Old styles that need a comeback.

[Moogy]

First Post banter:  I've been wondering, older techies here, do you remember the PSU's that would have a power passthrough for your CRT monitor?  What happened to that tech?  I remember old beige horizontal towers with the fat CRT Monitor sitting on top, both the Power and Display coming from the tower, making cable management a non-issue.

Anyone else think this setup needs a comeback? In this day of lightweight displays, wireless peripherals and showcasing your rig, this sounds like the time this setup was made for!  I'm unsure how structurally sound existing Horizontal cases are for gaming monitors. I'm really not sure how power passthrough on the PSU disappeared... that just seems like it always makes sense as an option... I used it anytime it was available back in the day.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

20 minutes ago, Moogy said:

older techies here, do you remember the PSU's that would have a power passthrough for your CRT monitor? 

Now i know why theres an extra ac socket on my psu, i was wondering why theres a male ac connector on my generic "500w" oem psus

[Action_Johnson]

I remember. Honestly at this point it doesn't matter to me, and like above, it's probably safer, and at least this way you don't have to calculate if your PSU is strong enough to drive a monitor. 

[BondiBlue]

That was common on power supplies that didn't use soft power switches like we use now. 

47 minutes ago, Action_Johnson said:

I remember. Honestly at this point it doesn't matter to me, and like above, it's probably safer, and at least this way you don't have to calculate if your PSU is strong enough to drive a monitor. 

The PSU didn't power the monitor. It was simply a passthrough for power that was switched along with the power for the PSU itself. 

[Mark Kaine]

yeap those were great... no idea what happened...

 

They also didn't have the dumb power on/off switch at the back iirc (which confuses so many people,  they actually use that button to turn off their pcs instead of shutting it down properly )

[da na]

Mid 2000s case designs. 

-Had drive bays

-Had airflow

-No needless glass side panels (although the ones with half acrylic half airflow side panels are cool AF)

-Can literally sit on them without the case collapsing

[Somerandomtechyboi]

3 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Mid 2000s case designs. 

-Had drive bays

-Had airflow

-No needless glass side panels (although the ones with half acrylic half airflow side panels are cool AF)

-Can literally sit on them without the case collapsing

I do have one of these laying around that i was gonna use for a project for school but ended up not using it so ill prob just have it as a temp testbench case

 

 

Sidepanel seems abit flimsy

 

Front has basically no airflow other than the bottom which has a small vent, though side does have 2 fans  and should provide decent airflow from the sidepanel, and yes that front is cheap plastic so it feels ultra flimsy

 

Though the chassis itself is quite rigid

[IPD]

Minimal value.  Worthless to multiple monitor setups, as only 1 could be supplied from the PSU.  And SFF/NUC boxes can pretty much be bolted to the back of a VESA mount.

 

And if you're going to the trouble of cable managing a wall mount monitor, the power outlet is probably closer/less difficult to cable to--than the back of your tower.

 

I'm really hoping for some kind of USB4 standard that integrates Thunderbolt 4 & power supply all through a single, USB-C cable.  That would be the best of all worlds, imho.  That's a ways off though (iirc. USB 4 is 100w max, and we have 240w monitors - eg. Dell UltraSharp 40).

[da na]

2 minutes ago, Caroline said:

The 80mm fans were absolutely terrible tho

 

Here's mine. Has drive bays, has airflow, no stupid glass on it, haven't tried sitting on it yet. Even Linus reviewed it back in the day.

 

Beautiful case. 

Here's mine, also posted on the retro parts thread. Doesn't have any identifiers of brand but it's from late 90s to early 00s. No front fan so not great airflow for a modern PC but if you're cooling, say, an Athlon XP... 

Disclaimer: the dust and cable mess was how I found it, picked it up for free and have been working on the board

[WhitetailAni]

3 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

Mid 2000s case designs. 

-Had drive bays

-Had airflow

-No needless glass side panels (although the ones with half acrylic half airflow side panels are cool AF)

-Can literally sit on them without the case collapsing

I do use Y2K's or P4HT's cases as chairs sometimes. They work great!

 

And yes 80mm fans weren't great but the Arctic F8 fans are awesome. 

[da na]

2 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

I do use Y2K's or P4HT's cases as chairs sometimes. They work great!

 

And yes 80mm fans weren't great but the Arctic F8 fans are awesome. 

I’ve used numerous old cases as camera stands, chairs for people that come in my room… lots of uses. Oh and yknow holding computers. But that’s just a minor feature. Also, I forgot your P4 was hyperthreaded! 

[da na]

10 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Oh I have an Athlon XP, the 2000+ IIRC, but my board randomly won't output video, that's bad.

Mine's got several bad caps that need replacement and it needs a new PSU but should run fine otherwise.

[FruitOfTheLum]

3 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

Mid 2000s case designs. 

-Had drive bays

-Had airflow

-No needless glass side panels (although the ones with half acrylic half airflow side panels are cool AF)

-Can literally sit on them without the case collapsing

I had my last PC in one of these:

 

When I built my new PC this summer, I spent a large amount of time trying to find a modern version, but I couldn't...

[da na]

Just now, FruitOfTheLum said:

I had my last PC in one of these:

 

When I built my new PC this summer, I spent a large amount of time trying to find a modern version, but I couldn't...

That's a beautiful case. Please keep that around. 

[Moogy]

I suppose safety is a concern, though I don't really recall it being an issue before.  As a tech in the Midwest, I'mVERY familiar with what end users are capable of. Lol!

 

It just seems strange still, It would make for some beautiful setups.

[IkeaGnome]

Bring back the flared pants.

Or did you guys mean tech styles?

[Moogy]

6 hours ago, FruitOfTheLum said:

I had my last PC in one of these:

 

When I built my new PC this summer, I spent a large amount of time trying to find a modern version, but I couldn't...

Some of these cases were pretty, but I never understood why the majority of ATX cases felt the need to have so many drive bays.

[Moogy]

1 hour ago, IkeaGnome said:

Bring back the flared pants.

Or did you guys mean tech styles?

I miss the days when large pants were cool... I was a huge bondage pants fan and never liked how almost all of them went skinny.

[Moogy]

7 hours ago, Caroline said:

The 80mm fans were absolutely terrible tho

 

Here's mine. Has drive bays, has airflow, no stupid glass on it, haven't tried sitting on it yet. Even Linus reviewed it back in the day.

 

 

I had 7 80mm fans in one of my earlier gaming rigs. It was atrociously loud and completely unnecessary.

[IPD]

I want side fans to make a comeback.  In fact, give me a 360mm centrifugal fan with a 360mm radiator to suck air out of the case with.  RGB is great and all, but I am not a fan of "let's put 12 fans on 4 sides" cooling approach.  I think everyone forgot about fluid dynamics because "OOH, SHINY!!!"

[WhitetailAni]

8 minutes ago, IPD said:

I want side fans to make a comeback.  In fact, give me a 360mm centrifugal fan with a 360mm radiator to suck air out of the case with.  RGB is great and all, but I am not a fan of "let's put 12 fans on 4 sides" cooling approach.  I think everyone forgot about fluid dynamics because "OOH, SHINY!!!"

Side fans are awesome. I have one and it gives great GPU airflow, especially since I have 2 GPUs in my case.
It's where all my air comes in (aside from a small bit at the top), I spit it out the front and back because my GTX 690 said that I have to exhaust air out the front.

 

I wouldn't mind if they make a return.

[IPD]

9 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Side fans are awesome. I have one and it gives great GPU airflow, especially since I have 2 GPUs in my case.
It's where all my air comes in (aside from a small bit at the top), I spit it out the front and back because my GTX 690 said that I have to exhaust air out the front.

 

I wouldn't mind if they make a return.

I'm thinking of a radiator the size of 3 of these, all side by side:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Hydro-360mm-Cooling-Radiator/dp/B07TL9WG22

 

And a properly ducted centrifugal fan to suck air through it and out of the case.  You could probably overclock that thing to ungodly levels.

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, IPD said:

I'm thinking of a radiator the size of 3 of these, all side by side:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Hydro-360mm-Cooling-Radiator/dp/B07TL9WG22

 

And a properly ducted centrifugal fan to suck air through it and out of the case.  You could probably overclock that thing to ungodly levels.

Oh yeah, that's a side fan.

Mine is only 190mm but if I could stick a radiator on it I would, it'd perform much better than the 120mm I have now.

It would cover pretty much the entire case but with a powerful enough fan and a good supply of cold air that thing would COOL.

[Moogy]

49 minutes ago, Caroline said:

For a sick RAID setup made out of 80GB drives.

 

I'm using all of the bays and have all 3 ODDs installed. I can't afford to use music streaming services since loading a single song takes like 6 minutes with my internet connection, and imagine movies, series episodes, hell even loading websites can be painful sometimes.

 

I'd rather leave the computer downloading them overnight or for days rather than dealing with the "buffering..." popups and animations, youtube works fine at 144p, 240p on better days when less people is using their computers, main disadvantage of DSL is that whoever's closest to the ISP gets the better speeds.

I should have specified I meant ODD drive bays, you are in the minority using 3, and many full ATX cases of the day had 5.

 

The crazy number of 3.5" bays on many probably wasn't merited, but it made more sense.

[Moogy]

52 minutes ago, IPD said:

I want side fans to make a comeback.  In fact, give me a 360mm centrifugal fan with a 360mm radiator to suck air out of the case with.  RGB is great and all, but I am not a fan of "let's put 12 fans on 4 sides" cooling approach.  I think everyone forgot about fluid dynamics because "OOH, SHINY!!!"

One of mine still has a side fan, it does seem to have a noticeably lower GPU temp than. My other one without one.