Using old pc tower as an external enclosure for new pc.

I am in the process of making a 8 bay external enclosure out of an old pc tower that I can hook to through usb. The original tower had the bays so I gutted all but the power supply and cut down the chassis to make the enclosure smaller. I was not aware that the power switch ran to the system board and not directly to the power supply so have run into a problem. Has any one heard of doing this before or know where some tips may be?

 

I can get ya half way there, what you'll need to do, if you are using a standard ATX PSU, is short the pins on the end of the main 20 pin connector. As seen in this photo. Then, you'll need to build a switch....how you build that switch is beyond me...cuz I've never done it yet. Now, older AT power supplies, if you can find one, have an external switch already there. You might want to see if you can find one, like on eBay.

 

Here is a link as well. I believe that the switch is just to turn the main power to the PSU on and off, and since they usually have one in the rear, just use that.

http://www.dvhardware.net/modules.php?name=Sections&sop=viewarticle&artid=5

 

Thanks for the tip. Worked like a charm. I intalled a switch on the jumper wire I used between the pins and that turns it on and off just fine.

 

You're welcome.

Let us know how it pans out for you in the long run as well, maybe with some pix's of it completed.

 

I don't want to over-analyze, but this is interesting to me cause I thought about this before, only to put in extra hard drives in an old case. Morph416 has the great picture which is easy enough to figure out, but the website Scuba posted had the jumper connected to a different ground wire. Does it not matter since there are more than one black wire, thats what the directions implied. I know most electrical things need a "hot" and "cold" I just didn't want to steal the wrong black one if there is such a thing.

 

I believe it's both the same. They used the lower black female plug probably for tension reasons with the paper clip they used. But as long as it is a ground, is won't matter.

 

Thank you. I understood the meaning but needed to be sure.

 

I would like to see some pictures of your new setup, with the extra case and what not dbarth68.

Storm~

 

I probably wont be finished with it until next weekend or so. Don't get a lot of time to mess with this stuff. Will try and get some pics on when I do.

 

Did you ever do this yet, dbarth68. I would still like to see the setup // pictures of this. Storm~

 

I never did finish this project. I found that the wiring I would need to adapt the drives cost just about the same as buying single external enclosures. Since I only needed 2 for now I just went out and picked a couple up. I did hang on to what I have done so far though in case I find some adapters that would make this a little more cost effective. I did find an old pc power supply that has a switch on the back and decided to mount that in the tower instead of splicing in the original one.