Excellent build as usual. I always wanted one of those cases back in the day. I have a bunch of ultra branded things including the Ultra x-connect 500 watt modular power supply currently powering my abit kt7a-raid based Athlon system.

It actually looks like a recent OEM system, it could be a Dell XPS if you wouldn't know it.

The problem with old enclosures like this one is that you can't install a decent size radiator for water cooling.

Other than that pretty cool but you've got to add some LED lighting 😊

Ohh and it has FIREWIRE 🤣

That's a pretty nice build! That rig actually looks a little bit like a fancy Dell Optiplex desktop if you ask me 🤣

P.S. What is a "sleeper"?

Yet somehow we are supposed to be the ones who find the ugliest cases... 🤣

I had one of those cases! The one I had was dark grey and I think was a bit taller (IIRC it had a couple more 5.25" bays).

Can you even really call this a "sleeper" build? 😜 Maybe I'm just reeeaaally behind the times, but these cases still look modern to me. Oh, I guess it's missing all the RGB lighting garbage. Nothing of value lost there in my opinion. 😉

A sleeper build is putting modern guts into an older computer or tower... This might be teetering on the line of older towers but I'd say 14+ year old case is there.

Also it was NIB! Which is awesome. I think these look pretty good and I've always liked these cleaner designs as opposed to stuff like this:

Haha I have one of those on the right but in trans green. Fugly but has a Win2K Pro license so I am compelled to build a system for that OS some day. Probably an AthlonMP or Opteron build if I ever find a board and chips for it..

oeuvre wrote:

A sleeper build is putting modern guts into an older computer or tower... This might be teetering on the line of older towers but I'd say 14+ year old case is there.

Haha, that seems like an interesting word to call a vintage/modern custom made computer. At first I thought a sleeper was a desktop that lays down instead of stand up.

Kinda like sleeper cars, eg. putting a V8 in a Toyota Camry

That's the chieftec dragon series; I'm still rocking mine from the early 2000's. It's such a solid, versatile and workable case with its easy-off sides, the slide in drive bay, and all the slot space.

It's hosted a dual-cpu Applebred Duron setup running Gentoo, then an early Core 2, and is still my daily Linux driver now hosting a skylake 6700k @ 4.9, AC wifi, addon usb 3 & 3.1 cards, and 20TB of storage. I keep it quite between busy on all fronts; although I've unfortunately misplaced the top front door! (looks like a common fate going through google images 😀 )

Next hardware swap out is still years away (I'm rooting for AMD to be the winner then), and I can't see myself every /not/ wanting to use this case.

You got any pics of yours?

My main PC used to run in a el cheapo "Premier/JNC" case up until a few days ago. i3-3220, 1TB Seagate, silver DVD-RW, GTX750Ti, ASUS H61M-A mobo, 6GB of RAM and a Raidmax RX-500XT PSU. Swapped into a bigger case because of high temps.

I don't think I have too much pictures, gotta look on my phone and dig them up. You can search up the model though - JNC RJA-52.

Or the one time I got a Athlon XP era case (presumably Thermaltake knockoff) and literally swapped in a Thermaltake TR2-420NP, a Core 2 Duo E6750 on an ABIT IP35 Pro mobo, about 4GB of RAM, and a 160GB HDD. That one I could take some pictures tomorrow, it's hasn't seen usage in quite some time.

I wanna do a sleeper build with an early 2000s Pentium 4 Dell case. My current desktop may just fit inside one, aside from the bigass GTX 1050ti I'm currently rocking. That'll likely take some mods to fit.

Like one of those DImension 8200 cases? I have no idea if an mATX board would fit in there with the standoffs and whatnot. Then there's the whole pin diagram hell you'd have to deal with... but if you find the pinouts you can get one of these to individually route the power button LED + switch cables to your motherboard header. Also works for USB 2.0 and front panel audio

https://www.ebay.com/itm/40pcs-30cm-Male-To-F … rd/382551783185?

oeuvre wrote:

A sleeper build is putting modern guts into an older computer or tower... This might be teetering on the line of older towers bu […]
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A sleeper build is putting modern guts into an older computer or tower... This might be teetering on the line of older towers but I'd say 14+ year old case is there.

Also it was NIB! Which is awesome. I think these look pretty good and I've always liked these cleaner designs as opposed to stuff like this:

I actually picked up one of those cases a few weeks ago for an AthlonXP-MP/Win2K build.

🤣

EDIT: WTF I actually replied to this post before? 😕

oeuvre wrote:

You got any pics of yours?

Absolutely! I don't think it's ever got any attention in the prior ~18 years - but this thing has become a trusted part of my life!

The blue silicone tubing suspends and vibration-isolates the drives. Drive bays are all populated and its sheer size lets me use all of the motherboard's headers in addition to addon cards (USB 3.1, AC Wifi). In prior years it's been the server-side in a 40 GiB-Ethernet network running Melanox hardware.

oeuvre, it's neat to see yours, which is likely a later model with the very handy front USB ports. The other difference I noticed are the slideable drive bays in mine. The the two 3.5" racks are slot-engaged, and each 5 1/4 bay has a pair of drive-rails, which like little soldiers are clipped into the bottom inside of case (where they collect cat hair 😀 ).

Back when I used HDD caddies and optical drives they were quite useful; I see your case still has accommodations for these, as yours has the same "scoop outs" (left and right of each 5 1/4 slot) where you squeeze the rails' clasps to disengage them.

That's awesome! I think I'll need to do some sort of drive insulation for the vibration. Otherwise it's all set. This one is pretty decent quality... better than many sub-$100 new cases.

Yeah, they were expensive cases when they came out, ranging from 150+ USD for my beige up to the sweet indigo color like yours for 220 (apparently suppliers knew they could ask more?). I bought mine for about 120 USD refurbished from New Egg and thought was a steal!

Hm, I guess $60 shipped was a good price then