Mystery Custom RETRO PC's...What's inside?? 

Man I love that Cooler Master case. Gives me the vibe of mid to late 2000s and reminds me the first computer that I’ve owned in 2009.

"Elite" is the model of the case! Cooler Master's "Elite" was a line of cases. They made several variants of them from the mid-2000's to the early-2010's. Also, the little port on the side panel was for the intake of air, not for exhaust :)

That big card at 21:23 appears to be an Avoscent Equinox Multiport SST-8P/RJ UNIV. Basically it's an 8-port serial card. My guess is that the machine that it came out of was running some form of UNIX (either Linux, or a commercial Unix like SCO Unix/Xenix or Solaris) and the 8 serial ports were used to connect to 8 dumb terminals so that people could log in to it. Could have been used as some sort of point of sale or inventory management system, or perhaps a practice management system for a doctor's office. I actually put together something similar (though much less sophisticated) for a local dentist's office many years ago; basically a generic parts-built PC running Linux with 4 serial ports, each of which was connected to terminals located in various parts of the office, and it was running some sort of proprietary patient records/management system. (don't remember which one, this was many moons ago.) The fact that the machine is missing its hard drive makes this scenario likely -- a business (especially a medical practice) would be far more likely to take proper data deleting procedures before e-wasting a machine compared with your average Joe Sixpack.

Very nice! I love these hauls. BUT I need 2 tell you that 99,9% of those Top blow CPU coolers (especialy those stock coolers by intel) are pushing the air through the cooler down to the mainboard (which is fine for the mosfets and caps) and not "out of the case" as you stated! Anyway, keep up posting those systems, love it 😊❤

Had a Pentium E2140 12 years ago. Great overclocker on stock cooling and voltages. I had mine running at 2.5 ghz without changing any voltage settings running with the stock cooler and the temps were almost unchanged,that thing would probably go even higher with some voltage adjustments

I certainly like those VGA / HDMI / DVI graphics cards. The DVI is a true middle ground & can take adapters to handle the other two if you needed it!

Mystery machine's are always a favorite. You never know what you get. And some are particular interesting of they show mismatched components indicating upgrades down the road. Or even when (very) old and (very) new are combined. Thank $DEITY for standards.

I used Equinox equipment for my old ISP. At first the cards would supply 10 com ports for external modem’s per card. I think a max of 3 cards per computer. They later came out with digital card that connected through a cat5 cable to a 24 line digital phone debark from the phone company. Each one of the cat5 was capable of 24 user connections to the incoming phone T1. Looks like the card you have was quite a top of the line one, handling several phone line T1’s. Just the heat and noise loss from no external modems made these worth the cost. Plus a computer could handle way more modem com ports. Equinox went out of business a long time ago. They were located on the east coast of Florida.

In the 1980s/90s I used to build systems. My first choice in hardware was always Acer. Case, motherboard, drives where possible. I also used Maxtor hard disk.I once built a system that had network cards that were complete computers. they had CPUs memory and their own bios. I wish I could remember what they were called. You could put up to 4 of them in a system the run cable for dumn terminals. This allowed you to run cables over 1000 meters from the main server. That card you have reminded me of this type of network. I think it was one of the solutions some company came up with to allow multiple terminals on one system.

Wow, wow! Are people still getting rid of old cases? They are much better than budget segment today. With 65W/TDP CPUs would do the job as a fresh horse.

The big 8 port card is (I think...) an 8 port modem. That computer would have been a RAS server in a business to allow the sales reps on the road to dial into the office to transfer data.

I had a similar model as the last one with the clear door and side lights. I believe it was an Aspire something. That display just shows the temperature of the thermistor inside the case

these are my fav vids of urs pal

The ASUS P4 board brings back memories. When I was once tasked with building workstations for an office, that was one of the board models I used. Don't recall any issues with them. It did the job.

Oh and I think that card is for a small business computer controlled phone system. The computer store I worked at in the early 2000s I built a computer using a similar 4 port card to power our phone system.

Another fine Video Squire, System1 at: 1:45, Can you believe it, I use the very same Case as my Daily Driver which houses an ASUS Motherboard with an early Intel i5 CPU & 16Gb of RAM, It does the Job for what I need it for to do daily tasks, I’ve since Built a New PC using a Cooler Master Cosmos C700P Case which is a Beast, Weighs nearly 30 Kilos, Never knew that you could extend the Cooling Duct on the Side Panel at: 5:10, You learn something new everyday as they say, Not a bad Motherboard and Graphics Card and reasonable amount of RAM, I quite like MSI Motherboards and they do seem fairly reliable, I certainly know what you mean about the “Wild West” regarding PC’s and Upgrading them, We had the same culture over here in the UK too, Strange that the Splash Screen wouldn’t show on the first couple of Boots System2 at: 17:20, That is one Bland looking Case isn’t it, Not a Case that I’d be happy displaying that’s for sure, It does house a nice ASUS Motherboard along with the Branded Cables, Strange looking Modem Card and not seen one like that before, I do have a 4 x Port PCI Ethernet Card which I believe is a Hub/Switch Card to connect other devices into it and saves having an extra switch, Only one I’ve ever seen and not really used it to be fair, Fairly decent Graphics Card, I’ve got a similar Graphics Card to the Radeon 7000 in that System although I think mine is a VIVO (Video In / Video Out) Card and uses a proprietary connector which I’m still trying to obtain, I bought a Job lot of those Socket 478 CPU’s and Heatsink/Fan combos, Got far more that I was expecting as the eBay Seller threw extras in so bonus, System3 at: 32:36 Definitely the Nicest looking Case of the Bunch and the LCD Panel is a nice touch, Shame about the missing IO Shield on the Rear, Not a big fan of ASRock Motherboards if I’m honest but altogether a reasonable System, What is it with LG Optical Drives in Canada as it seems like most of the Optical Drives over in Canada seem to be LG Branded? Anthony - Birmingham/UK 🇬🇧

Great work as always! I'm confident System #1 and System #3 were part of the E-Waste I donated to the channel. Very cool seeing you go through it. #3 was a custom build for my business back in the early 2000's as I was doing heavy graphics in CorelDraw.

The fan hole on the side of first case is an intake, not exhaust. You take the fan duct and put as near cpu fan as possible and it will draw in fresh air directly to the cpu fan.

i still got 2 of those CoolerMaster Elite 330 PC Case; back in the days you could get them for Free after rebates, which is why i got it lols; Cleaning the front vents sucks but if u got a electric blower is easy work

ahhh yes the first card from ati with the radeon badging! i noticed the ports and said that looks like a radeon card just didnt know which one.

Two fine fettling projects and one for parts!👍👍

I would use the last Cyber case for a "sleeper" type system with modern components. It's totally retro cool and you could really set it up with RGB that could make that case shine!

About that second oppenning. It could be modem,as well!!!

The last computer was definitely an office PC, but it has a good one - it doesn't get hot as quickly as the sophisticated high-end processors. I also like the fact that the newer PCs automatically switch off as soon as it gets too hot. I forgot to connect the fan cable and suddenly the PC went off... but then I got a shock. But nothing happens, he's still walking.

Please, keep us posted, about that lcd!!!

Knoppix probably did not like the Radeon 7000. I remember there being issues with AMD hardware back in the day. Had to compile a kernel with some small community plugin to make FOG run on my ATI PCs for deployment. And iirc MikeTech had the same issue a couple videos back. He swapped the Radeon for a Matrox and got it running this way. The Rad will probably still run fine in windows.

I feel like that screen flash may have been from quiet or quick boot or something in that nature. I had a gateway machine that would hide the bios and go straight into xp with it enabled. It usually would just beep once though.

I had that #3 case. It was a awesome case. The front display would light up and would show case temp (i think). On mine the side panel with the fan had a cutout for plexi glass to see inside.

On PC 2 that "rj11" card is what small mom and pop dail up companies used for servers... U.s. robotics made a few of them. You could also configure the card to use security cameras.

Love the format and thoroughness of your video format. forget the naysayers. The only other RU-vidr that has a more thorough format that I like is Mike tech. So keep on keeping on. Love it

Hi, system #1, Casing is a CM E-Lite case. It’s one of the basic cases available from CM for builds on a budget. System #2, that 8-port RJ-11 card was used in a company as its internal telephone exchange. Quite old tech as it’s now superseded by software now. Depending on what you want to do with it, it might not be worthwhile to rescue it. Why you can’t get it boot Knoppix, even after adding more ram is kinda weird but I believe there could be an issue with the memory controller and possibly of failing capacitors.

I used to have the 3rd pc case that display on the front of the case was for temp inside the case. There is a temp sensor wire and a power wire, and the circles on the front were blue led as the display back light is blue as well

Thanks for reminding the CPU air tunnel can be adjusted.

i could imagine the big card might been for cameras, could been a cctv pc

that big card from the second pc looks like a ibm card with the blue handle on the end

Microsoft broke ATI video drivers with XP''s SP3. ATI would not backport their Vista drivers, BECAUSE IT DIDN'T SELL NEW CARDS. FYI: Microsoft saw too many keys being leaked. Anyone using a VLK could not upgrade to Vista.

Third case is an Apevia X-Dreamer II, I've been wanting it and the later 4 for a while. Would like to get them some day, but I'm not really sure where I could find any old computers or cases and if I could how rare one those would be.

I still have a few of those Socket 478 and LGA 775 systems kicking around. Lot of people hate on the Netburst era Pentiums, but I ran one from 2005 until 2015 when I finally upgraded to an i7-6700K build. Built the P4 machine to replace my overclocked Athlon T-Bird build from a few years prior when it finally let the magic smoke out. Still pull it out every once and a while, but my main XP rig now is an overclocked Core 2 Quad Q9550 running XP Pro 64bit …. Works shockingly well and have not run into any real compatibility issues with my older games on the Quad or XP 64. Plus, seeing 8GB of DDR2 and four CPU cores in XP is just ridiculous… it’s like dropping a 402 small block in a Geo Metro lol.

That second computer kinda reminds me about those Orangutangs with the big curved face. BTW the air shroud with a tunnel to the CPU is not pulling hot air out of the chassis, it´s the other way because there is not many fans that pulls air from the heat sink they blow on to it which makes the fan pull cold air to the CPU through the shroud. I still think you could have a problem with the power supply making it reboot but it might only be showing these problems under some load, the tester might not be enough load to trigger the problems you have so I would test another supply first

17:42 the look you are talking about has been taken/inspired from legendary mobile phone Nokia 3310 which was iconic and very well desired at the time. Even Compaq & HCL had oem desktops similar to this.

Random custom built computers from the mid 90 to the mid 2000s are a wonderful grab bag of tech from that era. 😁

The cooler master case would make a great small server or nas even today with all those bays 😊 the biege beast needs a shredder lol keep the components and retire the case lol the last pc with the mirror case was a nice case in its day but it does suck for airflow ;)

Awwww yeeee thwts an aspire x-dreamer ii on the right I built my first custom PC in one of them Man i miss the wackier cases

Did you try the same Knoppix on all systems? Almost none of the Pentium 4 CPUs were 64-bit capable, so a 64-bit version of Knoppix wouldn't ever boot. You'd need an older 32-bit flavor.

i still use a core 2 duo system on a day to day basis my old dell Vostro 220 still makes a descent system

The one on the right in the intro is the exact kind of look I was going for with my slot 1 machine. It has a black case with two beige optical drives and a gray floppy drive. I wanted it to look like an old system from 1999 or 2000 that someone swapped into a new flashy case in 2002 or so while keeping the same drives.

Use a VGA only input LCD monitor if you want to see the entire BIOS etc post screen. Multi input monitors always seem to have the "detect input" delay problem where you lose the first seconds of the video input. vwestlife made a video about this. Edit: It's 1:30 into the vwestlife video titled "Why you NEED a cheap 15" 4:3 LCD monitor"

Dude, that third system, the G31M-S, you could drop a core 2 quad into it and have a fine " 'teens" retro machine. Probably run 7, 8 or even 10 just fine if you maxed out the RAM (8gb)

I'm pretty sure that cone in the first machine was for intake not exhaust.

That first case is a Cooler Master Elite case, definitely a budget case but Cooler Master has had that case model around for a long time.

I'm thinking the mystery card is for VOIP/PBX office phone server. Probably ran Windows Server or some form of Linux.

Shame the screen on the third tower case didnt work

I had that Elite case, still got my old Phenom 2 in it actually 1. Elite 330 case, motherboard has 4.7 BIOS update 2. BIOS status confusing, the reported version doesn't seem to tally with the available 3. 2.10 BIOS available, and I'd guess the display is specifically a case function

IF you want to check the psu with the psu tester correctly,you SHOULD connect all types of the connectors- 24 pins,4/8 cpu power,molex,sata, floppy (if available).

I might be wrong but I think the reason why the second one didn't start Knoppix was that you tried using an amd64 disk for an i386 only system.

i have 2 cases the same as the last one both had amd x64 i did like the case

👏

that equinox card i saw on amazon for $450 just now

Hmm... Seems my initial comment was vanished by YT for some reason... Strange.... Anyway. trying second time :) I agree with the others about 64bit Knoppix. Seems you try to run a 64 bit Linux on 32 bit system (the 2nd one). Of course it is not possible for an obvious reason. As for a Modem Card. The point is that old ASUS MBs has an issue (or just a feature :) that disallows you to use AGP slot and some PCI slot (5 or 4 or 3) simultaneously because of shared resources (IRQ). Try to download a MB manual to find out what exact combination is possible.

7:22 The high end MSI boards do last longer than the budget MSI boards. I have a top of the line MSI that runs a first gen i5 and is working fine, I have more than one dead or dying mid range MSI boards, when it comes to older hardware ASUS has dependability across the board (pun intended). 9:48 Well that is a score, decent video card for that era. 17:44 A open sticker behind the door because the person was embarrassed to have such an ugly machine. 19:50 Looks like a RAS server, it could take many dial up phone lines then connect them to other servers on the network through the LAN. I had to manage one back in the day but ours only had 4 lines coming in. That would have been expensive in the day. Door #3 is the best looking case.

The front of the third case reminds me of one of the default Windows Media Player skins.

30:40 le problème vient du PSU👍

Hi All No #1 machine pretty cool No2, other than the strange card it should be OK. there could be a few things stopping the linux to boot , i dont think it is a faulty memory stick because if it was you would not be able to get into the cmos screen Some processors @ y2k need a modded linux for Non-PAE - for older machines line that i use Linux Puppy 4 or 5, you can boot of cdrom or usb and will run with 128 meg ram - the stock image will run in ram and it is about 85 meg So it could be fussy with processor or ram For this reason i use some multi boot usb sticks ( Yumi or Ventoy ) and is a bootable dos 6.22 image just in case No 3 , reminds me of all the overtime, i spend 4 years every second saturday cleaning out PC in office and factory - the factory ones were pitch black filthy in a month, the office ones i would do 4-6 at a time and kept a roster, the ones on the carpet floor were the worst and they would pick up loose carpet fluff and it would settle in the fan, accounts and reception machines would just power off "for no reason" - they were Gen 2 or newer I3/5/7

that's an interesting looking card. let us know if you find out what it is!

Hmm, hey retro recall if you ever in California I have some parts I wouldn't mind trading with you. Even some server stuff that was beta I think you could make video's on lol.

What was the motherboard of the first pc ? Recently found a bunch of goodies from the electronics container at work here from discarded pc's post Christmas. A mini itx pc with a Asus Strix B250i, Pentium g4600 in this motherboard, case was missing the surrounding cover, was no storage or ram present either. A Atx motherboard also from Asus A Z170-P which had an I7 6700 that also works fine so far. Swapped the cpus around so the mini itx board has the I7 6700 to make a compact pc for my dad to make use of. Though need to order some DDR4 or find some cheap used ones to make use of these, should be a decent rig for my dad though together with the HP oem GTX 1660 TI i found. Also gotten some newer gpus like a msi aero gtx 1050 2 gb, a zotac gtx 1050 ti mini 4 gb. And a final part if im not allowed to grab stuff anymore is a AMD Ryzen 7 3700x out of a HP desktop pc.

Btw,IMHO the CoolerMaster case isn't a simple,as you stated. It has a "toolless" design,and a multiple fan mounts. About that 5550. You kinda wrong, because the strongest,more powerful video cards usually came first,and a less powerful - latter,using same times the same gpu,but binned lower. No,not as simple,as that.

I had a pc like this it had a q6600 in pc 1

Number 2 is a dumpster-chuck. RJ-11s may have been for Office phone rollover system. Congrats, you hit pay dirt of early telemarketing.boom.😆

I would like to suggest a video talking about the legendary Pentium 4 478. especially the extreme ones. I find very little on the internet about it. and I think they are fantastic

You are going to end up like me with too many old systems/hardware sitting around you need to find a home for 😀

Those LG drives in the yellowed machine are utter garbage. I worked at a thrift store refurbishing computers that came in, and I got an entire batch of like 20+ computers that all had those exact drives, and I think out of all of them, only a few (likely less than 5) worked. I don't think I ever got any of them to read a CDR disc.

One beep For Memory Allocation And Posting Second Beep Is memory Allocation Is done And Boot From Media

pc 2 xp would go well

Test the 2nd pc's ram in a known good system. Repace it with know good ram at least 1gb should do.

I had the black case with the clear plastic front. Mine had blue leds where the 6 bolts are. I smashed it with a baseball bat long ago I hated the design internally.

Should I watch this video now or wait till when I go to Ottawa At the end of the month

Actually that 5550 was a pretty garbage card when it was new, especially since it’s sporting ddr3 memory.

Testing a PSU really needs to be with a load. I have had a PSU tester show a PSU as good but it could not handle a load. I normally put a couple of hard drives on while testing

Maybe Knopix Don't Liked Graphics Card On Here

@theretrorecall ever think of doing a colab video with another RU-vidr ? Mike the tech does the same thing gets old systems and repairs em

Looks like you are running x64 knoppix. The pentium 4 does not have x64 support as far as I know. Maybe that's why it is resetting

I was yelling at the screen on the second machine in the AOpen case. IT'S THE PSU. ALL of your seemingly random problems are caused by the PSU, and potentially the motherboard. AOpen PSUs are absolute trash, they used the same OEM as PowerMan and some Antec PSUs and have the same problems. They have capacitor plague, usually Fuhjyyu, OST or Teapo crap caps. It's exacerbated by the "silent" technology, where it just prevents the fan from running until the inside of the unit is hotter than the blazes of hell. It causes the PSU to rapidly die, and while it is working, it will cause regulation issues from the insane heat. Your PSU is exhibiting all of the signs of the PSU failure. With less load, the PSU can regulate well enough to not cause the system to crash immediately, but when the CPU tries to draw anything under load, the system crashes and reboots. Adding that large serial card is too much for the PSU to handle and it falls flat on its face. Those cheap crappy PSU testers won't show you anything, you have to look at the ripple current on the power rails, which will be horrendous. You can get an idea of how bad the ripple is by using a multimeter in AC mode, which can give you a general idea of what the ripple current is. They're not a substitute for an oscilloscope though. The ASUS P4Pxxx line of motherboards also have the same problem with crap capacitors, especially on the CPU power regulation. The whole board needs to be recapped. I've had several of them over the years, and had to recap all of them.

Number 3: Plug in green and white front wire for fake-out MHz display. Jumper display to read whatever you want. Edit: 2003-ish flea market special. Microsoft WGA gave you 14 days to buy an uncracked (Dell) product key, or no more porn.😆

modern computers have certainly lost their custom side besides all the ridiculous RGB junk.

Coolermaster makes cases

An amd card for video

SCHEDA PCI INTERNA MULTI-MODEM A 8 PORTE, 950332,REV F,

I love that third case, it’s so early 2K’s. If you ever want to sell it lemme know. The lcd on that case is a temperature display and they typically had a coin cell battery 🪫 to power it.