Hello,

Long time lurker, first-time poster. Some years ago I got back into the vintage computing hobby and I have been specifically collecting industrial single board computers and accessories since.
I have now amassed about 60 different industrial SBCs in all shapes and sizes.

Today, I want to show you one of my favorite industrial builds

The 3DFX Toaster

The 3DFX Toaster is built in a nice little industrial case, housing a backplane with space for 3 cards:

Inside it are the mighty Voodoo 4 4500 PCI and the SBC CPU card, running on an Intel 8255GME Chipset. I have upgraded the CPU to a 2.0ghz Pentium M, and swapped the fan for a more modern Noctua. The Voodoo is using a Papst fan, which is powered from the SBC fan connector.

Features & Caveats

The machine actually runs great, much better than I expected! It reaches top performance in most games of the time, as you would expect from such a powerful late descendent of the Pentium 3 and a VSA100.
One problem was the sound. Given that both the SBC and the Voodoo 4 have pretty tall fans on them, there was no space at all to fit another PCI card in the middle slot. Even a mutilated ESS1 Solo did not fit. So despite having one ISA and one PCI slot free, the middle slot remains unpopulated.

I had initially planned to put a slot-fan into the empty space, but I could find none that actually were short enough to fit. So instead, the middle slot now remains open for ventilation and to make delicious slices of toast while benchmarking Unreal:

After just 6 minutes on the Unreal castle flight, we have delicious golden brown bread!

All joking aside - Please do not insert bread into your empty PCI slots.

The SBC comes with Realtek AC97 audio onboard, which is less than stellar, but better than nothing. I have since made a breakout cable for that, which I plan to mount on one of the three LED holes on the back of the case:

But what about the heat for real though? It actually runs okay. The Pentium M is a chip that is designed to run comfortably in tight spaces - it reaches a mere 55 celsius under full load.
As for the Voodoo, I took some measurements with a temperature probe and it does seem to run only 2 or 3 degrees warmer than it reaches in a normal system with the case closed. So overall, not bad.

However, I do plan on adding another fan to the unit.

With that said:

To-Do
* Find a company that can waterjet cut a clean hole into the front of the case, so I can mount a 70mm fan, solving all temperature concerns even with the case closed at all times.
* Properly mount the speaker out on the back of the case (hotglue?)
* Replace the hard drive with an SSD or DOM to reduce heat and noise even more
* Repopulate the missing LEDs in the back of the case
* Desolder the AT P8 and P9 connector from the backplane and re-route the cabling and connectors to underneath the backplane for a cleaner look