the fastest drives push a channels bandwidth.
 
you could actually use a regular hammer to bang out that one peg thats in a bad spot..i had to do that with an old HP case I gutted. Turns out the sheet metal was actually kind of perforated around the peg so it popped out with a few good whacks...

..or did i use the 4lb sledge hammer???....
 
or...

obviously, everyone telling you to take the case back are right. it's the least expensive link in your chain right now, no matter how much you paid for it, and its a manufacturer problem, whether they'll own up to that or not, that their case blocks ide2 on an atx board (kind of a big oversight in design)

however, if you really wanna spend more money, go with SATA, get a removable HD IDE kit, slap the 250 in there, I guess you need the other half of ide1 for a dvd burner or something??? then put your work/os drive on SATA, or even better two 80g sata drives for a little raid action. It's oodles faster, then you work on your projects on that, and dump it into the 250 storage drive at the end of a long day of recording, leaving the os drives nice and clean.

just a thought, but really, throw, don't send that case back, and get something that will work. 80 bucks on a new case even if you get fleeced, is probably the easiest way out.
 
Yea.. New case. The peg thing isn't a big deal. They come out easy enough. I usually put a cutting wheel on my dremel tool for stuff like that.Then Figure even though it has a latch, the mainboard trays usually can still bolt in. Anyway...most of the ones I see have places in the back there you can bolt the tray in. If not It would be easy enough to find a way for it to bolt in. Just drill a couple holes somewhere where the tray overlaps with the case and run some screws in...
 
If the case peg doen't fit on a hole - it will short out the board. No half-decent case maker makes those kind of stupid mistakes, not in this day and age. You can bet you will find other issues (loose riveting? Rattling panels?) later down the road.
 
TripleJ said:
But the throughput will hardly be adversely affected by having them both on one channel. Not even the fastest drives push a channels bandwidth.
Click to expand...
What he said. Don't worry about that aspect of it.

-- Rick
 
Yeah ... although it is nice to keep them separate just in case one did push the occassional high burst through. I know that would be extremely unlikely, maybe impossible.

New case! For the money you'd throw away on SATA you could have a shiny funky case with flashing lights and all kinds of crazy stuff.
 
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