Quote from Sam Morgan:
Optical drive can be anything (any suggestions?).
I have never done a self build before, so am a little lost when it came to the casing. All and any help will be taken with both hands. What size do I need (mid or full size), which are the best brands, how do I know which ones run silently, which ones have good airflow etc. are some of the questions I have.
Optical drive: Those DVD-RW drives are quite generic. I picked up all mine from Fry's... whatever they were promoting at the time. From $20 - $25. Here are what I got:
LiteOn iHAS324 DVD-RW 24x;
h/w: ATAPI iHAS324 Y ATA device
TSSTcorp DVD-RW drive model TS-H653Q
h/w: TSSTcorp CDDVDRW TS-H653Q ATA Device
ASUS DVD-RW model DRW-24B1ST
h/w ASUS DRW-24B1ST a ATA Device
3 different computers, 3 different makes/models. Don't matter that much anyway since I don't cut a lot of CD or DVD.
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The case: both I and Tiki got a full-tower case made by Antec. They are really huge. I put them under my desk so the big size doesn't matter much. But inside those cases there are lots of unused space. You may want to use some of the mid-size or compact ones. But be sure they will support 4 slots for PCIe X16.
Your motherboard is mATX (Micro-ATX). It is 2 inches smaller than ATX but will fit inside any case that is designed for ATX.
Other things: well you will need a mouse and a keyboard, and the media to install the operating system (I presume some version of Windows). In the older days, you must use mouse/keyboard with PS2 interface through a minidin plug. (The green and purpose color ones). But more recent motherboards they support USB right from BIOS/CMOS and you can use just USB mouse/keyboard.
Those Coronas are hard to collect! Dang... I need to fly 5 hours to Florida...