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Riser woes fitting a generic 486 in an LPX case

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First post, by renaudbedard

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I'm currently putting together a 486 system into an LPX case, it's all spare parts I got from friends/family combined with eBay finds.

I received my generic LPX case last week which comes with an ISA backplane, but the case and its backplane don't seem to be compatible with my motherboard. It's not a huge surprise, but I'm not sure what my options are in terms of fitting all my pieces together.

I have a PCI graphics card (a mach32) and an ISA SoundBlaster (and eventually one or two additional ISA cards for mouse and floppy), which I'd all like to fit horizontally using risers.

Since I have both PCI and ISA and I don't have a proprietary connector on my motherboard that allows both PCI and ISA to be on the same backplane, I'm gonna have to jerry-rig something...
Either all using cable extenders (similar to this post : Short on ISA slots? Try this.), or one of them being a 90-degree backplane and the other one(s) being cable extenders, and support them mechanically somehow (tie-wraps or some kind of plastic pillar).

I was able to find places to order cable extenders for PCI, but for ISA I couldn't find any. Looks like I'd have to build one...

Does anybody have experience with something like this?

Here's pictures of my setup : https://imgur.com/a/lHJnv

Thanks!

Reply 1 of 3, by MCGA

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My question is more out of curiosity. Outside of form factor, do you need to go with an LPX case? So does your motherboard have dedicated connectors coming out of the back( VGA, etc. )? If not, it seems like it would be easier to go with a standard case?

Just for reference, here's what my LPX ISA/PCI connector looks like:

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Reply 2 of 3, by Plasma

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This might work but you'll be limited to 1 ISA and 1 PCI. Personally I'd invest the money in a better case.

Will the cards install vertically without hitting the top of the case? If you want to be cheap, you might be able to just cut the back out.

Reply 3 of 3, by renaudbedard

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MCGA wrote:

My question is more out of curiosity. Outside of form factor, do you need to go with an LPX case? So does your motherboard have dedicated connectors coming out of the back( VGA, etc. )? If not, it seems like it would be easier to go with a standard case?

I went with LPX for aesthetics and space-saving, I want my monitor to stack on the case. The only output of my motherboard is an AT keyboard connector.
It would definitely be easier to go with a mid-tower but... I'd rather spend the extra effort and go LPX. 😀

Plasma wrote:

This might work but you'll be limited to 1 ISA and 1 PCI. Personally I'd invest the money in a better case.
Will the cards install vertically without hitting the top of the case? If you want to be cheap, you might be able to just cut the back out.

That's pricier than I expected, but it's a good option! Thanks for the link, I'll consider it.
I'd feel weird trashing my current case and buying a new one, it already cost quite a bit because of shipping alone (heavy, and I'm in Canada) so I feel some kind of responsibility to make things work with it...
The cards don't fit vertically, sadly.

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