On Monday, March 21, 2011 1:02:39 AM UTC-7, D wrote:
On 3/20/2011 9:31 PM, wrote:


I've built a few dozen PCs over the years. I would never bother
running the system out of the case.

I rely quite heavily on my PC on a daily basis, and don't really want to
be without a functional machine. In order to load the OS & see if
everything is operable, I only need to connect 1 HDD, 1 DVD drive, the
vid card & monitor, keyboard, mouse & PSU. The only bit I'll need from
the existing machine is the vid card

So, you have a spare PS but not a spare video card or case?
All you need to verify motherboard function is keyboard and video
card and power supply; if you can boot and set up BIOS functions,
it's a good motherboard/RAM. All the rest can wait until you
put the beast together; I'd hate to have loose HD and such all
cluttering up a workbench.

If you're reusing the old case, the connection of frontpanel buttons
may be the biggest part of the install (and you CAN'T have the
old machine up and running for that, anyway).