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[Mr.D.]

I bought a mATX motherboard specifically becasue I wanted to cut as little as possible, or not at all. The problem that I have is I think the motherboard is still to big to line up with the expansion slots as is.

I dont have a PCIe card at the moment, but I do have the AGP card I took out of the G5 I gutted, and I assume that the tollerences are the same (as they have been since they changed the orientation on the ISA cards to when they introduced PCI cards many many moons ago). It looks like the card would be bent to line up with the expansion slot and the case. Although I dont really care about an old AGP card, I would most certianly care about a $200-300 video card that I might want to install later.

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If you look in the picture, you can see that I still have the greay plastic cable guides installed - and they are staying. I might be able to shim the motherboard over the plastic cable guide but then I might be too high for the cards to screw down in the back.

Soooooooo... what do y'all think the issue is, can it be resolved with the motherboard in that location, or should I just mount the motherboard 'floating' in the middle of the case somewhere and run extension cables as others have done? I am open to trimming the plastic, but not removingthe plastic. I am not open to cutting the metal shelf that the superdrive and the HDD cage rest on - if I was looking to do that, I woulda bought a full size ATX.

Any suggestions anyone has would be appreciated! Thanks!

A little update:
By removing the two lower screws that hold the HDD cage in place, I can place the motherboard on top of the plastic cable guide. However, it still isnt quite lined up but its not as much warp as before, and without a PCIe card to test, I'm not sure if the added height affects the ability to secure a card to the case.

[Mr.D.]

Solution:

If I cut off 1/8th of an inch on the plastic, it no longer interferers - or you can simply remove that part of the plastic that would be between the MB and the top shelf. I removed all the plastic for cleaning prior to my JB Welding the mounts back on, and I can see several places where the plastic raises or lowers, depending upon where it was in the case. I haven't decided if I'm going to trim the plastic or remove that section, but the rest of the plastic cable guide is definitely going back in.


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By removing that plastic, I haven't raised the motherboard higher than I already have reusing the G5 mounts. And by getting the MB as tight up against that shelf as possible, I have little to no warping of the PCIe cards.


Hope this helps others who run into this same issue. The rest of my updates for my G5 mod are here