Dual Pentium Pro server?

Mod the top of the case to fit a real radiator.... A 240 at minimum with 360 being better.

I bet it isn't wide enough to house 140mm fans is it?

Pics of the case?

How about one drive from each of the competing early CD-ROM standards? IDE, SCSI, LMSI, Sony, Panasonic and Mitsumi.

Bonus points for also covering several somewhat distinctive types of drives... 1x, 2x, caddy-loading, slot loading, "mid" speed (probably SCSI), very high speed (probably IDE), etc... maybe those last two could be an early CD burner, and a DVD drive just for completeness.

Man... now I want to do this build. I think I probably have most of these aside from a slot loading CDROM. Whether they work or not is another issue entirely.

Full AT footprint 486 motherboard with the "chipset" implemented in discrete logic.

A pair of full height 5.25" SCSI HDD with the blinky light faceplates.

2+ zip drives.

Multiple NE2000 cards in a LACP bond.

Just go bananas

keenmaster486 wrote on 2026-08-31, 22:54:

Dual Pentium Pro server?

Hmmm that seems like a rabbithole, what 12 AT boards and supermicro made half of them?

Just trying to figure the odds with some eBay poking, and their searches seem to be artificial stupidity dehanced now, with "pentium pro socket 8 motherboard" fetching anything with any of the terms in. But there's a heck of a lot of ATX and weird dell/compaq formfactors in ppro.

Anyway, that's feeling like a $1000 project. I won't likely spend that much. Next to nothing on hand to reduce the blow, except maybe some ECC RAM and a random heatsink.

cyclone3d wrote on 2026-08-31, 23:01:

Mod the top of the case to fit a real radiator.... A 240 at minimum with 360 being better.

I bet it isn't wide enough to house 140mm fans is it?

Pics of the case?

It's the one piece over the top cover type so hard to mod into the top. Might get away with using the PSU hole and putting PSU dangling from fan vent hole lower down.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-09-01, 01:14:

cyclone3d wrote on 2026-08-31, 23:01:

Mod the top of the case to fit a real radiator.... A 240 at minimum with 360 being better.

I bet it isn't wide enough to house 140mm fans is it?

Pics of the case?

It's the one piece over the top cover type so hard to mod into the top. Might get away with using the PSU hole and putting PSU dangling from fan vent hole lower down.

Ahhh, you would need to make a bracket that mounts the radiator to the case and then have the holes in the top of the cover with fan grills bolted on to make the top of the case not super bendy.

There is also the option to use the 5.25" bays to mount a radiator.

Still need enough airflow to be able to flow through the case though.

To me these giant things are kinda ridiculous. So if you are going to use it, I think you need to do so in a ridiculous way.

Fill all the bays with different storage methods, and drive bay fillers (audio meters, cigarette lighter, disk storage, speakers, fan controllers etc).

The internals could be anything really, but as it is an AT case, it's probably best to put an AT system in there. I think I would want something fairly powerful that's still AT. Maybe a Pentium MMX. Maybe stick a Voodoo 1 or 2 in there.

Or, what about turning it into a retro NAS. Fill the 5.25" bays with caddies and fill it with HDDs

Some ccfls, some high airflow fans into a carbon filter and 2 or 3 clones...

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2026-09-03, 16:15:

.. So if you are going to use it, I think you need to do so in a ridiculous way.

Fill all the bays with different storage methods, and drive bay fillers (audio meters, cigarette lighter, disk storage, speakers, fan controllers etc). ...

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2026-09-03, 16:17:

Or, what about turning it into a retro NAS. Fill the 5.25" bays with caddies and fill it with HDDs

maxtherabbit wrote on 2026-09-01, 00:52:

Full AT footprint 486 motherboard with the "chipset" implemented in discrete logic. […]
Show full quote

Full AT footprint 486 motherboard with the "chipset" implemented in discrete logic.

A pair of full height 5.25" SCSI HDD with the blinky light faceplates.

2+ zip drives.

Multiple NE2000 cards in a LACP bond.

Just go bananas

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-08-31, 23:50:

How about one drive from each of the competing early CD-ROM standards? IDE, SCSI, LMSI, Sony, Panasonic and Mitsumi.

Bonus points for also covering several somewhat distinctive types of drives... 1x, 2x, caddy-loading, slot loading, "mid" speed (probably SCSI), very high speed (probably IDE), etc... maybe those last two could be an early CD burner, and a DVD drive just for completeness.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2026-08-31, 22:54:

Dual Pentium Pro server?

Thank you all for the great suggestions...

Yeah I think it's gotta be something server-y with a "pile-o-drives" but possibly just 2 interface, IDE and SCSI and not too mad on optical types, one of both.

Now I haven't seen a massively logic-y 486 board since they were already looking archaic in the mid 90s.The "early performance" 486 ISA board I have already has a case it belongs to, original. Though I have another ISA board, I think it would be replicating that too much. Also why I wanna rule out Pentium MMX, I have a Compaq and Micron P233.

The P-Pro idea has been brewing, percolating, festering or whatever you want to call it, and excepting happy accidents that would astound even Bob Ross, I don't think chances are good of getting vintage AT P-Pro for cheapskate money. So next best thing... if you had a P-pro board and tonnes of money, what would you do? Stick an overdrive it it anyway 🤣 So I remembered I have an AT format Pentium II board..

I think it's this one if my memory is working right today...
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/pcpart … bxb847d-35-8847
Edit: maybe my memory working but my cut and paste skills aren't, meant this one...
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/pcchips-m717

Now despite being PCChips, it seems like quite a solid board due to Intel chipset and not a cereal box cardboard PCB either. Disadvantage is that it does not have many slots... buuut, it's got onboard sound. Also the SiS 6326 has it's own RAM, so that should be not too terrible for mostly server duties.

Build out might look like: Klamath PII-266, PCI SCSI, 4 Port PCI NIC, additional ISA i/o, 2x128MB DIMM, 360k, 1.2MB, 1.44 floppies, 6x SCSI CD, IDE CDRW (90s), SCSI removable, IDE removable. Then internal drives would be biggest I can get BIOS mod for IDE and probably only 2 and 3GB SCSI (Maybe have a 30GB squirrelled). I have extra SCSI and IDE caddies, so maybe would have one of the SCSI drive emulators in a caddy and a Compact Flash adapter in a caddy.

OS I am thinking main OS would be NT 4 for 90s server vibes, though I may also try Win2k, also would have DOS/WFWG and 98SE bootable. I guess whether it stays in NT4 or 2000 by default depends one which one dumbs down later SMB to early SMB best for retro machines and suchlike things. Would bridge other online storage, and have tweener duties.

So that's how my thoughts are swinging now. Possibly if I stroll into a great deal on P-Pro or 486 EISA board and cards, then it might get evicted.

I like the P2 idea but you have to incorporate the full height 5.25" SCSI drives with faceplates to hold the room together

If you go with a pentium ii, might I suggest OS/2 or one of the commercial x86 UNIX systems from the era maybe Solaris.

Sorry for being a bit late to the party, but this topic has been on my mind the last few days.

To answer the title question: "Hardware" belongs in the case. :P

But seriously, this bit of unobtanium would be ideal for taking up 3 of the front bays:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBtETkJeqmY

The other 3 bays could house a slot-load DVD drive, a dual floppy combo drive, and a SD or CF to IDE converter for easily swapping operating systems. (Or backing them up externally)

Is it an early or late AT-fulltower? That makes a lot of difference to me what I would put in it.

For example, I have an early 90s fulltower, perfect for a really bad-ass 486!

Another one of mine is a late 90s fulltower, it has a Pentium Pro sticker on it so putting anything else in it would feel really wrong.

Lylat1an wrote on 2026-09-08, 08:03:

Sorry for being a bit late to the party, but this topic has been on my mind the last few days. […]
Show full quote

Sorry for being a bit late to the party, but this topic has been on my mind the last few days.

To answer the title question: "Hardware" belongs in the case. 😜

But seriously, this bit of unobtanium would be ideal for taking up 3 of the front bays:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBtETkJeqmY

The other 3 bays could house a slot-load DVD drive, a dual floppy combo drive, and a SD or CF to IDE converter for easily swapping operating systems. (Or backing them up externally)

Right, cool as all hell, after I find one of those, while I still have the horseshoe up my ass, shall I pair it with a Nexgen P90 VLB board with Creative 3D Blaster, or just a simple quad PPro, 4 overdrives, and V5 6000 ?? 🤣 🤣 🤣

Though I would find that a bit of a PITA on a full tower, they don't really belong on top of desks, be better in a mid.

Something more modern could probably be fabricated with white/beige pla, and a small lcd display.

Wouldnt have the retro chic this amber crt has, but it could still be quite the use for a full tower case's realestate.

I happen to have a full tower ATX case from the 90s at home. I should see about cooking up something like that for it.

edit:

The diagonal measurement of a 5in x 5in square display is ~7in. There are several flavors of 7in 16:9 ratio IPS displays (hdmi, but there would be room to include a vga adapter), and at least one 6in display, on amazon.

I'll look to reverse derive the screen dimensions of the 7in displays, to see if they can realistically fit inside a 5.25 x 5in area. (The size of 3 5.25 bays)

It may be possible to add powered internal speakers, given the depth of the allowed area, and the thinness of modern IPS displays.

Would make for a very interesting thing to throw on a small homelab server box.

OSkar000 wrote on 2026-09-08, 10:05:

Is it an early or late AT-fulltower? That makes a lot of difference to me what I would put in it.

For example, I have an early 90s fulltower, perfect for a really bad-ass 486!

Another one of mine is a late 90s fulltower, it has a Pentium Pro sticker on it so putting anything else in it would feel really wrong.

It's a bit hard to date, seems "Netware era" but not sure if it would have had 386 or 486 guts in the first place. I would assume also it would have been fatter/wider if it was 94ish-97ish.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-09-08, 14:19:

Something more modern could probably be fabricated with white/beige pla, and a small lcd display.

Wouldnt have the retro chic this amber crt has, but it could still be quite the use for a full tower case's realestate.

I happen to have a full tower ATX case from the 90s at home. I should see about cooking up something like that for it.

If I went LCD, given the floor/desk thing, I'd want a pullout one like a in dash car DVD player, so then you could put it in top bay, have tower beside desktop, and maybe angle display back so it's above level of desk, barely and \ facing upward.

Though the terminology degrades into late 90s, I have two "full tower" ATX that aren't full tower, just mid towers with a lot of bays. By then I think the only full height full towers were workgroup server double wide things from DEC Compaq/HP and IBM etc.