I just managed to get ahold of my first full-tower, ~2ft monster computer. It's a Dell Precision 486/33s, some old workstation, I think, with a 486SX 33MHz and an unknown amount of RAM, unknown HDDs, some Crystal sound card from around '94, some weird parallel port isa thing, and a 4x CD + 5.25" FDD + 3.5" FDD.

Here's the thing: before I got it, it had apparently been left outside for a month. My friend got it from some guy a while back, guy said he kept it outside (for some reason), and he turned it on, and it apparently worked, though now that I have it apart, I'm glad I didn't turn it on myself.

This thing had 10-11 stinkbugs in it, evenly distributed across the whole computer. Under hard drives, inside the power supply, on the CD drive, you name it, and there was a stinkbug there. I hate these things, because if they want to move, they can move, and their anatomy freaks me out a little. I don't even care that they stink, but when they start running and flying, I start panicking.

Second, it has a fair bit of rust on the outside and inside of the PSU where it was outside, but the PSU board and internals themselves look golden. Capacitors are beautiful, there is no corrosion, and no burn marks. I guess that's why it didn't blow up the moment my friend turned it on.

The motherboard looks great, the HDDs look great, and overall, there's little to no internal damage. The case itself barely has any corrosion on/in it at all, though there are a few spots. The front panel is cracked a small amount in the upper left corner, it's missing its reset button, and its power button is cracked in half (though I have both pieces), but other than that, it looks alright.

A few questions:

A) The PSU in this thing is genuinely massive. I have never seen a power supply of this scale. If I were to get an ATX PSU with an ATX to AT adapter on it, how the hell would I install it into the case?

B) Is there a way to repair the front panel, buttons included, that isn't a big, huge deal? It looks okay other than what I listed.

C) what the hell is a 486 SX 33 doing in a huge ass tower like this, an sx 33 couldnt even run basic autocad software, let alone workstation level stuff. i might restore the case, but get a beefy ass Pentium Pro AT board or something and throw it in there and turn it into a server. i've been wanting a vintage server for a long time now, and with how huge the case itself is, it sure lends itself to this usage.