Hey pano69, yes, the internal speaker is custom. I purchased a higher quality internal speaker, and cut a hole into the case to make the speaker point outwards. With AT minitowers, typically the speaker was mounted directly below the 3,5" HDD cage, at point blank onto cage. Having a speaker mounted as dumb like this, it's like if you pointed your external speakers straight onto wall instead of away from it. Such stupidity is incompatible with my engineering ethos, so I had to do something about this.

Now why bothering with the internal speaker at all? That's for nostalgia reasons: In junior days, lacking a Sound Blaster at first, I played some old games such as Indy3 and Commander Keen with internal speaker only. As sound and music is quite important to me, I wanted to have at least the option to replay these games with the "original" sound ... however at a certain quality level.

By the way, the 120 mm air intake fan with the dust filter is custom also. I had to cut the case + front panel for that to work. Granted, even with 7 extension boards, a 486 system does not necessarily need cooling like this. Yet, when pulling more air in than the PSU blows out, combined with tape-sealing most of the case's holes, this results in a slight air overpressure inside. This prevents dusted air from getting sucked inside, keeping my precious hardware clean.

Gonduron, do you have a little external mixer, for all the sound sources? I don't have an LAPC-I, but I have a MT32, SCC1 and normal sound card and it's a pain to get the levels correct. I've been looking for a small external mixer to do this job in hardware..

Here is my hodge podge setup , she's not the prettiest , but it's what's inside that counts anyways.
As for why the case is so horrible , well basically all the money went into the hardware , so the case is a bit wanting.

I tried to make it compatible and flexible, pushing as far back possible down the timeline while as far forward as well ,
the idea being no matter the dos game , I've got some kind of hardware to get the best experience possible ,
while saving as much desk space as possible by putting everything into one rig (and well one desk because of the midi stack...sorry best I could do!)

Which is why I went with a pentium 233 , so later titles run mostly smoothly.

Good Sound Blaster support is there thanks to the boring but highly reliable pro 2 along with a myriad of sound modules and a real mpu 401.
Which Gives me both intelligent mode and no hanging notes when listening to general midi.
I threw in a gravis for the hell of it when I came by an amazing deal for one , great for demoscene stuff and the few games that take advantage of it ,
and I've got a Tandy 3 voice sound card so I can at least get some better audio for old sierra titles like the first police quest and kings quest.

Mobo : MSI 5148
CPU: Pentium MMX 233MHZ
Chipset: Intel 430TX
Ram: 32MB SDRAM

2D Card: ELSA Winner 1000 T2D

3D Cards:
Diamond Monster Voodoo 4mb
NEC PC3DEngine

Sound Cards:
Sound Blaster Pro 2
Tandy 3 Voice Sound Card
Primax Soundstorm M16C

Additional Expansion: MIF-IPC-B (Roland IPC Clone)

External Hardware:
Roland MPU 401 Midi Interface
Roland MPU 104 MIDI Input Selector
8 Port Video Audio Switch

Desktop Synthesizer Modules:
Roland MT32 (Old)
Roland CM32L
Roland SC-55
Roland SC-55MK2
Roland SC-88
Yamaha MU-80

Monitor: Sony Triniton G420 19"
PSU: Compaq branded DELTA DPS-200PB ATX 250W
Case: Super Power

CD Drive: NEC CDR 273-4X
Floppy Drives:
1.44mb floppy 3.5"
1.2mb Panasonic JU-475-4 5.25"

HDD: WD100BB-75AUA1 , Western Digital 10GB IDE
OS:MS DOS 6.22

Keyboard IBM PS2 with membrane keys
Mouse: Logitech PS2 ball mouse
Controller: Radio Shack 6 button
Speakers: Altec Lansing ACS 45.1

Floppy Tray: Posso

garyglitta wrote on 2022-01-25, 11:24:

Gonduron, do you have a little external mixer, for all the sound sources? I don't have an LAPC-I, but I have a MT32, SCC1 and normal sound card and it's a pain to get the levels correct. I've been looking for a small external mixer to do this job in hardware..

If you search for threads containing "mixer" in the subject line you'll find several threads on Vogons with suggestions.

I recently bought this small 6-channel mixer and it seems to work quite well so far

MMaximus wrote on 2022-01-25, 17:12:

garyglitta wrote on 2022-01-25, 11:24:

Gonduron, do you have a little external mixer, for all the sound sources? I don't have an LAPC-I, but I have a MT32, SCC1 and normal sound card and it's a pain to get the levels correct. I've been looking for a small external mixer to do this job in hardware..

If you search for threads containing "mixer" in the subject line you'll find several threads on Vogons with suggestions.

I recently bought this small 6-channel mixer and it seems to work quite well so far

Does that work only for mono inputs or am I totally wrong about those TRS inputs and they can be stereo?

pixelatedscraps wrote on 2022-01-26, 15:24:

MMaximus wrote on 2022-01-25, 17:12:

garyglitta wrote on 2022-01-25, 11:24:

Gonduron, do you have a little external mixer, for all the sound sources? I don't have an LAPC-I, but I have a MT32, SCC1 and normal sound card and it's a pain to get the levels correct. I've been looking for a small external mixer to do this job in hardware..

If you search for threads containing "mixer" in the subject line you'll find several threads on Vogons with suggestions.

I recently bought this small 6-channel mixer and it seems to work quite well so far

Does that work only for mono inputs or am I totally wrong about those TRS inputs and they can be stereo?

The Amazon description says it's stereo.

the current state of my new-old-stock 5170

- IBM EGA adapter
- IBM 5154 EGA display with memory expansion (for mode 10h)
- 80287 FPU
- AST Rampage 2MB memory expansion
- Adaptec 1520 16-bit ISA SCSI adapter
- 4gb Quantum Fireball SCSI drive
- SB Pro 2.0 with CMS upgrade chips
- HardMPU + Roland MT32
- 3com 3c509 ethernet
- 3.5" 1.44mb

I think I'm at about as far as I can take this machine without ruining it. Nothing so far has been irreversible.

DaveJustDave wrote on 2022-01-26, 18:41:

https://i.imgur.com/MBpnxRIh.jpg […]
Show full quote

the current state of my new-old-stock 5170

- IBM EGA adapter
- IBM 5154 EGA display with memory expansion (for mode 10h)
- 80287 FPU
- AST Rampage 2MB memory expansion
- Adaptec 1520 16-bit ISA SCSI adapter
- 4gb Quantum Fireball SCSI drive
- SB Pro 2.0 with CMS upgrade chips
- HardMPU + Roland MT32
- 3com 3c509 ethernet
- 3.5" 1.44mb

I think I'm at about as far as I can take this machine without ruining it. Nothing so far has been irreversible.

Wow...... Amazing is all I can say.

DaveJustDave wrote on 2022-01-26, 18:41:

the current state of my new-old-stock 5170 […]
Show full quote

the current state of my new-old-stock 5170

- IBM EGA adapter
- IBM 5154 EGA display with memory expansion (for mode 10h)
- 80287 FPU
- AST Rampage 2MB memory expansion
- Adaptec 1520 16-bit ISA SCSI adapter
- 4gb Quantum Fireball SCSI drive
- SB Pro 2.0 with CMS upgrade chips
- HardMPU + Roland MT32
- 3com 3c509 ethernet
- 3.5" 1.44mb

I think I'm at about as far as I can take this machine without ruining it. Nothing so far has been irreversible.

Stunning. You left out the 5.25 inch floppy drive.
Also we need people to take pictures of the guts when putting these together to show off.

thanks. I left out the 5.25 because it shipped with the machine.

Not many pictures of the inside off hand, but this is the last video I had made after finalizing the internals ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf-ruZiOQws

Law212 wrote on 2022-01-26, 21:13:

Stunning. You left out the 5.25 inch floppy drive.
Also we need people to take pictures of the guts when putting these together to show off.

🤣, using Heroes quest and So you want to be a hero as a mouse pad. Poor games. Ill take much better care of them

DaveJustDave wrote on 2022-01-26, 18:41:

https://i.imgur.com/MBpnxRIh.jpg […]
Show full quote

the current state of my new-old-stock 5170

- IBM EGA adapter
- IBM 5154 EGA display with memory expansion (for mode 10h)
- 80287 FPU
- AST Rampage 2MB memory expansion
- Adaptec 1520 16-bit ISA SCSI adapter
- 4gb Quantum Fireball SCSI drive
- SB Pro 2.0 with CMS upgrade chips
- HardMPU + Roland MT32
- 3com 3c509 ethernet
- 3.5" 1.44mb

I think I'm at about as far as I can take this machine without ruining it. Nothing so far has been irreversible.

Sweet. And I especially like how there’s the hint of far more on either side of the frame…

I have built what for me is the ultimate allround retro rig. The main goal with the build was for me to be able to play all games from my early childhood in the beginning of the 90:s up to late Win 98 era (2002-2003). The second goal was to make the system virtually silent which it really is!

With CPU cache disabled speed is in 386 DX40 region with is perfect for speed sensitive games. Could be further lowered by setting FSB to 100 or even 66MHz.

Previously also had a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI card installed but it was never used due to the hassle swapping montior cable so I sold it 😀

System specs:

Case: Aopen HQ45 midtower. (super nice condition). 80mm Bequiet fan @ 1300rpm in front.
PSU: Seasonic Focus GX 550W. Modern 80+ gold psu but with sufficient +5V line (20A) & -12V rail. Possible to run passively.
Mb: QDI Advance 10T S370
CPU: P3 Tualatin 1,4GHz with socket A heatsink & Noctua B9 Redux 92mm fan @ 1000rpm on Zalman PCI fan bracket.
Memory: 512MB SDRAM CL2
GPU: Geforce 4 Ti with Zalman VF-900 led copper cooler with Zalman Fanmate @5V (lowest speed)
Sound card 1: SB Audigy PCI
Sound card 2: SB AWE32 CT3900 ISA
NIC: 10/100 MBPS PCI
Storage: Kingston 120GB SSD (S-ATA to IDE adapter)
Optical drive: BenQ DVD-RW, NOS
Monitor (not in pictures): Samtron 96P 19" CRT

Took a while, but here it is 😀.
Fairly small, quite, was a bit of a pain to build in, but well worth at the end.

mAtx Asrock 775 smthing
cpu e5800
2x1gb ddr400
Voodoo 5 5500
Monster mx300
120ssd
psu 450w sfx
case Mechanic Master C26

First try, trying to cram everything in it...

But the end result came out pretty nice

I finished my retro windows 2000 case mod build today ! ! !

Rig looks good Dolenc ! I didn't know they made voodoo5 cards with red PCB

nice and simple. the zip drive is a nice touch. Interesting to see one in use and working.

Yeah it's just a simple spare parts build. Similar to a build I did back in my highschool days. Home made fan controller. Little bit of paint , cutting and grinding involved. Old beat up enlight case made a perfect candidate 🤣. Also had to have to cold cathode lighting to make it period correct 🤣

X86 wrote on 2022-02-06, 21:45:

Rig looks good Dolenc ! I didn't know they made voodoo5 cards with red PCB

It's a recent small production using NOS chips. See The Changeling 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500

Some weeks ago I bought a soundcard and chatted with the seller about old computers.
He told me that he still has his old Pentium 3-systems that he built into some even older slimline Escom-cases. Escom was a computer company here in Germany and in the time of 386 they already had nice black cases. Their slimline desktop cases had the cards horizontally in Riser-cards and I wondered how he managed to make the P3-systems fit. So he sent me some photos.

One is a 1 Ghz P3 in a Socket 370 AT-board, the other a 800 Mhz in a Slot 1 AT-board with everything but the kitchen sink installed (VGA, Sound, LAN, USB, Firewire, SCSI). All card are low-profile and he modded the backplates to make it all fit in the slimline-case. Both are still running Windows XP.

I think this is pretty amazing:

(Photos used with permission)