What Is Form Factor Atx? Is My Case Compatible?

[CARLJWJR61666]

HELP! What am I doing wrong my hard drive short out system when its
plugged in.Do I have to have all the features of an ATX form factor board
I have a [P4C800-E DELUXE] socket 478 ,chipset 875P+ICH5R ,[bare Intel
P4 3.4 gig.HT CPU] ZALMAN CPU cooler, SEAGATE 7200.7 160 gig HDD:[not SATA]its IDE ribbon with 12volt molex connection, ASUS 128MB AGP 8x4x card .CASE X case does not have all ATX features no chassi intrusion,no system management interrupt,no system power LED I do however have an
ASPIRE ATX 500watt switching power supply 12volt
when I unplug hard drive the system boots up fine. Why wont my system start when the hard drive is plugged in?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Unplug power(molex) or ribbon? Is the coloured ribbon-edge at pin 1 on both motherboard and harddisk?
HD set to Master with the jumper?
Ribbon connected to the FIRST IDE-controller on the motherboard?
Your mobo is fine (unless you screwed it up) for that PC.

 

[CARLJWJR61666]

Ribbon Is Connected To First Ide Controller.
Hd Is Set To Master
This Paticular Ide Ribbon Strangely Enough Does Not Have
A Stripe Down One Side However It Seems That Both End Have
A Square Notch So As They Would Go In Only One Way.
heres some more info the Intel chip was shipped to me from outpost.com
with a cheap little motherboard from elitegroup the 848p-a chipset
heres what the order form had on the chip4 3.4/800 E BARE cpu # 4151003
blackstuff are the 875p chipset and the 848p chipset compatible and or
interchangible?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

No problems with chipsets.
What exactly happens when you switch on, does the monitor come on?
Do all the fans run? Does the PC beep? Did you connect the 4pin P4-cable to the mobo?
Does the AGP-card need a power-connector?
Is the voltage of the PSU correct?

 

[fishhookz]

ATX form factor is the standard of ATX motherboards. The manual and webpage will mention the size: ATX or MATX(smaller), very rarely, BTX(new for Intel). The case packaging will mention the size too. If not, since you've installed the mobo in the case properly, then it's ATX.

 

[CARLJWJR61666]

when I switch on the lights blink and the fan rotates a little and thats it like
a short to ground.the pc does not beep.the four pin is connected to mobo.
The AGP card has no power connection.The power supply is an ATX aspire
500watt switch however I dont have a DC voltmeter to test the draw at this
paticular time. Now picture this when I unplug the 12volt power plug from the
HDD the damn thing boots up like a champ>Question:Ive been snooping around the
mobo utilities /driver disk and come across some readme files saying that I
would need to somehow update bios promise controller before installing OP SYS
maybe I read it wrong does make any sense? The bios are fairly old.

 

[CARLJWJR61666]

The case has raised dimples with screw holes in them rather than the
brass standoffs Im used to using.Now this holds true for SIX holes to
get the required nine holes I had to put Three standoffs near the IDE
racks because there wasnt enough dimples though there was the correct
pattern of threaded holes that the standoffs fit very nicely in.
also the majority of the fans in this case were not of the three pin variety
but the kind with molex connectors so im not really able to plug anything in
to the system chassi fan connector or the fan power conector just opposite the
cpu fan conector I dont know if that makes a difference does it ?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Go to the mobo manufacturer's website for the latest BIOS.
The promise controller is for RAID. If you don't use that, don't bother. You also don't use SATA.
Remains to check that you connected the CPU-fan cable onto the correct mobo-CPU-fan header. If not, the PC should not power up (sounds like your problem).