how loud is that fan?

gdjacobs wrote:

Pentium MMX support, functional turbo, best retro motherboard?

It only goes down to 50mhz but its handy when doing speed tricks. I would like to actually remove the DIP switch from the board and mount it to the front of the case somehow so i can change them without having to get inside of the case.

oeuvre wrote:

how loud is that fan?

It a Noiseblocker Black Silent 80 MM jobbie. Its very quiet, and rated at 18dbA.

Bancho wrote:

This is my most retro case and houses my Pentium MMX. Funtional Turbo button on the GA-586HX board :happy: Case is a bit flimsy […]
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This is my most retro case and houses my Pentium MMX. Funtional Turbo button on the GA-586HX board 😀 Case is a bit flimsy but does the job.

I have a case like that, only with green buttons. Flimsy is indeed correct, mine fell to pieces and I subsequently lost or broke a couple of the buttons etc. Mine too originally held a Pentium MMX build, before I switched/upgraded to a K6-2 build.

Bancho wrote:

This is my most retro case and houses my Pentium MMX. Funtional Turbo button on the GA-586HX board :happy: Case is a bit flimsy […]
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This is my most retro case and houses my Pentium MMX. Funtional Turbo button on the GA-586HX board 😀 Case is a bit flimsy but does the job.

It looks like a relatively new AT case. Like others have mentioned perhaps, it's at the very end of the AT era.
Kinda odd that it was kinda flimsy. Usually AT cases are made of steel and quite sturdy.
There was a time when PC cases started getting cheapified a lot, thinner and thinner and cheaper. Some would easily bend or break.

But yours does look nice, even though it looks too newish to pass for a 486 rig, if you were to put one inside it 😜

Most of my AT cases (typically Taiwanese no-names pumped out by the gazillions) were pretty flimsy. I've had to bend the bottom plate back into shape on a few of them. Some of them were twisted slightly, or the back panel was just a hair arched out, with the apex above the card slots. Once assembled, mobo tray installed, cards acting as mechanical struts, and the top cover placed back on -- then some of the deficiencies are less obvious. It's that era of cases that I frequently heard referred to as Chinese Death Metal. Fit and finish was usually poor. Things didn't line up quite right.

The early ATX cases that I ran into were a HUGE improvement, and just kept getting better with removable motherboard trays, modular bays, cards and drives lined up properly, etc. It's only fairly recently that I've noticed cases getting thinner and lighter (and thus flimsier, but of course... cheaper!) again.

Here's my 286 case. I found it brand new NOS at a surplus electronics store for 5 USD. I particularly enjoy the compactness of the case, and the fact that it has the cutouts for the serial and parallel ports. Also, it even has a removable motherboard backing plate!

There's not many places for fans, so I installed one of those small flat fans that uses up a card slot. It basically just blows the hot air out a vented slot cover.

These are my cases.... I have a Pentium4 Socket 775 in the closet. Yet that is a stock HP machine and nothing special about that.

And then the final ones....

Now... I will not post a picture of my Commodore64-C, Amiga600 and two Amiga500's. As well as pictures of my RaspberryPI and OrangePI cases. I think that is just too generic and everyone knows what those things look like.

dkarguth wrote:

Here's my 286 case.

That is a thing of beauty 😎

dkarguth wrote:

Here's my 286 case. I found it brand new NOS at a surplus electronics store for 5 USD. I particularly enjoy the compactness of the case, and the fact that it has the cutouts for the serial and parallel ports. Also, it even has a removable motherboard backing plate!

There's not many places for fans, so I installed one of those small flat fans that uses up a card slot. It basically just blows the hot air out a vented slot cover.

<snip>

It's beautiful! Looks like it's hard to work in.

I like this one I have, it's one of my favorites.

That's my life goal to find a case like that, haha. It's like inverted Baby-AT, but slightly more compact.

God I love those early 90's cases. And lord I hate those early 00's cases 🤣 No offense brostenen, but that case for your P3 socket 370 gives me the shivers - so many bad memories repairing PCs of that era in those ugly ass cases that were a mess to work in. They were not practical, ugly as sin, very plasticky and aged so badly. I wish some companies designed proper ATX cases that looked like early 90's cases - especially desktop cases. I'm still looking for a nice beige ATX desktop case with space for two 5.25 inch drives in the front.

Work in progress still looking for power switch And power supply

AMAZING!

badmojo wrote:

dkarguth wrote:

Here's my 286 case.

That is a thing of beauty 😎

Yup.... I love it. Clean lines and yet not completely square. 😜

red_avatar wrote:

God I love those early 90's cases. And lord I hate those early 00's cases 🤣 No offense brostenen, but that case for your P3 socket 370 gives me the shivers - so many bad memories repairing PCs of that era in those ugly ass cases that were a mess to work in. They were not practical, ugly as sin, very plasticky and aged so badly. I wish some companies designed proper ATX cases that looked like early 90's cases - especially desktop cases. I'm still looking for a nice beige ATX desktop case with space for two 5.25 inch drives in the front.

No offense taken. Yet looks can be decieving. The black case are actually made by A-Open or Gigabyte, and the plates are double as thick as my early 90's era AT cases. The front is not the prettiest thing, yet the case can hold full size expansion cards. And is AT compatible.

It's a early 00's modern looking case build in the right way, using two millimeters thick plates. Steel not aluminium.

EDIT:
It is an A-Open case.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PC-Case-AOPEN-MIDI … P-/391965842437

red_avatar wrote:

God I love those early 90's cases. And lord I hate those early 00's cases 🤣 No offense brostenen, but that case for your P3 socket 370 gives me the shivers - so many bad memories repairing PCs of that era in those ugly ass cases that were a mess to work in. They were not practical, ugly as sin, very plasticky and aged so badly. I wish some companies designed proper ATX cases that looked like early 90's cases - especially desktop cases. I'm still looking for a nice beige ATX desktop case with space for two 5.25 inch drives in the front.

I built my Athlon64 in exactly the kind of case you mention:

brostenen wrote:

No offense taken. Yet looks can be decieving. The black case are actually made by A-Open or Gigabyte, and the plates are double […]
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No offense taken. Yet looks can be decieving. The black case are actually made by A-Open or Gigabyte, and the plates are double as thick as my early 90's era AT cases. The front is not the prettiest thing, yet the case can hold full size expansion cards. And is AT compatible.

It's a early 00's modern looking case build in the right way, using two millimeters thick plates. Steel not aluminium.

EDIT:
It is an A-Open case.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PC-Case-AOPEN-MIDI … P-/391965842437

Good to hear it's sturdy at least. But during that period, they made such horrible looking cases and a lot of them used silver or other colours where they sprayed the colour on black or white plastic and the coating would quickly rub off so all the edges were the wrong colour. You had the same problem with those typical Antec cases where the silver fronts had black edges after a while and it looked so nasty and beaten which is a shame because I actually liked those cases.

http://images.overclock.co.uk/product_images/ … g?1549989530527

My IBM Aptiva still looks almost new in comparison (and less dated ironically) despite it being 25 years old this year: (pic taken from someone else on this forum but mine looks identical including the mouse and keyboard)

http://www.computerstudio.us/wp-content/uploa … -complete-1.jpg

For the early 2000s, I always picked pretty straight cases without too fancy - they actually all aged rather well (at least to me) but since I had the habit of hand down my old PC to my brother, all the side panels got lost because he always took them off because nearly all his PCs died from overheating (having a PC 3 feet away from where you sleep and never cleaning the inside = bad).

EDIT: and here's a pic from my case from 2003 - called ELLG

I still like the style.

appiah4 wrote:

I built my Athlon64 in exactly the kind of case you mention: […]
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I built my Athlon64 in exactly the kind of case you mention:

Yeah that's the kind of case I love. I need to keep an eye out on eBay for someone selling something similar in Desktop format - I like stacking my PCs since it's a lot easier to swap cases and my three oldest ones are all desktops.

red_avatar wrote:

Good to hear it's sturdy at least. But during that period, they made such horrible looking cases and a lot of them used silver or other colours where they sprayed the colour on black or white plastic and the coating would quickly rub off so all the edges were the wrong colour. You had the same problem with those typical Antec cases where the silver fronts had black edges after a while and it looked so nasty and beaten which is a shame because I actually liked those cases.

I know. I was building computers for a living, from around October of 2003 to around April 2006. The company that I worked for, mostly used Codegen cases. The models 3307 and so on. They were absolutely crap, and as much as I hate piano black with glossy finish, I would rather have a Antec Sonata II case. It did not help eighter, that I had to build 12 to 15 computers each day in those Codegen cases. And do all the phone support single handed, answer all email support single handed untill lunch and finally it was demanded of me to repair at least two computers each day. Work time was 9am to 5pm. I kind of saw my share of cheap flimsy cases during that time.