I am Oldskool

Soldato
Joined
23 Apr 2010
Posts
11,896
Location
West Sussex
Tired of seeing Threadripper builds? (haha)
Tired of every one boasting of uber hardware?
So bored you could just sit in the corner and fap?

Well you've come to the wrong place, sorry.

Oh yeah, what am I up to. Well, a few days ago I procured a 2005 Alienware case. This one to be exact.

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It was covered in rubs, gouges, scratches and smelled like BO. Seriously, the bloke who delivered it freaking STUNK. The entire case just stunk of armpits. After heaving for a while and giving it a good clean down with some window cleaner (with vinegar) I took a look over it. Three cracks, none visible thankfully. I will get to that later.

So this is what it should look like.

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Only it didn't because it looked like ass and stunk like armpit.

I began working on it yesterday and spent most of the day colour sanding, cutting, buffing and polishing. Here are the fruits of some of my labour.

Side panel and top. Look at the one in the background (not done at that time) for comparison.

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This took about an hour. My hands are still numb from two days of it.

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Wet sand 3000, T-cut metallic and then Plastx for that super shine. I will be using some kind of wax/polish on it next. You can literally see your face in it.

OK, so before I even started to think of what hardware to put in this thing I bought this.

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Quickly followed by these.

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So that I can inject the cracks and stop them spreading. Right now they are very small fatigue cracks (from where some ***** tried to pull the side panel off without removing the screws :cussing:

The case needs minor repairs but will be solid once I am done. OK, so literally just as I was sanding the last panel for cutting etc a pair of bike wheels I have had on Ebay for over three months finally sold at my asking price. I was happy.

I started digging and thinking, man, it's amazing how quickly you forget technology once you move on. In the end I settled for an Asus A7V8X/LAN/GOLD.

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It has RAM and a CPU but I don't know what either are yet. Not a problem, both are literally tuppence. So obviously I needed a graphics card. The last AGP card I had was a 9200 Pro. Then I moved onto PCIE. However, I need to be very careful because the games I am intending to run spaz out on more modern hardware. These games include, but are not limited to.

Sega PC Daytona USA
Sega PC Sega Rally Championship
Midtown Madness 1&2
Motocross Madness 1&2
Half Life, HL OP, BS
Gunman Chronicles

And so on. I have all of my PC games going back to 1996. Literally hundreds.

So I had a think and remembered that the last time I played those games was on my 3DLabs Oxygen 32mb X4 AGP. So I started the hunt, and found this, a Wildcat 64mb VP560.

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It is brand Harry Spankers and cost me £15. It seems 3Dlabs have had a clearout, and one company in particular on Ebay have hundreds of them. This is good, because it has brought the price down to practically bugger all. I won't need to replace the caps, either. I've got the drivers too, because 3Dlabs still have them on their site.

OK, so storage. £3.99 oh yes.

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DVDRom £5

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Round IDE cables 99p each

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And I could not resist this. £6 though !

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Cooling. Why yes, it will be water cooled with a proper loop :D

Couple of things. I will be running Windows 2000 with DX8.1 (easily the best way to enjoy old games !) I have a 400w PSU that needs a new 80mm fan. I will most likely braid that..

I checked the GPU before I bought it. Apparently it can run 1080p lol. Hilarious :D and runs digital into modern panels :D

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I had a look at the PSU last night. It's a Zoostrom (so ******) 300w. The rear fan is dead, so I got this for £1.59 from China :D

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Going back to the block... This is it here. Ignore that it's pretty much black, I have buffing compound. Instead focus on the four holes that pass straight through...

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So then I did some looking online and found this.

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And guess what? we have a match. It will bolt straight to the board. Couple of problems.

1. The G 1/4 holes have a 45 deg slope before they are flat. This was for old barbs. What they would do is wrap something around them that I believe to be plumber's tape, then screw them in. So O-rings are out.

2. This means that unless the acrylic is reversible you will be making me a new acrylic top.

Cool huh? :D

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So the inner chassis and panels got a bath (and myself at the same time haha)

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I also liberated it of the stupid mass hard drive cage.

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I managed to sweep up the shavings this time and haven't got them in my foot :eek:

I removed the cages so I can fit this.

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180mm Vegas Quad. Paid a fortune for it and this is kinda a junkyard build so I am trying to use up all of the decent stuff I have lying around (it's a lot !).

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OK so I think the CPU is a AMD Athlon XP 2400+. Unless any of you guys know better? I would imagine the 2400 part gives it away but it's been many years since I saw one.

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The ram is 512mb. More than enough, I only needed 128. I can't totally test it ATM because I have no GPU. However, when powered on it beeps once. Good news? I know PCs can fire without a GPU you just can't see it. If it was going mental I would be far more worried tbh. Unfortunately it seems some one got a bit frisky with the thermal compound and covered the entire CPU. It's just taken me 20 minutes to clean it lol.

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Ever since being given this block forever ago I have wondered why it had a funny channel machined out of the bottom.

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Then I looked at the CPU socket.

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And it all made perfect sense...

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Soldato
Joined
12 May 2011
Posts
6,143
Location
Southampton
Loving this, I have also recently got a AMD Socket A motherboard. I got this lot for £5 from Gumtree

Crap but useful Philips case
MSI MS-6570 (K7N2). Apparently this is slightly interesting as it has a 12v CPU power input which takes a little strain off the ATX power input?
Athlon 2600
Voodoo 3 2000
AIT 9500Pro (artifacting :()
Nvidia FX5500
Nvidia MX200 or 220
A bunch of Socket A / 370 coolers
50million sticks or DDR RAM
50million IDE cables

Look forward to seeing how this turns out!
 
Soldato
Joined
11 Apr 2004
Posts
19,807
I love all these old builds that keep popping up recently.

Takes me back to my prime PC days in my teens with hours and hours spent tinkering, modding and overclocking.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
23 Apr 2010
Posts
11,896
Location
West Sussex
Ahh throwback memories seeing that case, good luck with the build

I've been after one since 2007. I had a couple offered to me, but they were broken and parts were missing (the lock flap, etc). This one is complete but needed serious cutting etc. Noticed today that one of the side panels still has some haze from cutting the scratches out so will need to go over that again with the fine compound.

Other news. I think I have secured a EK rad (120, more than enough) and that will be on a pair of Cougar Vortex in orange. I found a orange and yellow 24 pin braided extension for a DFI build that never happened and a few other orange bits and pieces. I have ordered a Bitspower rip off res from China.

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And a slab of 10mm acrylic so that Gareth (Cenedd) can machine/G 1/4 a new top for the block for me. Also ordered some nitrile rubber in 3mm to make a new Oring/gasket because the one in there is toast.

I'm using the leftover fittings from my Triad build.

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With hopefully clear hose. Not that it matters, because all of my spare coolant is red.

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Or I have XSPC in clear red.

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I am going to box in the PSU, so yeah nothing overly major (I am not skinning it like I did with the Predator 2 as that was waaay too much work by hand) but I have some Corsair grommets and god knows what lying around so it will most definitely be a tart. Here are the fans I have.

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So it should cool very well. Am going to try something different with the rad this time too, hope it works out OK :)
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
23 Apr 2010
Posts
11,896
Location
West Sussex
*pants* am finished.

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There are still some very minor swirls and flat spots but I can't do any more. It's pretty bloody good tbh. Not looking forward to cleaning it every few days now !

The nitrile rubber also came, AKA "The O-ring stuff".

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Unfortunately I have no Super Glue so I have just ordered some.
 

Deleted member 66701

D

Deleted member 66701

I built a TR system into a case from 2004 ;)

Nice build btw, retro PC gaming is actually a thing now!
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
23 Apr 2010
Posts
11,896
Location
West Sussex
I built a TR system into a case from 2004 ;)

Nice build btw, retro PC gaming is actually a thing now!

It sure is. Glad I kept all of my games now !

How did this work out? I am tempted to do it for my PC(s), and this looks like a very neat solution.

Not sure it hasn't arrived yet. I have used it before with a 16gb flash drive but the drive had terrible RW. It does definitely work though. A mate of mine is using an SD card adapter and he said it's ace. I didn't know they did SD, could have gotten a much bigger drive FFS. Ah well, it's done now :D
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
23 Apr 2010
Posts
11,896
Location
West Sussex
OK so work for today. First job was fitting and drilling the holes for the 140mm Cougar Vortex intake.

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I am going to make a cover for the middle and wires. I can't fit the 180mm Vegas unfortunately, as it fouls the side panel. Harumph. Oh well... I also had an old orange SATA extension lying around so I converted that to Molex and finished up the 24 pin to 20 pin conversion.

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I still need to make a floppy power extension from molex (for the "SSD") and then make up a distro for the pump and fans. I also welded up the cracks on the case, one needs some buffing but that went well and it's now back to full strength :)

I also ordered this a couple of days back.

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500mm x 500mm 3mm. I've had a really cool idea for the rad mount and I still need to box in the PSU. Had a think about that earlier and I think I have a solid plan for that now :)

Also on order and waiting for them to arrive..

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For general assembly/dampening. I ordered this Bitspower copy res for £8.

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This is coming for the Oring.

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And I have sourced one of these in a swap with a chum :)

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Soldato
Joined
20 Jun 2011
Posts
3,673
Location
Livingston
Wow the CPU and 3D Labs logo/sticker are a blast from the past!

My first GFX card was a 3DFX Voodoo Banshee and my second rig was built around a Athlon XP 1600 if I remember right :o

It's amazing that a case designed over 12 years ago manages to still look better than some of the cases we see for sale today.

Will look forward to seeing how this turns out :)
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
23 Apr 2010
Posts
11,896
Location
West Sussex
Thanks man. I discovered 3DLabs back in the late 90s (probably '99). I bought an 8mb Permedia 2 card to replace an old Voodoo 2 and it went wrong. I contacted 3DL (who were in the UK) and they sent me a 32mb Oxygen. Ace card tbh, more than enough to run my games :)

What I really wanted was a Number Nine Revolution AGP. Sadly the only place I could find them was in the USA. I know they were a U.S company, but they used to put messages from Beatles songs on the back of their GPU. So for example the Revolution would say "He's got a ticket to ride" and stuff like that. Sadly Nvidia crunched them like they did all of the other companies who used to make their own GPUs :(
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
23 Apr 2010
Posts
11,896
Location
West Sussex
Yea mate, crazy to think we used to put up with that.

I thought it was broken tbh. You're right, I have absolutely no idea how we used to put up with that ! the 2005 Alienware chassis I am using was made long before that but it had two 80mm exhaust. On top of two 80mm intake and a 80mm side intake. Must have sounded like a bloody bee hive !
 
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