2005 nostalgia Build

[Shlouski]

I am starting off my nostalgia build series with my 2005 build.

 

Acrylic pc cases weren't really my cup of tea back in 2005 but I still would have liked to built in one, so when I saw this case for sale and I knew I had to have it, and it's really growing on me.

 

 

As you can see the PC powers on but it doesn't post, not a problem as pretty much everything needs to come out anyway.

 

The case has held up remarkably well considering it must be nearly 20 years old, it doesn't have any chips and only has a few light scratches, also I'm very happy to see that the cathode lights are still working.

 

Now lets pull everything out and see what we have:

 

ATI RX550:

 

p5gd1 pro:

 

A bomb waiting to go off:

 

1.5gb mismatched ram:

 

Pentium 4 640:

 

It also has a 200gb seagate sata HDD and two DVD drives.

 

After removing everything it was time to clean.  One of the cathodes immediately fell off, the tape holding it was turning into dust, I plan to buy some clear double sided tape next time I go to the shop.

 

The previous owner was clearly sick of reaching around to use the usb's:

 

 

I think I'm going to look for something to put in this bay instead of another DVD drive so I don't need to use this cover, I plan on keeping the temperature gauge as it seems to work and to make sure the dvd drives are still working.

 

I am also going to have to replace the heat shrink on the front panel connectors, I'm not loving this red and green:

 

 

After a careful wiping down the case is looking great:

 

 

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Now I am waiting for a few parts to arrive including a whole load of new fans and covers, I am looking forward to continuing this build and to update you guys on the progress.

 

Also if anyone knows who made this case let me know as I am unsure, I have done a bit of googling but haven't found anything conclusive. 

 

Let me know what you think of this build so far.

[MiszS]

I had no idea fully transparent cases like that existed, looks sick

[monopoly_hater]

I'm amazed that acrylic hasn't degraded yet.

[jaslion]

Thats an EXCEPTIONAL state for that case to be in. Id say internals wise check for some athlon 64 stuff if the p4 board has the cursed bad capacitor issue.

 

Only non retro part id opt for is the psu for well obvious reasons.

 

They still make cathode tubes for pc lighting if you wish to extend the addition of lights.

 

As for front usb and the cutout you can just add a 3.5 inch usb and sd card reader addin they are extremely common.

 

 

 

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

2 hours ago, Shlouski said:

As you can see the PC powers on but it doesn't post, not a problem as pretty much everything needs to come out anyway.

id highly reccomend buying a pci debug card usually marketed as pc analyzer as they give you a postcode and are extremely helpful for both troubleshooting and overclock

 

board looks pretty worthless but if a dunk in water is all it needs then why the heck not? just another toy to play with and probably murder trying to clock that p4 >5ghz =p

[monopoly_hater]

33 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Thats an EXCEPTIONAL state for that case to be in. Id say internals wise check for some athlon 64 stuff if the p4 board has the cursed bad capacitor issue.

 

Only non retro part id opt for is the psu for well obvious reasons.

 

They still make cathode tubes for pc lighting if you wish to extend the addition of lights.

 

As for front usb and the cutout you can just add a 3.5 inch usb and sd card reader addin they are extremely common.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, indeed. Most boards I've seen from that era use through hole caps, which can be easily replaced.

[SimplyGone]

2005??? Nostalgia???? God i'm old.....

[Shlouski]

I wish I could do these builds faster but shipping to my address takes some time, but that wont stop me.

 

I have finally received a few things so lets see what we have. 

 

The motherboard will be using is the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, this was a solid motherboard back in the day and should be a great platform. The board came with an Amd Athlon X2 3800 which I will be upgrading, it's replacement is currently en route.

 

 

For ram I have gone with 4x1gb Corsair Platinum DDR 400MHz CL2, this was plenty of ram for the day.

 

 

To fill the missing drive bay I found this Sunbeam fan controller, I think it will go well next to the Hipro temperature display in one of the other drive bays.

 

 

I have also received some 8cm blue led fans to replace either the missing or broken ones in the case.

 

 

None of the fans in the case had any fan guards, not just does it not look right, they are also at a greater risk of getting damaged. Of course I had to go with some of those old school wire guards at were so common back then, but I wanted them in gold, unfortunately I couldn't find any, but I could find gold spray paint.

 

I think they look pretty good.

 

 

Next we have the graphics cards, as I have an sli motherboard I decided to go with two 7800 GTX's. These are the 256mb models released in june 2005, unfortunately the 512mb models weren't released until the middle of November, so too late in the year for me to use in this build.

 

 

Now for the last part I will be covering for now is the PSU.

 

I chose the MSI mpg a650gf mainly because it's the cheapest modular PSU I could find that still has decent build quality, in a see thru case I felt like a modular PSU would make my life easier when it came to cable management.

 

 

 

This is it for now, but hopefully soon I will be able to get on with building and testing the machine.

[SimplyGone]

17 hours ago, Shlouski said:

A8N32-SLI Deluxe

Was this the board that everyone was using to build hackintosh pcs back in the day?

[Shlouski]

On 11/3/2024 at 8:06 PM, SimplyChunk said:

Was this the board that everyone was using to build hackintosh pcs back in the day?

No idea, sorry.

[Shlouski]

I have now finished assembling the machine, well for the most part, I still need to find some pci slot covers and I need to cut a piece of acrylic to go over the 2.5" drive bays.

 

 

 

 

 

I think the only way I can now improve this by getting custom cables, but for now I'm happy how its turned out.

[2dfx]

On 10/5/2024 at 4:11 PM, MiszS said:

I had no idea fully transparent cases like that existed, looks sick

Best Buy used to sell them in the mid-2000’s under the brand “Monster Mods”. They also sold clear LED case fans too to complete the look!

[thrasher_565]

On 11/23/2024 at 7:30 AM, 2dfx said:

Best Buy used to sell them in the mid-2000’s under the brand “Monster Mods”. They also sold clear LED case fans too to complete the look!

there a sunbeam case. later on they made ones with 120mm fans i had one.

 

 

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16811166033

 

Edited November 28, 2024 by thrasher_565

[SimplyGone]

3 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

there a sunbeam case. later on they made ones with 120mm fans i had one.

 

 

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16811166033

 

Very Orange

[Rusty93]

Man that case is awesome, nice looking build!

[OhioYJ]

I love every part of this build.

 

It brings back memories. I had a case very similar to that. Filled every slot with fans that were supposed to be "temperature controlled". I cut the temperature sensors off, and shorted the wires together (IIRC) so they would run at full speed all the time (6000 RPM IIRC). The thing sounded like a jet engine when it was on.