VOGONS


First post, by bofh.fromhell

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As promised heres a few pics of this (IMO) awesome AT case:

Front, nothing special here:
h4tX9KKl.jpg

3/4 view, this side is more "sun kissed" then the other:
qB4R1Fxl.jpg

Rear view, this is where the party's at !:
bdmeef2l.jpg

And the "secret" is revealed:
lbSyDhol.jpg

And a few build pics:

Choosing an optical drive by color, my choice is in the bay.
Just hoping it works ! (spoiler: it did)
It looks better in real life, the camera exaggerates the difference in hue:
KuiGq5pl.jpg

I'm adding a small extra fan (80mm from Fractal Design), i know its not technically needed but I like to keep my retro gear cool:
nWMWuQYl.jpg

Front view of the fan, the case had a fan hole stamped already, just had to remove the blankingplate.
Fan is mounted on Noctua rubber fan mounts:
KoGDEdrl.jpg

Added a little extra ventilation on the bottom.
Work in progress shown, looks prettier now.
I'll probably open it up more later and add a filter:
yjbbJbhl.jpg

Up and running.
A whisper quiet system !
Screen color is very off in the camera:
Jlig76sl.jpg

The system specs are nothing special at all:
-ASUS T2P4 rev 3.1, recapped by me and generally loved.
-Pentium 200MMX running at stock frequency.
-2*32MB 60ns EDO ram, capable at running the tightest timings even at 75MHz FSB.
-Matrox Mystique 220 4MB.
-Diamond Monster3D-2 Voodoo2 12MB.
-3COM 3C905B-TX PCI nic.
-Soundblaster Live! 5.1 PCI, forgot to check the CT#.
-Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 120GB.
-Teac 524EA-B 24X CDROM.
-Unknown but working (after cleaning and re-lubing) floppy.

And BTW The "table" is a modded "IKEA BROR".
Moved the bottom shelf as far down as it would go, and the top one high enough that i can fit 50+cm or so tall computer cases between them.
(borrowed pic, not my table):
Bungalow5_IKEA_BROR_2.jpg

Reply 1 of 16, by Munx

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That's just beautiful. Having all the drives in a different section of the case does wonders for cable management and makes the insides really nice to look at.

My builds!
The FireStarter 2.0 - The wooden K5
The Underdog - The budget K6
The Voodoo powerhouse - The power-hungry K7
The troll PC - The Socket 423 Pentium 4

Reply 2 of 16, by liqmat

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bofh.fromhell wrote:

(borrowed pic, not my table):

About to say, "Are you Indiana Jones Jr.?" Anyway, I was completely wrong about the case. Not the one I thought it was, but nice case regardless.

Reply 3 of 16, by Stiletto

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Moderator here! I edited your post to make these pics smaller, my 1080p monitors hated them, they were much wider than the browser window!
Here's how: Making clickable embedded images using Imgur image hosting service

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 4 of 16, by bofh.fromhell

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Stiletto wrote:

Moderator here! I edited your post to make these pics smaller, my 1080p monitors hated them, they were much wider than the browser window!
Here's how: Making clickable embedded images using Imgur image hosting service

Ty !
I'll keep that in mind in the future.

Reply 5 of 16, by SW-SSG

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That case is great... never seen an AT tower before where everything slides out the back like that. Also from the front it looks much more like an ATX tower!

Good cable management, too. 😎

Reply 6 of 16, by doaks80

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I've never seen one with the floppies on top.

k6-3+ 400 / s3 virge DX+voodoo1 / awe32(32mb)
via c3 866 / s3 savage4+voodoo2 sli / audigy1+awe64(8mb)
athlon xp 3200+ / voodoo5 5500 / diamond mx300
pentium4 3400 / geforce fx5950U / audigy2 ZS
core2duo E8500 / radeon HD5850 / x-fi titanium

Reply 7 of 16, by gdjacobs

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bofh.fromhell wrote:
And the "secret" is revealed: https://i.imgur.com/lbSyDhol.jpg […]
Show full quote

And the "secret" is revealed:
lbSyDhol.jpg

Where was this case all my teenage years?

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 8 of 16, by JoeCorrado

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bofh.fromhell wrote:

-ASUS T2P4 rev 3.1, recapped by me and generally loved.

That is what I am talking about! It is all about love put into it! And then the pride of what you have accomplished.

ENJOY. And have a great time with a very fine example of the period. Thanks and kudos to you for your efforts and conservator-ship to the cause.

-- Regards, Joe

Expect out of life, that which you put into it.

Reply 9 of 16, by bofh.fromhell

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Spent some more time tweaking and fiddling.
The CPU is now a Pentium MMX 233MHz.
Replaced the Alpha PAL 6035 with a generic S7 cooler and a Fractal Design 50mm fan and reclaiming tons of room around the socket.
The Alpha is of course awesome but wasted here.
Added a TAG RAM and increased RAM to 256MB, because why not ? =)
Also spent some time finding what combination of VooDoo2's and passthru cables give the best picture.
Found my Live! Gold that was hiding in another system.
And did some serious cable management, wich is quite challenging without rounded or modded flatcables.

Sidepic, cleanest AT system I've ever owned:

GSS8E48l.jpg

New cooler with twirled cable, wrap it around something and heat with a hairdryer for it to keep the new form.

49tgpeLl.jpg

Analogue and digital cables from the CDROM "cleverly" hidden.

v3xPhD0l.jpg

Top part isnt that pretty, rounded cables would help a lot here.

6jUMH6El.jpg

Backside, can't say i like the VooDoo cables.
I guess a V3 would be better but feels wrong in a 1996-97 system.

7AIfOSTl.jpg

The to-do list is getting shorter !:
Find a better graphics card.
Swap the NIC for an Intel one.
Find "cable clamps" in a less garish color (they are really slightly modded bag clamps).

Such a joy messing around with really good and mostly period correct stuff !

Reply 10 of 16, by bofh.fromhell

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More fiddling and cable management!
CPU is now a K6-3+ running at 400MHz (66x6), turns out the T2P4 has an undocumented 2.0v setting.
Graphics a VooDoo3 2000 (PCI obviously) with an upgraded heat sink.
And the sound card a much cooler SB AWE64.
And its now running Windows ME instead of Windows 2000.

I wanted rounded cables, but all the premade ones i can find are ugly, expensive, so old they cant bend, or all of the above!
Well I found a few different sizes of cable braids and shrink tubes locally and got started:

G6UMA5Bm.jpg

Amazing how much easier it is working with rounded and very flexible flatcables:

ODys1pWm.jpg

Even managed to get the serial and parallel flatcables neatly folded.
PS/2 and USB cables however could still use some work:

lDRhvLam.jpg

Remains to do:
Socketing the Dallas chip and making it look nicer, this was my first Dallas repair (ages ago) and while it works it can be done a lot better.
Installing an internal ZIP drive, cause why not? =)

Reply 12 of 16, by bofh.fromhell

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chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-06-06, 22:39:

Excellent job with your cable management those sleeves look great. How does the system perform?

Excellent!, you can see the 3DMark 99 MAX result in the background.
A fast and much newer HDD really helps (beta bios allows for a 120GB HDD).
Also the K6-3+ makes a world of a difference, tho I tend to swap CPU's a lot on the board.
It's so easy with the CPU placement and easy to access jumpers on the mobo =)
Even invested in one of those graphite thermal pads so I don't have to mess about with sticky thermal paste.

Reply 13 of 16, by pii_legacy

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People can hate on Windows ME, but for the best 9x experience, it actually is a great experience out of the box. The problem is that adding too many drivers makes it unstable and that's why people hated it I think. I consider it to be even better than 98SE as long as you don't have tons of tweaking to do afterwards. It was a mess when ME and 2000 were sold at the same time in stores, though.

Reply 14 of 16, by gex85

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This is a really, really nice machine you built there! Love the cable management, too!

Something I have been wondering for a long time: Does anybody ever really use those slide-out mainboard trays? I always found them to be relatively useless because you couldn't slide out the tray without removing dozens of cables first...

My retro computers

Reply 15 of 16, by bofh.fromhell

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gex85 wrote on 2020-06-07, 12:05:

This is a really, really nice machine you built there! Love the cable management, too!

Something I have been wondering for a long time: Does anybody ever really use those slide-out mainboard trays? I always found them to be relatively useless because you couldn't slide out the tray without removing dozens of cables first...

The mobo tray is mostly useless .
The upper tray in my chassis is extremely nice tho, most AT cases can be very tight around the PSU and 5.25" bays.

Reply 16 of 16, by trixster

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I’ve got one of these cases too! It was my first ever pc which I built in 1997. My bro recently found it in his basement. It was originally a k6-200 but now it has a K6-2 380 on a jetway j-542b baby AT so I guess it got upgraded in maybe 1999.

I’m using a Mateox G400 and an AWE64 ISaA, and the plan is to put SLI Voodoo 2 12mb cards in there.

It also needs a tidy up and some cable management with some round cables.

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