Horizontal Tower

Are there known problems if you put a tower case on its side? i thought
there would be none as motherboards do not specifically say which
orientation they should go.

Today (as i was bored) i put my tower case on its side thinking there be no
problems, but then i had loads of problems: It ran fine for 5 mins then
rebooted, it wouldnt go into the loading screen of windows (HDD would not
respond), floppy drive made it freeze and the CDROM wouldnt work. Later then
the keyboard wouldnt work and i noticed that the activity light of my
network card was on constantly.

Anyone know what happened? ive seen towers work on theyre side with the mobo
towards the bottom of the case but i left mine "hanging" from the top, this
couldnt of made a difference?

Muggy
http://www.lethargymusic.co.uk

In article <jTkOb.5601$>,
"Muggy" d says...
> Are there known problems if you put a tower case on its side? i thought
> there would be none as motherboards do not specifically say which
> orientation they should go.
>
> Today (as i was bored) i put my tower case on its side thinking there be no
> problems, but then i had loads of problems: It ran fine for 5 mins then
> rebooted, it wouldnt go into the loading screen of windows (HDD would not
> respond), floppy drive made it freeze and the CDROM wouldnt work. Later then
> the keyboard wouldnt work and i noticed that the activity light of my
> network card was on constantly.
>
> Anyone know what happened? ive seen towers work on theyre side with the mobo
> towards the bottom of the case but i left mine "hanging" from the top, this
> couldnt of made a difference?
>
Heat rises :-)

Muggy wrote:
> Are there known problems if you put a tower case on its side? i thought
> there would be none as motherboards do not specifically say which
> orientation they should go.
>
> Today (as i was bored) i put my tower case on its side thinking there be no
> problems, but then i had loads of problems: It ran fine for 5 mins then
> rebooted, it wouldnt go into the loading screen of windows (HDD would not
> respond), floppy drive made it freeze and the CDROM wouldnt work. Later then
> the keyboard wouldnt work and i noticed that the activity light of my
> network card was on constantly.
>
> Anyone know what happened? ive seen towers work on theyre side with the mobo
> towards the bottom of the case but i left mine "hanging" from the top, this
> couldnt of made a difference?
>
> Muggy
> http://www.lethargymusic.co.uk

I was pondering this earlier today.
The only thing I can come up with is that heat rises, and if the
motherboard is "hanging" from the top then the heat from the CPU will
rise back into it. Although, if this was true then surely expansion
cards in tower cases which are the proper way round would overheat etc.?
I can understand that the CD-ROM might not work (due to the weight being
on one side), but I'd have thought that the hard drive would be alright.
As for the network card, **** knows! (For want of a better word!)

Abnton

Bitstring <jTkOb.5601$>, from the
wonderful person Muggy <> said
<snip>
>Anyone know what happened? ive seen towers work on theyre side with the mobo
>towards the bottom of the case but i left mine "hanging" from the top, this
>couldnt of made a difference?

That's probably the problem - all the weight of your HS was trying to
pull it off the CPU, and if it was a heavy one it may have succeeded -
at least enough to get the CPU temp to rise far enough to cause
problems. You also have all the hot air rising to be trapped by the
motherboard - very bad for those passively cooled Northbridge and
Southbridge components.

If you must run it on its side, make sure the mobo is at the bottom.

--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Outgoing Msgs are Turing Tested,and indistinguishable from human typing.

> That's probably the problem - all the weight of your HS was trying to
> pull it off the CPU, and if it was a heavy one it may have succeeded -
> at least enough to get the CPU temp to rise far enough to cause
> problems. You also have all the hot air rising to be trapped by the
> motherboard - very bad for those passively cooled Northbridge and
> Southbridge components.
>
> If you must run it on its side, make sure the mobo is at the bottom.
>

I was thinking of that but i remember when putting the HS on the Socket A
board it was a really tight fit, but the temp was extremely high when i got
it to reboot and checked in bios.

What i cant work out is why the network card and the keyboard failed? btw
when i put it vertical again it worked fine!

Muggy
http://www.lethargymusic.co.uk

I suspect the cpu cooling fan might not have liked being upside down
and either failed to spin up or ran extremely slowly due to loss of end
float in the bearings causing it to bind up.

You can test this by removing the case panel and supporting it
boardside up so you can view the cpu fan.

Although MoBo temperatures are likely to be a little higher in the
'upside down desktop orientation', I don't believe this would suffice by
itself to cause the problems you suffered.

HTH

--
Regards, John.

To reply directly, please remove "buttplug" .Mail via the
"Reply Direct" button and Spam-bots will be rejected.

"Muggy" <> wrote in message
news:jTkOb.5601$...
| Are there known problems if you put a tower case on its side? i thought
| there would be none as motherboards do not specifically say which
| orientation they should go.
|
| Today (as i was bored) i put my tower case on its side thinking there be
no
| problems, but then i had loads of problems: It ran fine for 5 mins then
| rebooted, it wouldnt go into the loading screen of windows (HDD would not
| respond), floppy drive made it freeze and the CDROM wouldnt work. Later
then
| the keyboard wouldnt work and i noticed that the activity light of my
| network card was on constantly.
|
| Anyone know what happened? ive seen towers work on theyre side with the
mobo
| towards the bottom of the case but i left mine "hanging" from the top,
this
| couldnt of made a difference?
|
| Muggy
| http://www.lethargymusic.co.uk
|

Fit a case fan - you'll be fine. Heat wont be rising when its blasted about

Muggy <> wrote:
| Are there known problems if you put a tower case on its side? i
| thought there would be none as motherboards do not specifically say
| which orientation they should go.
|
| Today (as i was bored) i put my tower case on its side thinking there
| be no problems, but then i had loads of problems: It ran fine for 5
| mins then rebooted, it wouldnt go into the loading screen of windows
| (HDD would not respond), floppy drive made it freeze and the CDROM
| wouldnt work. Later then the keyboard wouldnt work and i noticed that
| the activity light of my network card was on constantly.
|
| Anyone know what happened? ive seen towers work on theyre side with
| the mobo towards the bottom of the case but i left mine "hanging"
| from the top, this couldnt of made a difference?

This shouldn't have given you problems with overheating unless the cooling
was 'marginal' to start with.
Chances are that you HDD isn't happy with being in a different orientation
and is giving some errors. From experience, HDDs like to stay working in the
orientation they were formatted in - the different pull of gravity seems to
cause minute changes in the alignment.
Moving the case around might have loosened the odd connection and
introduced the instability, as gravity will have been encouraging the PCI
and AGP cards to move.
Suggest you put the case back the right way up, and then check that
everything is properly fitted inside before rebooting.
Once your PC is okay again, I suggest you go outside and park the car the
right way up ! :-)
Kevin.