Swapping cases...

[booman]

I'm about to finish a new modded case and since I don't have the money to fill it with hardware, I've decided to move everything out of my computer into this new case.
I have read testimonies about people having problems with motherboards not working or booting...
I need to know if there is anything to consider or prepare for before I unplug everything? The specs are in my signature

[Daston]

shouldnt be a problem at all as long as the hardware is the same and you bung all the bits into anti static bags whilst they are being moved.

[booman]

I was planning on literally moving piece by piece from one case to the other.
Here are the steps:

1. unplug power supply and cables from all hardware
2. remove/install hard-drives
3. remove/install rom drives
4. remove/install floppy
5. remove video card (it tends to get in the way of motherboard install)
6. remove audio card ( " " " " )
7. remove/install power supply
8. remove install motherboard
9. install video & audio cards
10. connect all power & cables to hardware
11. double check all connections
12. turn on power supply
13. boot
14. pray that everything works the same

I have a fan controller with about 7 fans to connect and lots of cabling.
That will take some time and organizing the cables will take time.

Is there anything I missed?

[Samuknow]

Should be fine. I have done it a few time and it goes pretty good. Remember to place your parts on an anti static back or the like while transfering. Also watch for loose screws and such...

[Ultimate_death]

Technically, you should also make sure you unplug ide/sata cables before the power cable to them to prevent it grounding through the wrong cables. This shouldn't be a problem with new drives but it's something to be aware of.

Also make sure your motherboard mounting pins are in the right place or you'll end up scratching the hell out of your motherboard.

Finally, bear in mind that if you plug any hard drives into different slots on your motherboard (sata 4 not sata 3 etc), you might get a boot error from dodgy boot orders. Changing the the slots your pci cards are in can cause some driver annoyance too sometimes, but it won't damage anything at least.

[booman]

Thanks for the tips guys.
I'm not using SATA, so I should be clean of that one.
And I have both drives on one IDE port and the optical drive on the other port, so I'll make sure they go back on the same ones.
The new modded case is an older Gateway case and I'm a little worried about the motherboard fitting, but otherwise should be easy.
I wouldn't remove the PCI cards unless I had to, and I probably do.
It would be even harder to fit a motherboard in with the cards in. I have the drivers backed-up anyways, so I can just re-install them if needed.
Thanks again

[booman]

Got it all swapped and at first try everything turned on except the hard-drives. All the lights and fans worked but nothing on the screen.
I thought it was the video card and pulled it out and checked it.
Turns out I had mounted it wrong, but that wasn't the problem.
It was the RAM.
I have Dual sticks of 256Meg and one Buffalo 512Meg.
Somehow I mixed up the Dual and they were not installed in the correct slots.... you know 2 & 4 or 1 & 3.
So, fixed it and it works great.
Windows had to re-recognize the drivers and all works well.

[Samuknow]

Sweet. Great job.

[raphael2040]

Nice to see everything working. Good job