Honestly? I'd throw the monitors in the garbage if they're mouldy. Really not worth the effort and the connections inside are probably rusty/corroded to hell anyway.

Also do check the power supplies in those PC's for leaky/bulging caps. That's the first thing I always check, don't want to have my room full of that awful electronics smoke 😒

Nice haul, agree that the IBM is the hands-down winner, at least on looks & (nostalgic) value, although I loved those Siemens cases too.

As for mould - mould itself isn't a major problem, damp is. These things have been kept in a very humid environment. Once that is completely dried out you should be able to boot stuff up and see if works and/or is worth cleaning. As for cleaning, I'd be very careful with any chemicals around stuff like this. More likely than not cleaner would damage the screen coating (and I know IBM used some screens in the mid 1996 that were extremely vulnerable at the best of times), and it might impact the age-related yellowing. Nothing worse than a blotchy case.

I'd disassemble the monitor cases and consider washing 100% plastic parts in clean water or at most water with mild soap. Any other bits I'd rub with meths or something similar.

Thanks for the tips. Maybe I won't bother with the monitors - I'll give them a go in a week or so and if they're no good they can go to the recycling centre along with a few empty cases.

The Pentium 3 Dell has a 1000MHz 133FSB chip which is a nice surprise. It is a SL52R. Is this particularly interesting?

Are you sure about the ZIP drive being a ZIP drive?
The SL52R isn't anything remarkable, but it is a very useful CPU 😀
The Slot A board is very nice!

The "ZIP drive" looks like a tape streamer to me.

Oh Ok... it has 8GB written on it, which sounds very very large for a zip drive actually! I have no idea what the tape streamer would be for - the guy was into music production I think, or would it be more for a back up?

The older Dell also has a 'zip drive':

Is the second 5.25" slot on the left Dell a zip do you reckon?

Almoststew1990 wrote:

Oh Ok... it has 8GB written on it, which sounds very very large for a zip drive actually! I have no idea what the tape streamer […]
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Oh Ok... it has 8GB written on it, which sounds very very large for a zip drive actually! I have no idea what the tape streamer would be for - the guy was into music production I think, or would it be more for a back up?

The older Dell also has a 'zip drive':

<snip>

Is the second 5.25" slot on the left Dell a zip do you reckon?

That's a tapestreamer, you can Google 'Dell Travan' to see more pictures.

FYI, this is an internal ZIP drive:

Here's a similar pic of a tape drive, like in your systems:

A tape streamer is usually used for back-up to tape, for long-term storage of large amounts of data (e.g. professional audio files, but also and more often system backups). There are different types of tapes (for different types of tape drive), and they can get pretty expensive...

I've washed out the nice case and now it's ready to get the motherboard back in. I was a bit confused when the whole pack panel rotated out but now I really like the design!

On the plus side, when I was cleaning the Socket 370 motherboard, it turns out it has a 1133MHz P3-S SL5LV which I've never had before. On the other hand, the caps look like this:

The board is a Gigabyte GA-6VTXE with a VIA 694T chipset, AGP and ISA slots. Should I just give it a go as it is? is it worth saving (not that I've ever replaced caps before)

Almoststew1990 wrote:

https://i.imgur.com/PaiGPxCh.jpg Can anyone tell me how to get into the case!? I don't want to break it! […]
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Can anyone tell me how to get into the case!? I don't want to break it!

Type 1:
Unlock the keylock at the back and lift the holders on the top of the case and push forward and up.

Type 2:
At the back you have a keylock and above it is one screw. First check the keylock is unlocked then unscrew the screw. Then you just push the upper side to the front for a few centimeters and lift it.

Almoststew1990 wrote:

https://i.imgur.com/xpU5iCXh.jpg […]
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The board is a Gigabyte GA-6VTXE with a VIA 694T chipset, AGP and ISA slots. Should I just give it a go as it is? is it worth saving (not that I've ever replaced caps before)

Caps look pretty borked, highly desirable, checks off everything for a perfect fast 98 pc, isa, Tualiton support, agp. Keep it and recap it for sure! Or sell it off as-is to someone with the skills to do so 😀

Almoststew1990 wrote:

I've washed out the nice case and now it's ready to get the motherboard back in. I was a bit confused when the whole pack panel […]
Show full quote

I've washed out the nice case and now it's ready to get the motherboard back in. I was a bit confused when the whole pack panel rotated out but now I really like the design!

On the plus side, when I was cleaning the Socket 370 motherboard, it turns out it has a 1133MHz P3-S SL5LV which I've never had before. On the other hand, the caps look like this:

The board is a Gigabyte GA-6VTXE with a VIA 694T chipset, AGP and ISA slots. Should I just give it a go as it is? is it worth saving (not that I've ever replaced caps before)

Cases with the quarterly rotated PSU were more tailored for Slot-based boards. Using a board with a socketed CPU (which is basically >95% of all boards, so to say) will present poor air clow as the PSU will probably try to suck air in the opposite direction as the CPU HSF.

The GA board looks like a keeper, even despite the busted caps 😀