was definitely a thing in the 90s already, the first big lan party I went to was in 1999 and had plenty of modded cases already.

I cut up my In-Win S500 back in the day and put an industrial 120x120x38mm fan in the top ^^

technically it was also a thing in the 80s and before imho, because back then people built their own home computers with custom cases

There have always been instances of people doing silly or questionable things to their computer cases, but it was not much of a "thing" in the 90s. Maybe it started catching on at the very end of the 90s. Personally I remember it getting big around 2000.

Once in the 90s I removed the DTK logo from my 486 and stuck on an aluminium IBM Personal Computer badge ripped from an old XT keyboard. Does that count?

For me modding was from the athlon xp era onwards.

Because pentium2, pentium3 motherboards and accessories were just boring, and cases were all white.

It was during the athlon XP era where we started to see cases with custom acrylic side windows and also people cutting their cases.
Also we started to see a shitload of CPU coolers with different designs from thermaltake, made of aluminum and copper, plus cathode tubes, coolers 80mm with leds, front panel fan controllers.
we started to see aluminum cases, black cases, we even saw some of the first consumer oriented watercooler like the corsair nautilus 500

Those things were not on pentium3 since all cases were normally white, the machines were all equal and pretty much looked the same all over.

One-day far in the future. People will look back at today's case trends and ask the same about RGB.

Although at the rate manufacturers are going with trends these days. RGB craze will never end. Unicorn puke everything for enternity!

It's definitely had a big peak around 2005 with a certain HL2-themed case inspiring a ton.

Case modding on the then popular Amiga platform started in the late 1980s, already.
That being said, I have seen a colourful painted 386 PC in a magazine from 1992 or so..

Modded my Athlon 600 in an Inwin A500 case. It was quite rare, but that was the appeal of it, to have something special. I did about the same as Imi mentioned, installed an industrial fan, cut a window. And regarding the “all cases were white”… well, that was all the more reason to spray paint it. So that was what I did. And for a while I had something unique, until the gamer oriented cases came on the market.

case modding was very popular in early 2000s, I remember plenty of people selling supplies for that, and forums just for case modding
I didn't have the skills to mod it, but I remember buying a used modded case in 2002/2003, it was a late 90s atx case painted black (not the best job but ok from a distance), with an acrylic window, some sort of neon lights, a custom fan controller in the drive bay, a rear 220v volt fan (that thing was loud) oh also the PSU had been moved from the regular position, kind of "cool" for 15 years old me.

I also remember case modding as a 2000's thing. Of course there were people who modded their case in the 80s and 90s, but it really became a thing later on. At least here where I'm from (the Netherlands).

Of course the term "modding" must be seen in historical context. If you had cut hole into your beige box for an additional fan, that could be considered a serious mod in the 90s, but having fan options everywhere is a standard nowadays. Same for putting a window in your case from 2001.. all pretty standard now, revolutionary back then.

I have to wonder if "the fast and the furious" (2001) had an effect, I sure think the case I mentioned earlier took some inspiration on that with the neon light thing.

Would also say it's a 00s thing. At least here, the 90s norm was sharing a computer in the family, the boys/young men later doing the modding generally didn't have their own computers to mod back then. Also, the PC was primarily considered to be a quite unsexy tool for work, nothing that appealed to the kids to begin with.

Once PC took off as a gaming platform in the early 00s, modding literally exploded.

Hezus wrote on 2020-08-24, 06:28:

If you had cut hole into your beige box for an additional fan, that could be considered a serious mod in the 90s, but having fan options everywhere is a standard nowadays. Same for putting a window in your case from 2001.. all pretty standard now, revolutionary back then.

Yeah, remembering that too. Glued together two 5.25" front plates, opened up a hole in the middle, and installed an extra 80mm fan for my overclocked Celeron 300A. Was creative enough to deeply impress a couple of fellow geeks back in the day 😁

I don't think I did anything other than the occasional 80mm holesaw cut to cases in the 90s.

In the 2000s though, well blue or green CCFLs, VFDs mounted in the 5 1/4" bays, spiral-wrap on the cabling and of course the ubiquitous "rounded" ATA100/133 cables (usually in Akasa yellow) were all the rage. The early to mid 2000s was when I also delved into the murky waters of both custom watercooling loops (like you had a choice, it was custom or nothing), water chillers using peltier devices, and even owned a few Vapochill XEs. There was nothing scarier than taking a hacksaw to my pristine Cooler Master ATCS201-SKX so that it had space for the watercooling loop to get outside as there was nowhere for an internal radiator to live!

The tacky prole stuff started in the later 2000s but less mainstream mods have existed like "forever".

In NL I can quite accurately date the end of the 'scene'.

Exhibit 1 and 2:

In the background the Tomb Raider-inspired case that won the 2006 NL casemodding championship. In the foreground the same person's 2007 entry.

Both made by a former colleague of mine. In 2006 he was dead serious about case modding, but got so disillusioned with the whole scene his 2007 entry was specifically designed as a big f-you to the puerile people with fragile masculinity all too prevalent in the scene. Successful troll was successful and bitter acrimonious splits ensued, with various people sitting back and eating popcorn, first and foremost the designer of this 'cuddle cube' 😜

My 2002 contribution to how a P4 case should look 🤣

H3nrik V! wrote on 2020-08-24, 07:56:

My 2002 contribution to how a P4 case should look 🤣

I love it ! Check out my athlon XP...

For me modding in the 2000-2003 period was stuff not existing for sale, but also just being a broke highschooler. Why buy a new exensive PSU if your case has space for two cheap 300W units? Why buy fans if you can scavenge them from old computers?

Later on I transplanted the Athlon into a Cooler Master Stacker (which might be a sought-after vintage case nowadays?).

kaputnik wrote on 2020-08-24, 06:42:

Would also say it's a 00s thing. At least here, the 90s norm was sharing a computer in the family, the boys/young men later doing the modding generally didn't have their own computers to mod back then.

Actually that's a good point! I cant see my parents been happy with me hacking up the only PC in the house.
I'd also say lack of demand? Overclocking only became popular in the late 90's and even then all you needed was a couple of fans. modding cases for water cooling wasn't needed yet.

Plus cost. Keeping up with hardware was expensive enough. If you were a poor student that's where your money went rather then useless bling. the modding budget rarely stretched further then a can of spray paint.

People have been modding OEM cases to fit generic parts since the beginning of time though. again out of necessity rather then "pimping your ride"

dionb wrote on 2020-08-24, 07:49:

In NL I can quite accurately date the end of the 'scene'. […]
Show full quote

In NL I can quite accurately date the end of the 'scene'.

Exhibit 1 and 2:
e3ea6cb4c018e86d7857ae0b08602d28.jpg

In the background the Tomb Raider-inspired case that won the 2006 NL casemodding championship. In the foreground the same person's 2007 entry.

Both made by a former colleague of mine. In 2006 he was dead serious about case modding, but got so disillusioned with the whole scene his 2007 entry was specifically designed as a big f-you to the puerile people with fragile masculinity all too prevalent in the scene. Successful troll was successful and bitter acrimonious splits ensued, with various people sitting back and eating popcorn, first and foremost the designer of this 'cuddle cube' 😜

Wow this went places. Thanks for sharing this story, put a smile on my face 😁