wiretap wrote:

Don't forget about Windy Soldam cases.. they were a Japanese market case that were pretty hard to get -- offering better quality […]
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Don't forget about Windy Soldam cases.. they were a Japanese market case that were pretty hard to get -- offering better quality than Lian Li / Silverstone. You can still find them on Japanese Yahoo auctions, usually $250+ after brokerage and middle man fees. I always wanted one but could never figure out how to buy when I was younger (originally had to have a JAP bank account to pay).. maybe I'll try to get one in the near future. 😎

That blue interior is really nice.
I hope you don’t mind but I just had to download that photo for my collection.

wiretap wrote:

Don't forget about Windy Soldam cases

I bought one when I was stationed over there in the mid-2000s. I can vouch for the quality. Mine is Abee branded, I'm pretty sure the Windy brand was for the export market.

I've been searching under every rock and couch cushion for a Lian Li PC37. No luck so far. 🙁 I want an aluminum mini tower for my P4 build. It's the right look for that time period, when everything needed blue LEDs, cold cathode lights, and acrylic windows. I've looked at their new models, but they're trying so hard to be "innovative" that there's always something that's a complete turn-off. Like back-to-front cooling, or moving the power supply to the front, where it blocks all the motherboard SATA ports and makes cable management a total nightmare.

I still have one of the old giant full-tower Lian Li cases. At the moment it's a backup target for my NAS. Full tower with a mini ITX motherboard with no add-in cards. Looks totally ridiculous. But it has lots of hard drive bays.

I also had one of those Cooler Master cases with the automotive paint job. It looked good and was reasonably well designed. It did have its flaws, and eventually the screw holes started to strip, the buttons were failing, one of the button caps fell off and apparently rolled into a black hole somewhere. Tried to replace it, but the replacement didn't fit well, didn't match the brushed aluminum front, etc.

I had several of those basic In-Win ATX cases. Those were really nice to work on, and came with decent quality PSUs. I just hated that you had to have those stupid quick-release rails for the drives.

To the original point, though -- yeah those early AT cases were trash. But I just love them so much. Nothing else looks right for an old 486 or Pentium build.

I have the absolute same feel about thin sheet metal cases. They are crap, yet you kind of need to settle with them if you want to buy an AT cases these days. Not many left, that is.

Moving on to ATX cases. Personally I want real steel. Real heavy and thick steel that is. With edges bent around, so I can not cut my self. That is.

Regarding aluminium. I can not stand that eighter. Sure they look nice, I just don't like to touch it. And finally, I think the material are too soft. They look good though.

My first ATX cases were Asus/Elan Vital T5 towers. I liked them a lot, they were quite fun but during the late P4 era, they became qute old fashioned and restiricted, espcially considering internal HDD bays.

My first relatively modern and good quality case was an Aopen A600a. Very nice built, good attention to detail, more than enough space for every kind of drive you will probably add, fully aluminum structure (its empty weight was amazing), was fun to work on, and also nice to look at: a miimalist elegant design, far away from those stupid/ugly /exagerated designs which were the norm. I still have it as my Opteron build/XP box.

Will continue...

Perfect case for my liking :
*Minimal wideness, barely any wider than a 5.25" drive/PSU
*Multitude of 3.5" drive bays with two in front not just one
*Two or more 5.25" bays in front
*Ability to hold one or two full length ISA cards
*PSU on top and not bottom
*More than 7 card slots
*Rounded or blunted edges in interior structures to avoid cutting myself

sleeper cases are best cases

tayyare wrote:

My first ATX cases were Asus/Elan Vital T5 towers. I liked them a lot, they were quite fun but during the late P4 era, they beca […]
Show full quote

My first ATX cases were Asus/Elan Vital T5 towers. I liked them a lot, they were quite fun but during the late P4 era, they became qute old fashioned and restiricted, espcially considering internal HDD bays.

The attachment asusa.jpg is no longer available

My first relatively modern and good quality case was an Aopen A600a. Very nice built, good attention to detail, more than enough space for every kind of drive you will probably add, fully aluminum structure (its empty weight was amazing), was fun to work on, and also nice to look at: a miimalist elegant design, far away from those stupid/ugly /exagerated designs which were the norm. I still have it as my Opteron build/XP box.

The attachment aopen_a600a_main_big.jpg is no longer available

The attachment aopen_a600a_opened_big.jpg is no longer available

Will continue...

In 2009, I decided to almost completely upgrade my Athlon64 based socket 754 rig. I was not thinking about changing my Aopen A600 at the beginning but while looking at other parts, I come up with a Cooler Master Cosmos 1000. It was love at first sight. This case is the most satisfactory, most high quality case I ever seen or used. Please note that, now I own a Cosmos II, and stiill saying the same thing. Merely talking about its specs does not make enough justice to it. You need to see it and use it to totally appreciate it.

Then, late last year, I saw a Cosmos II (a display item, so not exactly brand new but unused) on sale for a price which I can afford and directly wenr for it. I have my eyes on that monster for years but the price was always prohibitive. I don't believe anyone can internalize its size without seeing one first hand. It is HUGE. The build quality however, although top of the line for sure, is lower than Cosmos 1000 in my opinion. Feels more plasticy (25kg empty,weight nevertheless 🤣)and some details are (compared to Cosmos 1000) is a bit dssapointing. They obviously cut some corners where you were not expecting from a big brother of a work of art like Cosmos 1000.

My main gripe with finding cases for older systems, is that you end up with a lot of wasted space due to the ATX form factor.

I came across a nice AT desktop on here some months back that was Mitac branded, would love to find something in that form factor for a retro build:

http://133fsb.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/kbmouse.jpg

The short baby-AT towers come a close second, though many are pretty fugly.

Aragorn wrote:

My main gripe with finding cases for older systems, is that you end up with a lot of wasted space due to the ATX form factor. […]
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My main gripe with finding cases for older systems, is that you end up with a lot of wasted space due to the ATX form factor.

I came across a nice AT desktop on here some months back that was Mitac branded, would love to find something in that form factor for a retro build:

http://133fsb.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/kbmouse.jpg

The short baby-AT towers come a close second, though many are pretty fugly.

I can barley fit an VLB motherboard with large cards into this Lian Li ATX case.
Yes there is allot of room left on top and lots of room for expention in the drive bays but
Where the motherboard mounts on the bottom of the case it is really tight with large motherboards.
Optionally, I could take out the hard-drive rack and move the hard dive to the 3.5 or 5.25 bays.

Here is a comparison of a standard AT case from the early 1990’s and the Lian LI ATX case.
As you can see this 486 VLB motherboard would not have fit into the AT case.
I currently have a Baby AT 486 motherboard in the AT case.
If I really needed to make room in the Lian Li case I could remove both bottom racks
The hard-drive rack and 3.5” floppy rack and just move all the drives to the 5.25 drive bays.

SirNickity wrote:

I've been searching under every rock and couch cushion for a Lian Li PC37. No luck so far. 🙁 I want an aluminum mini tower for my P4 build. It's the right look for that time period, when everything needed blue LEDs, cold cathode lights, and acrylic windows. I've looked at their new models, but they're trying so hard to be "innovative" that there's always something that's a complete turn-off. Like back-to-front cooling, or moving the power supply to the front, where it blocks all the motherboard SATA ports and makes cable management a total nightmare.

I still have one of the old giant full-tower Lian Li cases. At the moment it's a backup target for my NAS. Full tower with a mini ITX motherboard with no add-in cards. Looks totally ridiculous. But it has lots of hard drive bays.

Maybe this is the Case I am looking for the “Lian Li PC-37”
Here it is in a photo next to an Full ATX All Aluminum “Cooler Master Praetorian”

wiretap wrote:

Don't forget about Windy Soldam cases.. they were a Japanese market case that were pretty hard to get -- offering better quality […]
Show full quote

Don't forget about Windy Soldam cases.. they were a Japanese market case that were pretty hard to get -- offering better quality than Lian Li / Silverstone. You can still find them on Japanese Yahoo auctions, usually $250+ after brokerage and middle man fees. I always wanted one but could never figure out how to buy when I was younger (originally had to have a JAP bank account to pay).. maybe I'll try to get one in the near future. 😎

I see that Bose speaker sitting there in the corner. It's an awesome speaker set. 😁

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Maybe this is the Case I am looking for the “Lian Li PC-37”
Here it is in a photo next to an Full ATX All Aluminum “Cooler Master Praetorian”

Yes, that's the one. I can't find one anywhere. My main fleet is all baby AT and ATX mini-tower, so I can have them lined up on a shelf beneath a workbench. The more popular mid-tower Lian Li cases are just a little too tall. I really want one of those early LL's though, because that just SCREAMS Pentium 4 era to me.

That Cooler Master is identical to the one I used to have.

Don't get one of these pieces of shit. Fucking stupid useless case. This would win the worst case!

Got this for free while I was in the process of purchasing a Commodore PC-20. Really lucked out here as the seller had to fetch something from the garage and I noticed the PC sitting there. PC was from around 1995 and I really love this case. (one of those upside-down ones where the PSU is at the bottom and the mainboard is upside down.

Bancho wrote:

Don't get one of these pieces of shit. Fucking stupid useless case. This would win the worst case!

Some of the stuff they've come out with since their glory days (circa Win XP) makes me think that someone there is a weed-smoker with a metal-working problem.

“Cooler master Praetorian case”
It is BIG but does not have the modularity of the Lian Li.
With the Lian Li you can remove the two bottom drive cages to make more room for very large motherboard and cards.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

“Cooler master Praetorian case”
It is BIG but does not have the modularity of the Lian Li.
With the Lian Li you can remove the two bottom drive cages to make more room for very large motherboard and cards.

With a Cosmos II, you don't need to move or remove anything to make room for anything 🤣

tayyare wrote:

Intel486dx33 wrote:

“Cooler master Praetorian case”
It is BIG but does not have the modularity of the Lian Li.
With the Lian Li you can remove the two bottom drive cages to make more room for very large motherboard and cards.

With a Cosmos II, you don't need to move or remove anything to make room for anything 🤣

That’s to big for a 486 that only needs a cdrom, floppy, and hard-drive.

https://youtu.be/QekPrC3TYXY