This is "new" hardware, but intending to use it for mostly retro purposes, so it's going in here.

Though to catch you up I misposted in this thread a recent retro retro buy Re: What retro activity did you get up to today? but it can stay there as I am probably blogging the mini fixup in there in a bit.

So I have wanted open case testbench for some time, but a while back when I tried to get one on Amazon, I thought "yeah those will do great" and wishlisted a couple, then like less than a month later I looked back and they were gone out of stock, nothing in the warehouses, prices had gone up, listed ones were coming direct from China in months, plus the customs/duty hassle (it's not about the taxes so much as the fee extortion from courier companies whoever ends up with it, you have no control. ) Anyway, so I wasn't gonna be paying a total of what I could pick up a full ATX for locally, so forgot about it for a while. Fast forward to early Jan and I have been playing with Temu app and maybe think I can game my way round it, not so much, it's frigging awful, maybe got some money off, think these cost me $25 a piece but at least shipping was free and no import hassle...

First one, unbranded, this one was advertised as "Heavy Duty" but is in fact a bit flimsier than the second. You will also notice the panel braces have to be punched out from the bottom, which is leaving the bottom even less solid. Can't see any kind of model name for this one. Only good thing about it really is it came with a little socket driver key for the standoffs which is neat.

Second one, this seems aout 50% thicker steel than the first. This appears to be called an "MK-01". The braces are separately supplied and the base plate is less holey as a result. Also seems to have longer lead on the ATX power button supplied. So far it seems the better of the two.

For both, the metal finish isn't premium, but it seems less slicey then some cheap cases have been.

I may set one up with an AT supply if all the holes are there for baby AT, so I'll have an ATX and AT test rig.

Also got a couple of things off the freebies the order qualified for, a pair of side cutters, flush cutting and a set of plastic plastic prybars intended for car trim, but seemingly good for spudging larger electronics also.

Flush cut sidecutters I am coming to regard as disposable much to my chagrin... I know right, only cut copper leads and soft metals... the trouble is, the assholes who make motherboards and PCBs sneak in steel posts or hard steel cans for some coils and things and before you realise it, you've dinged the edge.... that happens half a dozen times and your cutters have gone to shit, and you can regrind them, but the edges don't meet right now. Yeah so I guess I'm needing a new pair every 5 years or so.

I didn't find a better thread to put this in, I think the old thread got locked because of people arguing about eBay.
I didn't actually *buy* this, but somebody else here might want to. It's a very cheap big screen CRT TV that looks to be in beautiful condition. I did *not* turn it on though, but an attached note says it works.

Seen 1/16 in Clermont Florida (west of Orlando) at St Vincent de Paul thrift store on route 50. I forgot to come here to post it until now.
2002 big screen HD CRT
Panasonic PT-51HX42F
a quick internet search says it's a projection screen (52")
the store only wants $5 for it. It was marked down from $50 to $5 - they obviously just want it gone. Call ahead to make sure they haven't thrown it out yet.
It looked beautiful, but I have nowhere to put it.

Got this acid damaged Forex Turbo 286 board because it came with an OAK 3716 EGA/VGA combo video card in pristine condition and 512 KB RAM.
Even if I can't fix the board it was still worth it.

Mandrew wrote on 2026-01-22, 15:30:

Got this acid damaged Forex Turbo 286 board because it came with an OAK 3716 EGA/VGA combo video card in pristine condition and 512 KB RAM.
Even if I can't fix the board it was still worth it.

Damage looks absolutely repairable.

Nexxen wrote on 2026-01-22, 15:43:

Damage looks absolutely repairable.

Yeah, seller said it was working but something blew when he tried to test it later so it could be anything. I mainly bought it for the EGA so it'll have to wait.

shamino wrote on 2026-01-22, 08:53:

I didn't find a better thread to put this in, I think the old thread got locked because of people arguing about eBay. I didn't a […]
Show full quote

I didn't find a better thread to put this in, I think the old thread got locked because of people arguing about eBay.
I didn't actually *buy* this, but somebody else here might want to. It's a very cheap big screen CRT TV that looks to be in beautiful condition. I did *not* turn it on though, but an attached note says it works.

Seen 1/16 in Clermont Florida (west of Orlando) at St Vincent de Paul thrift store on route 50. I forgot to come here to post it until now.
2002 big screen HD CRT
Panasonic PT-51HX42F
a quick internet search says it's a projection screen (52")
the store only wants $5 for it. It was marked down from $50 to $5 - they obviously just want it gone. Call ahead to make sure they haven't thrown it out yet.
It looked beautiful, but I have nowhere to put it.

Wow, I think my family had that same TV when I was a kid or at least something very similar. I remember thinking our home was gonna be like the movies with a screen so big haha.

Mandrew wrote on 2026-01-22, 15:48:

Nexxen wrote on 2026-01-22, 15:43:

Damage looks absolutely repairable.

Yeah, seller said it was working but something blew when he tried to test it later so it could be anything. I mainly bought it for the EGA so it'll have to wait.

Those combo cards are handy as you can easily connect your system to different displays without much hassle. I found a good use for my 8-bit Video7 VEGA VGA card in my Mcro8088 build for this exact reason.

shamino wrote on 2026-01-22, 08:53:

I didn't find a better thread to put this in, I think the old thread got locked because of people arguing about eBay. I didn't a […]
Show full quote

I didn't find a better thread to put this in, I think the old thread got locked because of people arguing about eBay.
I didn't actually *buy* this, but somebody else here might want to. It's a very cheap big screen CRT TV that looks to be in beautiful condition. I did *not* turn it on though, but an attached note says it works.

Seen 1/16 in Clermont Florida (west of Orlando) at St Vincent de Paul thrift store on route 50. I forgot to come here to post it until now.
2002 big screen HD CRT
Panasonic PT-51HX42F
a quick internet search says it's a projection screen (52")
the store only wants $5 for it. It was marked down from $50 to $5 - they obviously just want it gone. Call ahead to make sure they haven't thrown it out yet.
It looked beautiful, but I have nowhere to put it.

Keep in mind, that is a rear projection screen. A quick look online tells me it uses CRTs internally (one for each color I think), as opposed to a newer DLP, (which could be wrong... do your own research before bringing this home!) but it will be quite a bit different from directly viewing a CRT.

Bought a Chieftec branded Delta, model GPS-350FB-101A for my Area51/childhood PC's Intel counterpart. The AMD gets a recapped Spire unit while the Intel will get a Delta ~ 2008.

Had 4 bad caps, including one on 5vsb.

Now to figure what to equip the Intel side with. One requirement - BIOS screen must display in 640x350 mode. (or if any of the BIOS gurus here know how to change the video resolution the initial POST screen displays in, I'd be eternally grateful!)

Last Friday I finally managed to acquire the ever-elusive Foxconn BlackOps X48 motherboard from a German seller. It comes complete in its original box.

I have wanted this motherboard for quite a while, so I’m really happy with this purchase. It should ship early next week.

Some more scores while waiting for the ukrainian KT7A-RAID (prolly gonna be here fairly soon, considering Romania is fairly close to Ukraine)

- Gigabyte GA-7DXE+ Boxed! - was cheap and I wouldn't pass up what I consider the 2nd greatest 761 mobo I've ever used (KG7-RAID still holds the number one position).
- Compaq Presario 700 laptop - also cheap, due to a bad screen (and seller further confirmed bad screen). Comes with restore disc(s?) that I've been told they're not uploaded to the Internet Archive, which I will take care of once it arrives here.

Just pulled the trigger on 2x2Gb of G.Skill Pi Series DDR3 memory. Rated for 2200mhz at CL7.

These will go nicely with my socket 775 build 🤤

Will you look at this beaut!

A LaCie Electron 22 Blue IV in pristine conditions, with but a mere 5.9k hours on it. A lucky find indeed!

This will be my primary monitor for both of my retro builds, replacing the Mitsubishi Diamondtron 2070SB I had, which is also in pristine conditions and looks plenty good despite its over 24k hours. That will be my backup monitor.

AndreaColombo86 wrote on 2026-01-26, 18:49:

Will you look at this beaut!

A LaCie Electron 22 Blue IV in pristine conditions, with but a mere 5.9k hours on it. A lucky find indeed!

This will be my primary monitor for both of my retro builds, replacing the Mitsubishi Diamondtron 2070SB I had, which is also in pristine conditions and looks plenty good despite its over 24k hours. That will be my backup monitor.

Wow! Nice! And with such low hours... that's awesome!

I just got into the service menu on my P1230 (also a 2070SB rebadge) the other day and saw that it had around 24k hours of ON time and around 43K hours standby. I've had it for 20 years, and I bought it refurbished, so I can see why the hours would be so high. Mine still looks fantastic as well. 😁

At the newer end of retro...a GeForce 8800 GTS

I was impressed with the Silverstone FLP01 case so I acquired a second one. The case some quirks, but I'm going to explore possible mod options with this second one.

Also acquired a Silverstone FLP02 case. I'll likely use it for a second version of my all-in-one Pentium 4 build.

Very nice, I am also waiting for flp02 to show up in caseking.de so I can order it 😀

keropi wrote on 2026-01-26, 22:03:

Very nice, I am also waiting for flp02 to show up in caseking.de so I can order it 😀

I like the case as well. It's available in the Netherlands for 2 months or so. But in all shops it's exactly the same price (230 Euro). Almost looks like there are some kind of price agreements or something like that.

At 230 Euro I can't justify it as there are new cases half the price with similar specs. Unfortunately all in black though.

Yoghoo wrote on 2026-01-26, 22:15:

keropi wrote on 2026-01-26, 22:03:

Very nice, I am also waiting for flp02 to show up in caseking.de so I can order it 😀

I like the case as well. It's available in the Netherlands for 2 months or so. But in all shops it's exactly the same price (230 Euro). Almost looks like there are some kind of price agreements or something like that.

At 230 Euro I can't justify it as there are new cases half the price with similar specs. Unfortunately all in black though.

I don't remember which price I found it at but I'm totally on your page, it's too expensive for my taste as well ..

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-01-26, 21:40:

I was impressed with the Silverstone FLP01 case so I acquired a second one. The case some quirks, but I'm going to explore possible mod options with this second one.

Also acquired a Silverstone FLP02 case. I'll likely use it for a second version of my all-in-one Pentium 4 build.

Man, the FLP02 is really nice looking. I just wish they had done some things differently. It has a lot of similarities to the Fractal Define R6 that I'm using now, so it would almost be a 1:1 swap for me to switch to a retro styled case on my main PC... but the air flow and filtering of this seems a lot less functional. For example, the Define R6 has a full length filter on the bottom that pulls out the front and the case supports 2x140MM fans down there, which adds significantly to the airflow while adding very little noise due to the location.

It would also have been a huge improvement if the 5.25" drive cage and front panel utilized a more modular and modern design. Losing half of the front of the case to decorative plastic drive covers with no way to put fans behind them (and no filters if you were to DIY it) is unfortunate for a case this expensive. I do use the single 5.25" bay on my R6 for a dual SATA Icydock, while still leaving room for one 140MM fan to blow almost directly into the CPU fan and another below that blowing toward the GPU. I feel like if they'd done a similar layout with this and made the number of internal drive bays configurable to allow for more front ventilation up high it would have been a big improvement.

I am so glad someone made this case though. I hope it leads to more being made in the near future to make them more affordable and to add some variety.

Make sure to post pictures once you use yours for a build. 😀