Are there non standard motherboards?

[Chemical1125]

If for example I had a 4 year old motherboard, which is a mATX, which came in a prebuilt computer, for example Acer, in a slimline tower, would the placement of the screw holes not align when I purchase a modern mATX mid/mini tower case, because the company modified the positions of the holes to fit their compact design, or would the holes still align perfectly?

 

[Dunlop0078]

If it says mATX then it should fit in a mATX case, thats the reason they make those standards. I know dell has some weird form factor motherboards but I dont think the call them ATX or micro ATX

 

[Eximo]

There are some BTX boards out there, which is a reverse oriented board with the expansion slots located at the 'top' of the motherboard rather then the 'bottom'.

Generally the worst thing about taking an OEM board and putting it in a new case will be the front panel wiring. Often that will be customized in an OEM machine to fit the exact components the original case will have. Not too difficult to re-wire it though. (It may not be necessary, many boards are just completely normal)

If you provided the model or board you are talking about that would help.

 

[Chemical1125]

H61H2-AD

 

[Solandri]

The Dell boards and cases were non-standard, to prevent you from re-using them in a custom build. I dunno if they still are since I haven't bought a Dell in a while, but 7+ years ago they were. Their PSUs used a non-standard pinout as well, and you could fry the motherboard if you tried to plug a standard PSU in a Dell, or a Dell PSU in another system. Other parts (like the header for the front panel) could be non-standard as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if other vendors used non-standard components. I remember when I was buying for a company about 10 years ago, one of the "bonuses" of buying HP systems was that they used all-standard parts. So if something broke, you could fix it with off-the-shelf components instead of having to deal with HP.

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=339053
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-specifications-atx-reference,3061-10.html

 

[Dunlop0078]

The Dell boards and cases were non-standard, to prevent you from re-using them in a custom build. I dunno if they still are since I haven't bought a Dell in a while, but 7+ years ago they were. Their PSUs used a non-standard pinout as well, and you could fry the motherboard if you tried to plug a standard PSU in a Dell, or a Dell PSU in another system. Other parts (like the header for the front panel) could be non-standard as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if other vendors used non-standard components. I remember when I was buying for a company about 10 years ago, one of the "bonuses" of buying HP systems was that they used all-standard parts. So if something broke, you could fix it with off-the-shelf components instead of having to deal with HP.

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=339053
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-specifications-atx-reference,3061-10.html

Wow really? I once plugged a cx500 into a dell XPS with a dead power supply, turned it on and it went pop and smelled of burning electronics I guess thats why.

 

[Eximo]

Possibly more of a case of the motherboard having the problem and taking out the old power supply, new power supply smoked it by operating long enough, etc...

H61H2-AD looks completely standard in terms of fitment. I can't tell without looking up the pin-out, but it looks like a standard ATX power connector. The 4-pin CPU power maybe problematic. Make sure the power supply has a split 4+4pin or just the 4-pin connector, there is a tall choke right next to it, so a solid 8-pin would not fit there. Front panel looks fairly normal as well.

Kind of a cross between an Micro and Mini though. Only has one PCIe slot, but the board is the normal width of ATX and uATX.