AT to ATX conversion

Written by Jørn"Brotulix" Holm
Published 18 October 2001

Want to use that cool old AT cabinet for your new ATX motherboard? - This tutorial-thing just might show you how to do it.

Here is what I did with -my- old AT cabinet

First, I checked that my ATX motherboard actually would fit the cabinet and that the AGP, PCI and ISA slots would fit the holes on the back. Everything checked out all right, so I moved on to checking the power supply (I had an ATX power supply already.) They were of the same size and layout, so I mounted it, and checked that the power cables would reach my harddisks, and the motherboard. Luckily for me they did, so no work was required here.

So, now I stuffed my graphics adapter (AGP) and my NIC (ISA) into the appropriate slots, and screwed them in on the (removable) "adapter bay" piece:

Then I drew, using a normal waterproof marker, the outline of the connectors on the MB (only those who would be covered by it, of course) onto that piece, and I cut off what wasn't supposed to be there. Then, it looked like this:

Now it was over to cutting out a hole to the rest of the connectors on the motherboard. Only this time I cut the cabinet itself.

Before:

After:

With Motherboard:

I also had to drill a new hole

to fasten the upper left part of the motherboard (important, since that's where most of the connectors are, like i.e. keyboard and mouse connectors). Drilling that particular hole might be a little tricky, since it's well behind that metal bar (if you're modding an AT maxi-tower, that is). Then, screw in a stud, and voila! Fastened.

Finally, you need a power switch. You may use the Reset-switch, but I don't recommend it.

What I did was to cut off the power switch from an old AT power supply, open it and remove the pin that makes it stay in every second time you press it. That way you won't have to double-click the powerswitch to prevent the pc from shutting down while displaying the BIOS-screen =)

Then, you must solder a new pair of wires to it, and connect the new wires to the power-switch jumper on the motherboard. I recomend using this

kind of wire, since that means you don't have to do all that extra work with attaching the connector and all that.

Now, the cabinet should be more or less finished, depending on how demanding you are. After all, the most ugly place -is- the back of the cabinet!