That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

[Uranium-235]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

No, vinyl is probably my least favorite media....but this was a very obscure album. No CD or remastered version that I could ever find, and I looked. This was not for me, but rather my dad; goes back to his Navy days. Nice try though, we can always count on you to try and poop all over a thread.

I mean studio master

[Topcat]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

Original CD's made from masters are superior to vinyl. Unless you have really good equipment. Hah, sure you're on the opposite side of this opinion

No, vinyl is probably my least favorite media....but this was a very obscure album. No CD or remastered version that I could ever find, and I looked. This was not for me, but rather my dad; goes back to his Navy days. Nice try though, we can always count on you to try and poop all over a thread.

[Uranium-235]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

This one has been rock solid....I guess yours was most likely a PEBCAK error....

Because of its analog capture abilities with nicer hardware, I actually wrangled this one several times doing some old school capture tasks...so hours of capture & compiling at high loads, it never missed a beat!!

Original CD's made from masters are superior to vinyl. Unless you have really good equipment. Hah, sure you're on the opposite side of this opinion

[Dan81]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

Speaking of ricer cases... found this JNC (aka good ole' Deer ) sitting unused. I originally had a Duron 1600 build in this, but I guess I'll probably do a FX build in this just for fun. I replaced the tacky color-cycling LEDs on the front for two standard white LEDs, and the fan is now a red/blue Spire fan that can be monitored (originally had a RGB+Yellow LED fan w/ standard HDD molex plug).



Sorry for the pic being sideways.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

after re-reading and refreshing my mind about this thread once again, one thing about the video cards is that i noticed the 128mb aiw 9800 pro has its mem chips arranged in an L fashion while the 256mb 9800 pro has its mem chips arranged in an I fashion. this indicates the 128mb aiw 9800 pro has a 256-bit wide mem bus while the 256mb 9800 pro has a 128-bit wide mem bus. so while the latter has more video ram, it might be bottlenecked by the narrower 128-bit mem bus especially if anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are used. so i think changing the video cards is more or less ending up as a zero-sum gain instead...

maybe if u find another of the same case, u could use the aiw 9800 pro to make a "twin brother" build of this again.

Because of its analog capture abilities with nicer hardware, I actually wrangled this one several times doing some old school capture tasks...so hours of capture & compiling at high loads, it never missed a beat!!

Sometimes these builds do get used for practical things that modern gear can't do....

nice! putting that creative soundblaster audigy 2 to good use converting analogue vinyl to digital compact discs! the late sim wong hoo will be proud to know his stuff is still being put to good use even after his demise.

[Topcat]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

I used to have two of those non 4M tyan boards. They would lock up after being on for a few hours

This one has been rock solid....I guess yours was most likely a PEBCAK error....

Because of its analog capture abilities with nicer hardware, I actually wrangled this one several times doing some old school capture tasks...so hours of capture & compiling at high loads, it never missed a beat!!

Sometimes these builds do get used for practical things that modern gear can't do.... I did take a few pics, but just never posted about it.

And now me waking it up half a year later again, just because I missed it.

Better late than never!! I knew you'd catch up.

Ironically, I have 3 as well.
Two are from the same era as this Apevia more or less (well, one certainly is.) And the 3rd one is slightly newer. All are in various states of completeness. One is actually in pieces right now and with goofy paint splatted all over it as I'm hopelessly trying to cover as much rust as possible. It honestly should have gone to the scrap pile... but it was too goofy to let go. Oi... you'll see eventually... I hope.

The third here is that P4 build that you're well acquainted with... I just haven't had a lot of time for those kinds of things lately....but it'll get completed.

How is this not getting any more comments from anyone else here??!
If we are to turn back time and go in the early-mid-2000's, I'd say the above build would've had everyone drooling on their keyboards. A dream machine back then for sure. And the lights couldn't be done better!

My guess would be that it's kind of off the forum's purpose I suppose... These would probably get a lot of attention someplace like vogons, but for some reason I just never warmed up to that site. Nothing against them.

Y'know, as much as we'd like to joke how "ricey" these early-mid-2000's cases are, I'll still take one of them ANY DAY over a modern boring case that has NOTHING interesting going on.

Modern 'gamer' stuff I've found to be pretty unexciting....I just blamed it on my 'generation gap' with the gamers of today....

Well, on one of the last few pictures, I notice the holes for the rear 120 mm fan look bigger than what they were when you initially started the build. Did you re-drill them like I did on the Pac-Man case?

I did not. I think it's just the way the lighting is reflecting/showing through the holes. I mounted some LED strip behind that fan on the inside to make it brighter. I used some diffuser sheet from a scrapped TV to hide the LED strips behind it and create a more uniform glow....but there's a lot of light behind that fan.

Looks like I had some influence on the build too.

I do pay attention to other builds....it's sometimes where new ideas spawn.

... which is why I still have a much bigger appreciation for these retro builds - yes, even these "ricey" ones with the lights. Back in those days, it really took a lot of work to make a nice-looking build, be it with or without lights. And a lot of things had to be made from scratch or you just had to be creative. These days, cases are just boring. You slap everything together in 10-15 minutes and there's nothing else left to do. Hardly any room for real creativity and ingenuity. Almost everything can be bought. The art of building a PC is just not there anymore, IMO.

I think you can keep on churnin' these out, even if it's not your style. So far, they all came out superb.

This case does have a little patina on it....a few scratches & dings...but as if by some miracle the plexiglass door is flawless....but yea, not my style...atleast I would have never build something like this when it was new....but now, it has retro points and you just can't buy this stuff anymore (atleast not easily), I think that's why they now appeal to me a little more when back in their day they did not. I will never stop craning them out as long as I can get the hardware and I'm able to do it. This one was brought in for recycling... No way was I going to crush this!

[Uranium-235]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

I used to have two of those non 4M tyan boards. They would lock up after being on for a few hours

[momaka]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

Waking this one up over a year later.....

And now me waking it up half a year later again, just because I missed it.

as it's one of three cases I have here with a window in it....

Ironically, I have 3 as well.
Two are from the same era as this Apevia more or less (well, one certainly is.) And the 3rd one is slightly newer. All are in various states of completeness. One is actually in pieces right now and with goofy paint splatted all over it as I'm hopelessly trying to cover as much rust as possible. It honestly should have gone to the scrap pile... but it was too goofy to let go. Oi... you'll see eventually... I hope.

Apevia PSU in an Apevia case; nice pairing and all period-specific of course.

Nice!

...and reassembled...

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1653694540

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1653694540

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1653694540

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1653694540

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1653694540

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1653694540

How is this not getting any more comments from anyone else here??!
If we are to turn back time and go in the early-mid-2000's, I'd say the above build would've had everyone drooling on their keyboards. A dream machine back then for sure. And the lights couldn't be done better!

Y'know, as much as we'd like to joke how "ricey" these early-mid-2000's cases are, I'll still take one of them ANY DAY over a modern boring case that has NOTHING interesting going on.

I'm just showing the aftermath pics this go-round... I took plenty along the way....but there was a LOT of them....

Well, on one of the last few pictures, I notice the holes for the rear 120 mm fan look bigger than what they were when you initially started the build. Did you re-drill them like I did on the Pac-Man case?

Old pic:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1618452411

New:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1653694540

Looks like I had some influence on the build too.

Also bear in mind that this kind of lighting is hard to photograph...it looks much better in person.

Looks good to me, even not in person.

Actually, if there's one thing I like much better about these older cases, it's the fact that they are silver/gray inside and not black. IMO, that makes the light "spread" much better inside the case. In contrast, the black cases just "soak up" / absorb everything, and the lighting rarely looks good. (Not saying it's impossible, but just not common.)

this is normally not really my 'thing'...but sometimes you have to make an exception for the right case & right circumstances! The first one was done for devious reasons, this was done just because I had the LED tape and this type of case. To do this and not have it look like it was done by a 12yr old, this is actually a very time consuming project. Placement is so very important as well as what color goes where to blend it.

... which is why I still have a much bigger appreciation for these retro builds - yes, even these "ricey" ones with the lights. Back in those days, it really took a lot of work to make a nice-looking build, be it with or without lights. And a lot of things had to be made from scratch or you just had to be creative. These days, cases are just boring. You slap everything together in 10-15 minutes and there's nothing else left to do. Hardly any room for real creativity and ingenuity. Almost everything can be bought. The art of building a PC is just not there anymore, IMO.

I think you can keep on churnin' these out, even if it's not your style. So far, they all came out superb.

[Topcat]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

Waking this one up over a year later.....as it's one of three cases I have here with a window in it....and I have plenty of red & blue LED tape left from THIS EXPERIMENT.... I heisted the Apevia power supply that I modded from THIS BUILD (don't worry, I have something just as goofy to replace it with) and put it in this case; Apevia PSU in an Apevia case; nice pairing and all period-specific of course.

Yay case!!



Yay PSU!!



I won't go into all the gory details....but the LED tape was strategically placed throughout this case to create an even ricier look than it already had....but with this case I have to say that it fits....and then add in the correct PSU that was supposed to be there.







...and lit...with the side off.







...and reassembled...













I'm just showing the aftermath pics this go-round... I took plenty along the way....but there was a LOT of them.... If anyone really wants to see how something was done, let me know which region of the case and I can post up the installation & how it was all wired.....but I otherwise wasn't going to waste everyone's time with that..... Also bear in mind that this kind of lighting is hard to photograph...it looks much better in person. The 'Ultimate P4 build' is the last case with a window I have left; still an open build...and that one will probably be my last one done up this way....which will have 3 goofyass cases with lighting in them; this is normally not really my 'thing'...but sometimes you have to make an exception for the right case & right circumstances! The first one was done for devious reasons, this was done just because I had the LED tape and this type of case. To do this and not have it look like it was done by a 12yr old, this is actually a very time consuming project. Placement is so very important as well as what color goes where to blend it.

[Topcat]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

Am I seeing this wrong?
Looks like one of these is blowing towards the HDDs, but the other pulling air away from them?

No, you didn't see that wrong. I caught it immediately after taking the pic and corrected it...strangely enough, no other pics show those fans well enough after that to reveal the correction....but it was caught very early and fixed....

Good catch though!!

[momaka]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

Case body.....another one that's light as a Happy Meal when apart...I'm sure some of you are wondering why I'm even bothering with it....but I thought it was kind of unusual....so what the hell.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1617999005

Wait a minute! I recognize that case's internal shell. Does this look familiar/similar? It's the "Pacman" case (as I named it) from this thread.

So it looks like my case was made by Apevia too? Or perhaps Apevia just used the same case OEM. Well, either way, those cases are pretty similar inside.

Yes, it may be a cheap light case... but IMHO, not all that bad really. It's got enough folds in the steel that it actually holds up well, despite using steel a bit on the thinner side (though not the thinnest I've seen.)

The floppy actually has an aluminum "bra" over the front for added appearance....yea, that really is aluminum with doublesided tape on the backside. Never seen that before.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1617999005

Cool! I've never seen one like that before, either.
Then again, floppy plastic fronts are easy enough to take off and spray-paint whatever color anyone wants. But opticals - not so much if they have printed text on them and one wants to keep it visible.

Now the fans below aree a little piece of history.... I bought these Global Win coolers new back in the day I ran P3's in a VP6 as my main system. They eventually got relegated to a Tualatin Server when I upgraded my main system, and ran 24/7/365 for quite a few years AFTER being used in my daily... After that server was decommissioned, they were used around the shop for testing purposes and so on...they had a lot of hours on them; definitely well beyond their useful lifetime. The point being, they were very crudded up and the double ball bearing fans were making a lot of racket. They got completely stripped & cleaned. Each bearing gets the dust shield removed from one side (it doesn't matter which), then soaked in Brakeleen to break down & remove the dried out cruddy "grease" they used. I then repack them with ZEP2000 spray grease (wonderful stuff) and reassemble with the now open end (the dust cover cant be reinstalled) on the inside of the sleeve and then fill the sleeve with more grease....then seal as normal. Quiet as a mouse now!

Thanks for sharing your method!
I ought to give it a try sometimes, as I have a number of BBs that need a treatment. I did try re-packing a few with grease before, but I think my grease wasn't the right kind or just not good enough, because the BBs ended up being noisy after a very short while again, and if not worse than before.

Rear fan reinstalled.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1617999005

Ah, that's where I have you 1-upped with my Pacman case - I re-drilled (widened) the holes for the rear 120 mm fan.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...9&d=1539922017
The improvement in airflow was quite considerable over the original tiny holes. And overall, I found there to be a slight reduction in the noise too (less "wooshing" from air turbulence through tiny holes.)

nuh uh
First it must go in the gutless wonders thread

LOL! This commend made my day.

So that must be why TC posted the Manhattan PSU in the gutless wonder thread.

....and here we are.....dumped the camera today, but all this joy occurred yesterday....

Front fans; ricey blue LED to match the others.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1618452411

Am I seeing this wrong?
Looks like one of these is blowing towards the HDDs, but the other pulling air away from them?

Ok, I lied....I didn't reuse the original opticals...I used some gray ones that I otherwise would never use. Great match for this beast! One is a DVDROM the other is a CDRW.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1618452411

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1618452411

Those look nice, actually.

Funny, it's the opposite for me - I have a few gray/silver cases now that could use silver/gray opticals, but hardly any worthwhile optical drives with a gray front. Well, one of my cases has a case door, so no biggie what I put in there. But the other is a dark-gray MicronPC ClientPro case with light-gray front... and a badly-yellowed DVD-RW drive. I have a gray CD-ROM, but that would technically be a downgrade, lol (as if it really matters, lol. )

Now for HDD's...and anyone that knows my retro builds already knows it'll be SCSI (incase you didn't see the controller above). The HDD's are 2x Fujitsu 146gb U320 10k RPM in a RAID1.

Nice!
I bet those are pretty damn reliable drives.
I have limited experience with Fujitsu, but the few drives that I have seen/used seem to have been high-hours drives with always zero issues.

Mounted vertically to hide them better. Plenty of airflow around them....and surprisingly, Fujitsu 10K's, don't run all that hot.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1618452411

Fascinating!
Even though I have that same case (well, the base anyways), it never occurred to me to try the single HDD I have in there that way to make the wiring better. Thanks for the idea!

Nice match!! Glad I did that!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1618452411

Ricey glow!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1618452411

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1618452411

Yeah, but more of a "classy ricey", if there is even such a term.
IDK, I'll take that any day over the modern RGB barfage.

Specs are:
Tyan S2466
2x AMD Athlon MP 2800+ Big cache Bartons
2gb RAM (supports 4gb, 3.5gb usable but this is what I had on-hand)
ATI 9800 AIW
Creative Labs Audigy2
Adaptec 2120S U320 RAID controller
All the rest of the 'usual stuff' living in an Apevia case.

Only thing that slightly worries me is the ATI Radeon 9800 card. The stock coolers that come with them never really did a good job of cooling the cards and the fans also failed after a while. If you ever run into a Zalamn VF-700-CU from another dead GPU, that might be a good starter upgrade. A VF-900 would be preferable, though. Some of the IceQ/Iceberg coolers were also popular with these cards and did fairly well (at least better than stock in any case.)

Otherwise, those specs are total killer for an early/mid-2000's Windows XP machine. I would have probably gotten my pants wet if I had one like that back in those days.

Instead, all I had was a droopy AMD Duron Applbred 1.4 GHz (T-bred with only 64 KB L2!!! ), 256 MB of DDR PC2700 RAM, ASUS Radeon 9200 SE (sucky edition 64 MB, 64-bit mem), and 1x 20 GB Maxtor HDD. To top it off (and to save money, as I didn't have much), I had that build in an old case with terrible airflow and re-used a PowMax PSU.

However, when Half-Life 2 came out (super big-deal at the time!), I was able to *run* it at medium-high settings (on very low resolution, though.), The framerate, of course, was a little beyond "artistic" (referring to what the movie industry says about movies still being shot in 22/24 FPS. ) But for the few years I had that PC, I was still very proud of it.

Yay for a fun build that monetarily I have nearly nothing in!!

[Topcat]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

Just a small addendum to this build....I came across a 9800 Pro 256 (and some x1300's as well) and swapped the 256mb 9800 pro out for the 128mb 9800se AIW....plays a little better....but nothing huge...but hey, double the RAM size!

[Topcat]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

nuh uh
First it must go in the gutless wonders thread

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...71#post1040171

[ratdude747]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

The "flipped" USB connection is a usb1.1 thing it seems (built so the plug would "work" either direction). The common 9 pin layout used on newer things seems to be limited to USB 2.0 boards. Why the change to the 9 pin setup in the first place? If I were to guess, it's related to signal routing (which is more of a concern on 2.0 compared to 1.1) or ensuring that the same halves of the connector set always go to the same port every time (can only plug in the connector one way).

[Topcat]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

....and here we are.....dumped the camera today, but all this joy occurred yesterday....

Front fans; ricey blue LED to match the others.





Ok, I lied....I didn't reuse the original opticals...I used some gray ones that I otherwise would never use. Great match for this beast! One is a DVDROM the other is a CDRW.





Now for the motherboard.... Mounted up....





Cards installed.





Now for HDD's...and anyone that knows my retro builds already knows it'll be SCSI (incase you didn't see the controller above). The HDD's are 2x Fujitsu 146gb U320 10k RPM in a RAID1.



Mounted vertically to hide them better. Plenty of airflow around them....and surprisingly, Fujitsu 10K's, don't run all that hot.



So far, so good!



Nice match!! Glad I did that!



PSU & cable routing time. The front panel USB header on this board isn't keyed, a full 10 pins, not the usual 9. On older boards, I always check them for grounds and +5v, as seemingly many of them back in the day didn't follow any standards...good thing I did....one port was wired normal, the other was a mirror of it; IE backward.....so the header cable end had to be depinned and wired reversed on one side, or I'm sure bad things would have happened when a device was connected. I've had to do this to many old boards/systems.



All rounded cables. All came with the case except the 68-pin SCSI, which I had.





Door reinstalled.



Ricey glow!





Great XP system.....



Firefox 24.8.1



Temp gauge sensor is properly installed in CPU1's heatsink louvers.



Specs are:
Tyan S2466
2x AMD Athlon MP 2800+ Big cache Bartons
2gb RAM (supports 4gb, 3.5gb usable but this is what I had on-hand)
ATI 9800 Pro 256mb
Creative Labs Audigy2
Adaptec 2120S U320 RAID controller
All the rest of the 'usual stuff' living in an Apevia case.

Yes, both USB's work!

Yay for a fun build that monetarily I have nearly nothing in!!

[Topcat]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

I finished this build today, but silly me forgot to dump the camera.... It turned out pretty good! Of course I'll follow up with the pics.... Q3A plays fantastic on it.... Unreal Tourney is next.

[ratdude747]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

Silver floppy drives are a PITA to source. Took me a long time to find one for my AFT case (it's an Alps Electric).

[Topcat]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

errr really? the hard disk in the case looks like its colliding with and blocking off the ide ports on the board... i think u need to move the hard disk forward a bit onto its rear two screws.

That image is deceiving, there's a good inch+ clearance behind that....but fwiw that's not the HDD that will be used. No worries.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

a test fit..... The Tyan board is about an inch longer. I didn't forsee any clearance issues, but I wanted to be sure before continuing. Fits like a glove!!

errr really? the hard disk in the case looks like its colliding with and blocking off the ide ports on the board... i think u need to move the hard disk forward a bit onto its rear two screws.

[Topcat]

Re: That Apevia Case from the Free Scores thread...Another Time-wasting Retro Build!

nuh uh
First it must go in the gutless wonders thread

I promise I'll autopsy it with pics before I junk it....this one is worthy of that thread! A PSU is one question mark still open on this build, I'm sure not going to reuse this piece of junk. I don't think it's the original that came with the case, its way too new for that....but the original probably wasn't much better. I do have some ideas for this situation though....

I got the case disassembled & cleaned.... I didn't do a big to-do over the disassembly (reference pics), this case isn't that complicated like some I've done in the past....so just the 'aftermath' pics on this one.

Sides, fascia & fans. I did completely disassemble, clean, and repack the fans with grease. That's one thing about lighted fans, they show every speck of dust!



Case body.....another one that's light as a Happy Meal when apart...I'm sure some of you are wondering why I'm even bothering with it....but I thought it was kind of unusual....so what the hell.



2x empty 80mm fan ports in the front.... I bought a couple matching blue lighted fans for those openings, they aren't here yet...



The floppy & optical drives... All of them are good, and will be reused...I will be going a different route for the HDD's. their slight color mismatch isn't important with the silver bay overlays...you don't see them. The floppy actually has an aluminum "bra" over the front for added appearance....yea, that really is aluminum with doublesided tape on the backside. Never seen that before.



Now the fans below aree a little piece of history.... I bought these Global Win coolers new back in the day I ran P3's in a VP6 as my main system. They eventually got relegated to a Tualatin Server when I upgraded my main system, and ran 24/7/365 for quite a few years AFTER being used in my daily... After that server was decommissioned, they were used around the shop for testing purposes and so on...they had a lot of hours on them; definitely well beyond their useful lifetime. The point being, they were very crudded up and the double ball bearing fans were making a lot of racket. They got completely stripped & cleaned. Each bearing gets the dust shield removed from one side (it doesn't matter which), then soaked in Brakeleen to break down & remove the dried out cruddy "grease" they used. I then repack them with ZEP2000 spray grease (wonderful stuff) and reassemble with the now open end (the dust cover cant be reinstalled) on the inside of the sleeve and then fill the sleeve with more grease....then seal as normal. Quiet as a mouse now!



Side fan reassembled.



Rear fan reinstalled.



That goofy temp gauge....I had to remove it....I thought it best not to get it wet, it's not sealed...



...and done for now.... I can't go any further until those front fans arrive...



Till next time...