VOGONS


First post, by p6889k

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It's an ATX case. Right now I have in it an ATX Pentium Pro with setup that I won't be needing anymore as I'm also setting up a dual Pentium Pro in a separate AT case. So now of course I have a good reason to build a new setup in this ATX case. To the best of my recollection it looks similar to Inwin case I had for my Slot-A Athlon 600 through Athlon XP era. The front I/O bay panel also seems very appropriate as the board I want to put in has internal USB, Audio, GamePort and FireWire connectors. After that I switched to Core Duo and modern black cases with bunch of fans, USB connectors, etc.

Right now I'm thinking of putting in it:
Asus A7N8X-Deluxe
Barton 2500+
NVidia 7800GS AGP (the best AGP card I have for now). I also have ATI 9800 Pro as an alternative. The ATI may be more emotional choice for me as I remember having ATI 9700 Pro with this very board and cpu back in the day.
Voodoo2: Should I put one in? I have two potentially for SLI, but the other one is in PPro system I also have.
OS: Win2K or WinXP. WinXP seems more appropriate for the period. But I would like to have at least one system with Win2K. Likely won't bother with dual boot into Win9x as I already have that covered with PPro system and this Asus board doesn't have ISA for trouble free DOS sound compatibility.

I also have a great Pentium 4 board with ISA that I used to have in this case with 2.6GHz P4, problem was that once I upgraded CPU to 3.4GHz Northwood, it was overheating in that case - to the point where one could smell the heat. The case has 80mm intake fan at the front bottom and 80mm exhaust fan in the rear, but it wasn't enough, likely due to the small case size and no free airflow inside.
I could put the Pentium 4 in this case again, but use 2.6Ghz or 2.8 to reduce heat output. That would probably make more practical sense as the Pentium 4 board I have also has working ISA for sound, but I already have other computers for DOS, so it's not really needed at this moment, and I really want to use the 3.4GHz P4.

Here are systems I already have and plan to keep running.

386DX: in a nice period correct desktop running DOS and Win3x with MT32. Primarily for games up to 1992.
Dual PPro 200: in a nice period correct AT workstation tower with front bays filled to the top, Win95 and NT4. For games from 1992-1996/7/8, plus some tinkering in NT4. Has Voodoo2 and connected to Roland SC-55. The build is still under construction, but should be finished as soon as I get to reflash BIOS that I killed the other day. 🙁

Here's what I still want to add, already have the parts, except cases.

P4 with ISA Soundblaster, Voodoo2, etc.: tripple boot with Win3x, Win98SE and Win2K for 1990-2003 era (roughly). I need a new case with better airflow. Something from the era between beige cases and ultra modern cases. This system is great as it can play games from very broad time era (DOS to early XP) as it supports ISA sound (two slots) and can be slowed down with SW all the way to lowly 286 speed. If I was more rational, this would be probably the only system I would ever need.

Intel quadcore Q9550s on Abit IP-35 Pro with Nvidia GTX 285 for modern XP era games with XP os. For this I'll get a fairly modern case. I'll probably wait another 5-10 years before I set this up, it doesn't feel retro enough yet.

I also have enough parts to build full systems around these components, just don't have the space for all of them.
486DX33, Single PPro, Few other Athlon XPs and Pentium 4s, Opteron. The 486 with VLB may be interesting, if I find a good case for it I may build it one day.

In all honesty I probably don't need the AthlonXP system, but I have the case, so need to put something in it 😀 And Athlon XP was such a big success during its time...

Oh and in case you're wondering about that Designed For Windows 98 Sticker, that is certainly not original 😀

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Last edited by p6889k on 2021-08-04, 02:52. Edited 1 time in total.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k, 48k+, 128k, +2
Amiga 1200, 68030/40mhz
386DX/33, ET4000, SBPro2, MT32
Dual PPro/200, Millennium II, Voodoo 2, AWE32, SC-55
etc.

Reply 1 of 10, by BitWrangler

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What you looked for in the Athlon XP era was at least a front 80mm and rear 80mm case fan mounting provision. At the start of the era blowholes were custom mods, but in a year they were getting manufactured in, then we got exposed front fans with single color LEDs and beige was fading away in favor of black or silver.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 3 of 10, by BitWrangler

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Yeah, they were getting to be a thing, in light blue etc aping the styling of iMacs etc.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 5 of 10, by BitWrangler

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Though it might not look so close to an "up to the minute" case, such as those mentioned as making a first appearance around then, really anything up to 5 years older styling is "period correct" for an era. Because having tooled up for one, the manufactures wanna get a bit of return on the tooling so would have sold it for a while after, and then even if a short run, warehouses would fill up with them, maybe they weren't over popular and would seep into market rather than take it by storm, so had to be discounted. That's how we got 486es sold new in 5170 AT clone cases, Pentiums in minitowers first seen in 386 era and so on. That's even ignoring user and 3rd party upgrading that was prevalent. However, for anything around a ghz and faster you do want some forced cooling as I mentioned.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 7 of 10, by Repo Man11

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My Athlon XP case was an Elan Vital. It had originally housed a Pentium 2 system, but the IT person at the job I had at the time did not like those cases, so she stripped it and gave it to me. From 2001 to 2004 it housed a Soyo K7VTA, an Abit KT7A, and an Epox 8K3A+.

"I'd rather be rich than stupid" - Jack Handey

Reply 8 of 10, by FiIosofia

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You mean you had a PC case that, according to Bergson, represents intuition? Intuition here defined by the instinct becaming aware of itself?

When I built my Athlon XP machine back in 2005 I searched high and low for a case with a 120mm fan in the back, after reading the AMD thermal design manual. I still have that case and it is, since 2015, housing my son's PC.

BGWG as in Boogie Woogie.

Reply 9 of 10, by p6889k

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I just looked at some old personal photos and can see that I was using Inwin Q500 beige tower still in 2003. I believe I bought it in 1999 for Athlon 600, and was using it till 2005 when I switched to Antec P180 that was released that year. By 2005 the Inwin case was obsolete, but in 2003 it still felt ok, even though fancier cases were already all over the place.

Btw, the case I posted in my original post above has 1 front and 1 rear fan. It's not super efficient, but it handled 2.6GHz P4, so should handle Barton 2500.

More modern case would be nicer, but at this point if I get a new case it's going to be for P4 3.4GHz system not the Athlon. So basically I'm trying to find a good use for this case, without making it look like Frankenstein with obviously mismatched parts. I can always just throw the case in the closet for something else in the future, but I have plenty of parts to put in it, so why not. I could keep the current single Pentium Pro in the case, maybe it would be more appropriate for it, but then I already have another dual Pro setup...argh:(

Thank you.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k, 48k+, 128k, +2
Amiga 1200, 68030/40mhz
386DX/33, ET4000, SBPro2, MT32
Dual PPro/200, Millennium II, Voodoo 2, AWE32, SC-55
etc.