Two motherboards in one case?

[Demon]

u could always look at one of th lo profile machines like th dell gx150 very slim desk top machines designed for horizontal or vertical use.. strap th 2 together
just a suggestion

[Matter45]

dudes you guys wondering if it is possible to run 2 motherboards in the one computer? well guess what it is and it has been done... BY ME!!! i had to use paint to make the pic smaller so i could put it in the attachment... ive got other pics for inside the computer just email me at secondmatter@swiftdsl.com.au if you want em. the 2 computer are link via cross over cable. one of the hardest things to do in this is to make the two motherboards turn on at the same time. at the back of the pc i only got 1 power cable running into the computer powering 2 power supplys.

[trickyt]

What you are looking for is two PCs running simultaneously with only one mouse, one screen and one keyboard. However you need two motherboards, two hard drives. (I assume each motherboard has its own graphics and network controllers). You may be able to get away with just one power supply if you can find one with the right connectors.

I am also looking for a dual PC option, (not dual boot). I have not found a manufactured problem yet, but I found my own simple solution, which was mentioned earlier in this forum.

I have two PCs held together by a strap. They are connected via a Linksys switch to a single wireless keyboard, a wireless mouse and a single monitor, To flip from one PC to the other I just hit the scroll-lock key twice in rapid succession. Two PCs have the advantage that when one is shutting down, re-booting, crashing, or just plain over-loaded (downloading pod-casts for example), you can use the other one.

Going one step further I can imagine that it would be possible to squeeze all the PC components into just one box. Motherboards are getting smaller, and I can imagine that two power supplies could fit in the box, along with the Linksys switch. For a very simple solution you could remove everything in your box and replace the contents with two laptops (with their chargers), plugged into a multi-plug, and add an external (external to the laptop, internal to the box), hard drive to increase capacity. This would have the advantage that each "PC" would have its own uninterruptable power supply, i.e. its own battery. All laptops allow the use of external monitors, mouse and keyboard, so wiring it up to the PC slots should be easy. The slghtly complicated thing is to figure out how to turn on the lap tops individually or how to keep them running when the lid is closed. Any ideas?

Coming back to my two PCs strapped together, I actually have two PCs, but each of them has several hard drives with various operating systems, such as DOS, Windows 98, XP in French and XP in English (You can have XP twice on the same drive). (But remember that 98 can not see a drive formatted for XP). This gives me maximum flexibility to work with different operating systems, or to work with XP twice on two different PCs. If need be the PC's can see each other's drives, by using networking: (It is not advisable to open up a whole drive as shared (security risk). Much better to just make certain specific folders as shared.

For example, one of the PCs is "Dual Boot" - using two hard drives. Both drives contain Windows XP in English (different serial numbers). One of the drives is the one I work on and is set up with "Do not share files with other users", whilst the other carries a second version of XP. By default the PC will boot into the first drive (the one I never use), unless I manually intervene at boot time to instruct it to boot from the other disk. This has the main advantage that if the kids or wife decide to boot both my PCs and to look around, by default the drive used for booting will not be the one that I normally use. They will not be using the same XP as me, nor even the same drive.

They will see themselves on the C:// drive, apparently with access to my user name and my documents, but nothing much of a personal nature. (Because in practice I don't use that drive). True they could browse to the D:// drive and look for the "My Documents" files there, but my user name on that drive has been set to "private". (Right click the folder, properties, sharing, make this folder private"). This means that my files on that drive are inaccessible unless the user has booted into the right PC (i.e Disk 2), AND has the correct user password. Both are unlikely.

It's not completely uncrackable, but it's certainly more difficult if the "hacker" does not know that (1) there are actually two PCs running, (2) how to switch to the correct PC, (3) That when on the correct PC it has booted by default into Windows on disk one which I never use, and (4) If the hacker finally re-boots to disk two, then he must still guess, crack or remove, my password from my user account. All of these steps are relatively difficult for a novice to get through.

[Technogeek]

Unless you really need two physical computers I would go with VMWare. It's come a long way, and works very well now. I have Vista x64 as my host, and XP Pro as my VM. Get two monitors and have them both up at the same time. Give your VM enough HDD space for what your wanting to do with it, and it should work fine.

Of course, having a custom built machine like Matter45 is pretty cool.

[AngryBob]

Wow that blows away most of what I've seen. I really like the "old car radiator fan". I don't think "old car" to him is as old as it its to me. lol. Makes sense that a junked car could spare 12v radiator electric fans, and you can file them down to size. They could really torque though on start up, so be careful.

Originally Posted by swipe

MWP from OCAU built his own dual-mobo case, see here: Overclockers Australia PC Database

Watercooling is a bit extreme for your application but I'm sure you could learn something from his design should you decide to build a similar case yourself.

[AngryBob]

How about those hard sided travel electronics cases? Some may be very expensive, but they would have LOTS of room inside.

Someone built a computer in a large coleman cooler case with wheels. It only had one system in it, but it was awesome and featured a retractable cable.

Originally Posted by trickyt

What you are looking for is two PCs running simultaneously with only one mouse, one screen and one keyboard. However you need two motherboards, two hard drives. (I assume each motherboard has its own graphics and network controllers). You may be able to get away with just one power supply if you can find one with the right connectors.

I am also looking for a dual PC option, (not dual boot). I have not found a manufactured problem yet, but I found my own simple solution, which was mentioned earlier in this forum.

I have two PCs held together by a strap. They are connected via a Linksys switch to a single wireless keyboard, a wireless mouse and a single monitor, To flip from one PC to the other I just hit the scroll-lock key twice in rapid succession. Two PCs have the advantage that when one is shutting down, re-booting, crashing, or just plain over-loaded (downloading pod-casts for example), you can use the other one.

Going one step further I can imagine that it would be possible to squeeze all the PC components into just one box. Motherboards are getting smaller, and I can imagine that two power supplies could fit in the box, along with the Linksys switch. For a very simple solution you could remove everything in your box and replace the contents with two laptops (with their chargers), plugged into a multi-plug, and add an external (external to the laptop, internal to the box), hard drive to increase capacity. This would have the advantage that each "PC" would have its own uninterruptable power supply, i.e. its own battery. All laptops allow the use of external monitors, mouse and keyboard, so wiring it up to the PC slots should be easy. The slghtly complicated thing is to figure out how to turn on the lap tops individually or how to keep them running when the lid is closed. Any ideas?

Coming back to my two PCs strapped together, I actually have two PCs, but each of them has several hard drives with various operating systems, such as DOS, Windows 98, XP in French and XP in English (You can have XP twice on the same drive). (But remember that 98 can not see a drive formatted for XP). This gives me maximum flexibility to work with different operating systems, or to work with XP twice on two different PCs. If need be the PC's can see each other's drives, by using networking: (It is not advisable to open up a whole drive as shared (security risk). Much better to just make certain specific folders as shared.

For example, one of the PCs is "Dual Boot" - using two hard drives. Both drives contain Windows XP in English (different serial numbers). One of the drives is the one I work on and is set up with "Do not share files with other users", whilst the other carries a second version of XP. By default the PC will boot into the first drive (the one I never use), unless I manually intervene at boot time to instruct it to boot from the other disk. This has the main advantage that if the kids or wife decide to boot both my PCs and to look around, by default the drive used for booting will not be the one that I normally use. They will not be using the same XP as me, nor even the same drive.

They will see themselves on the C:// drive, apparently with access to my user name and my documents, but nothing much of a personal nature. (Because in practice I don't use that drive). True they could browse to the D:// drive and look for the "My Documents" files there, but my user name on that drive has been set to "private". (Right click the folder, properties, sharing, make this folder private"). This means that my files on that drive are inaccessible unless the user has booted into the right PC (i.e Disk 2), AND has the correct user password. Both are unlikely.

It's not completely uncrackable, but it's certainly more difficult if the "hacker" does not know that (1) there are actually two PCs running, (2) how to switch to the correct PC, (3) That when on the correct PC it has booted by default into Windows on disk one which I never use, and (4) If the hacker finally re-boots to disk two, then he must still guess, crack or remove, my password from my user account. All of these steps are relatively difficult for a novice to get through.

[Fireblade77]

Running into the same question, I found this:
Thermaltake Mozart TX
http://www.tt-germany.com/product_overview.aspx?PARENT_CID=C_00000054

You can build in one miniITX-Mainboard and one ATX- or BTX-Mainboard, completely independent of each other.

[PrairieDawg]

You do realize that the original post was from 2002? "Gary" (the original poster) may have built the Frankenstein system, used it for 4 years, stored it for 2 more years and taken it out and used it for target practice this year. If he is still trying to figure out how to build it then he is probably also looking for a new job.

[Fireblade77]

You do realize that this thread was refreshed? I admit that this is also some time ago but the reason I posted it after all was, that I ran into the same issue yesterday, checked google and found this thread. I assume that there are more people like me out there who check google, find the same problem addressed in a board like this, read it, leave it and find the answer somewhere else... or even not.

Most people register to ask their question. Most people never register here only to post an answer to an issue. I did. If this is helpful to anybody... so what? If it is not it won't do any harm to hang on to this stuff.

Jsu my 2 cents...

[artdrivers]

Does anyone know of a case that'll accept two ATX motherboards?

No and how about 1 motherboard in 2 cases? Anyone?