how do i mount a pc inside a cabinet?

[robot8319]

pics or tips would be helpful..

and how do i go about turning it on with out a switch??

please help i need some pics of other peoples setups to get a general idea of what to do..

[csa3d]

I recall somone saying they used a Bic Pen, and they took the pen apart, then cut the white hollow shaft into 4 equal sections.. long screws through the standard motherboard mounting holes, using the pen pieces as standoffs.

Try searching for that, it's on these boards somewhere.

-csa

[MrMojoZ]

You can put the switch wherever you like, just use longer wires.

[leapinlew]

leave it in the case and put the whole thing inside the cabinet.

[legin]

You still need a switch to turn your pc on.  You can use a normal arcade button if you choose.  I have seen people use these and hide the out of sight eg on top of the cab or on the back.

I have my pc boards mounted on feet inside the cab.  I got my feet from ultimarc.  Check out their website.

The feet are really cheap and neaten things up.  Without a big PC case inside the cab you can still (at times) have things like coin catchers ets.  Keeping things more authentic.

Legin

[leapinlew]

I set my PC's to boot up when the power is turned on. I use a power entry module like this one:

I flip this switch and it powers up everything. I use the front end to power off when I need to power off. There is plenty of room inside a full sized arcade to have coin mechs and a computer case.

[superbigjay]

Lew, where did you get those switches?

[FrizzleFried]

My horizontal cabinet (was) simply the whole case dropped in the cabinet with an L-Bracket and a thumb screw to hold it in place when I move the cabinet around.

My vertcal cabinet includes a removable 2"x3" piece of plywood mounted to the inside of the cabinet,  I have my motherboard, power supply, hard drive, etc. mounted on the board.  A much cleaner setup IMHO.

(NOTE: photo was taken before I cleaned up the wiring)



As for the power switch,  I wired directly to the toggle switch that came with the cabinet and set my BIOS to fire up on regain of power.  I flick the original switch,  everything powers up....when I am ready to power down I shutdown with my front end (MAMEWAH) then turn the switch off once my trackball light goes out (which is attached to the PC and indicates when power is off).

I also wired 2 arcade buttons to the top of the cabinet...a power (which I RARELY if ever  use) and a reset switch....just in case...but they are used very infrequently and my new horizontal cabinet will likely not include these two buttons.

[david656]

well im going with a smallish bit of sheet metal on the front with all the switches on there. the way im doing it is cutting off all the wires that used to go to the case buttons and extending them to the new buttons, the reason being that i dunno where to get the MoBo connector's! but at least i can power on from the outside

[scotthh]

how do i go about turning it on with out a switch??

Leapinlew's way aka BIOS setting:
My BIOS has a choice for "Restore on AC Power Loss". It can be set to power on. You shut the machine off via your front end and cut the power to the entire cabinet after the PC powers down. Then when you put the power back on, the computer will boot up automatically.

MrMojoZ's way aka The button:
Your motherboard has a set of pins (likely 20 pins arraigned in two rows of 10). FrizzleFried's appears to be at the bottom left corner of the red motherboard in the picture.  These are likely labeled: pled, speaker, ide_led, rest, pwrsw. Wire a switch or button to the power switch (pwrsw) leads and you have a power button where ever you want it.

Mounting the PC:
Unless you need the space in your cabinet, I don't think there's a good reason to dismantle the PC other than if it interests you to do it. One or two L-brackets or a block of wood fastened to the cabinet should keep the PC from moving.

[superbigjay]

If you leave your PC in its case and want to secure it in case you move it (incline it), you could use a steel strap to secure it into place....

But then, you'll also have to secure any other loose part (like the subwoofer) if you have any.

In my case, the sub is on a shelf inside the cab and the PC is on the cab floor, held in place by the sub shelf.

When I need to move it (incline it, not just rolling it), I just remove the sub and PC, which take about 5 minutes..
(time to unplug and replug everything)

Jay

[bluevolume]

Just finished mine this weekend -- so far so good.

[ahofle]

Mounting the PC:
Unless you need the space in your cabinet, I don't think there's a good reason to dismantle the PC other than if it interests you to do it. One or two L-brackets or a block of wood fastened to the cabinet should keep the PC from moving.

I agree -- my PC is just sitting on the bottom of the cabinet.  I am getting ready to upgrade to a better PC soon and I am glad I won't need to be using a screwdriver to remove the old one or to take apart the new PC.

[weasel-like_animal]

I recall somone saying they used a Bic Pen, and they took the pen apart, then cut the white hollow shaft into 4 equal sections.. long screws through the standard motherboard mounting holes, using the pen pieces as standoffs.

Great idea! 

[bluevolume]

Not trying to be snarky here, but why not just lay the PC on its side and remove the side panel that lets you access the cards/motherboard/et al?

I don't believe that there's any tangible cooling benefit from mounting to wood, and it just marks it harder to remove the machine and work on it elsewhere.

I disagree.  The design I came up with is far easier to remove (that was the whole point) than a complete case would be.  And since it is fully contained on the board, all I need to do is plug in the power are peripherals and it can be easily used outside of the cabinet.  I can also add memory, hard drives, even change the CPU without removing it from the cabinet.

My design wasn't focused on cooling, but with the large volume of air inside the cabinet i'm sure it will be better.  I will have a single 110v exhaust fan mounted on the rear cabinet panel.

[Malenko]

I was taking a (bad) pic of my monitor but you can see the PC inside. I do have to remove the neckboard to pull the computer out, but I can remove the top of the case (Dell Optiplex 210L) without taking out the computer.  Its just sits there because the machine never moves. If I ever do need to move the machine I remove the PC first.

I am considering building  another shelf that the PC will sit on below the current shelf, then just sit the DVD drive on the top shelf and make a new power toggle wire.

[severdhed]

my cabinet came with some plastic mounting brackets that held the original arcade pcb in place.  they stick out about an inch from the board and have a groove that the edge of the circuitboard fit into.. i just moved these around a little and slid the motherboard right into the slots.  used some small L brackets to mount the power supply and hard drive.  the thought of having a PC just sitting in there in it's original case really took away from the authenticity of the cabinet for me.

as for turning it on, I used a standard arcade pushbutton mounted on the top of the cabinet and wired to the motherboard where the PC power switch would connect. 

[Crowquill]

one word...Velcro.