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Asus P5A-B - ATX case solution?

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First post, by dinth

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Hi. I know that Asus P5A-B's are very popular mobos for retro gaming, but i was wondering if you have any solution for installing it in a ATX case?
I have tried that but i have two issues - the screw hole locations are completely different to my (early) ATX case i wanted to use for this project and the other problem is that ATX slot is completely misaligned with the slots.

Reply 2 of 25, by dionb

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Indeed. The AT version is generally more sought-after, so you'd probably have little trouble finding someone who wanted to swap their P5A for your P5A-B.

Reply 3 of 25, by dinth

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Deksor wrote on 2021-08-22, 18:32:

If the case you want matters more you could consider getting the ATX version of this motherboard, the standard Asus p5a ?

I would happily swap it for an ATX version, the problem is that those mobos are very expensive nowadays (several hundreds of pounds) but at the same time it would be hard for me to sell me old one.

Reply 4 of 25, by bloodem

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dionb wrote on 2021-08-22, 19:12:

Indeed. The AT version is generally more sought-after, so you'd probably have little trouble finding someone who wanted to swap their P5A for your P5A-B.

I always thought it was the opposite. The ATX versions are harder to find, at least for me (I only have one).
And I'm still looking for a Gigabyte GA-5AX 😁

1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k

Reply 5 of 25, by dionb

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bloodem wrote on 2021-08-23, 13:33:

[...]

I always thought it was the opposite. The ATX versions are harder to find, at least for me (I only have one).
And I'm still looking for a Gigabyte GA-5AX 😁

Could be regional variation, but here in NL the -B seems very rare indeed, where the P5A was probably the commonest super So7 board. Lots of Asus fetishists around here 😉

Reply 6 of 25, by Deksor

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The super socket 7 was really in a transitional era. It started in 1998 and ended around 2000, by 1998, ATX became really strong already and so many new boards were made for this form factor. Now being a "legacy" and cheap solution, I believe baby at made sense because you could reuse old cases or buy the latest ones for cheap because ATX was the thing. So I think manufacturers made an equal amount of them, but sales may depend from manufacturer to manufacturer.

I have 5 SS7 board, three ATX and two baby AT. I don't know how representative it is for the market but it's something.
In uh19 we have 55 baby at boards and 33 ATX boards recorded, but the database we had initially was stopped in 1999 so many boards from that era are missing

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Reply 8 of 25, by BitWrangler

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I am able to grant free pass #437Q35ZP good for one exemption for drilling illegal holes in an ATX chassis if caught by the ATX police.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 9 of 25, by Ydee

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Some ATX cases have holes for both mobos format - (ATX and AT) and PCI fits for both too. I have two of them. Only backplate is different, of course.

Reply 10 of 25, by NJRoadfan

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I had a P5A-B in an early ATX case for ages until I replaced it with a P5A (yeah, I bought BOTH versions new somehow). I don't recall any problems mounting it. The bottom two screw holes should line up with an ATX and AT case. The middle screws (one under the CPU socket) may or may not be present on an ATX case (they were on mine, I remember that screw under the CPU!). The top screw mount next to the keyboard port is usually present on ATX cases too.

Note that you need a full 7 slot ATX case to mount the P5A-B, a MicroATX case will not work!

Reply 11 of 25, by Deksor

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What I meant by "If the case you want matters more" is that if it doesn't matter too much you could consider modding the case to get your board to fit (drilling mounting holes somehow ?) or replacing it with another one.

Maybe a pic of the case would help ?

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Reply 12 of 25, by dinth

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Deksor wrote on 2021-08-24, 17:17:

What I meant by "If the case you want matters more" is that if it doesn't matter too much you could consider modding the case to get your board to fit (drilling mounting holes somehow ?) or replacing it with another one.
Maybe a pic of the case would help ?

The case is just an ordinary case, it is relatively small, it's black (everything in my gaming room is black, so it wont stick out) and it has all kinds of IO built-in. My problem with modding this case is only about the feasibility of doing this. The mobo backplate doesnt have screw holes on risers but on weird bugles which i would probably need to completely cut off, but the main problem is AGP card, which would not be aligned with any of the expansion slots.

The easiest solution for me would be swapping the mobo with P5A as someone advise above - if i will be able to find anyone who wants to do the exchange.

Reply 13 of 25, by PARKE

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dinth wrote on 2021-08-25, 06:52:

The case is just an ordinary case, it is relatively small, it's black (everything in my gaming room is black, so it wont stick out) and it has all kinds of IO built-in. My problem with modding this case is only about the feasibility of doing this. The mobo backplate doesnt have screw holes on risers but on weird bugles which i would probably need to completely cut off, but the main problem is AGP card, which would not be aligned with any of the expansion slots.

I suspect that you do not have a 'regular' ATX case there.
NJRoadfan wrote above:
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Note that you need a full 7 slot ATX case to mount the P5A-B, a MicroATX case will not work!
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
And that is the point. Here an example of a 1999 ATX case meant for Pentium III with a baby AT SS7 motherboard fitted. You only need a solution for the backplate which here is made out of a piece of aluminium sheet fitted with Bison Kit.

The attachment duo.jpg is no longer available

Reply 14 of 25, by dinth

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Right, you might be correct, so does it mean that that even the P5A model will still not fit in the case?

Reply 15 of 25, by PARKE

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Post some photo's of your case and we can comment.

Reply 16 of 25, by dinth

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PARKE wrote on 2021-08-25, 11:26:

Post some photo's of your case and we can comment.

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Reply 17 of 25, by PARKE

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That is the type of case that NJRoadfan refered to and it needs some serious hacking to fit a motherboard with 6/7 slots. It is, if I am correct, meant for motherboards that look like for example this:

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For comparison a fully installed P5A:

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Reply 18 of 25, by BitWrangler

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So mATX only... what was the earliest boards we saw for those? I wanna say i810 P3 systems. (And shortly after via based s370 and socket A)

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Reply 19 of 25, by sprcorreia

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BitWrangler wrote on 2021-08-25, 13:49:

So mATX only... what was the earliest boards we saw for those? I wanna say i810 P3 systems. (And shortly after via based s370 and socket A)

Slot1 for sure and I think that socket 7 exists in mATX.