What case are you using?

[vf-]

Chieftec Dragon. That was all the rage early 2000s. Alienware used to use that case before they went with custom designs.

 

Your Chieftec is aluminium? Can't be. It smells of steel and is heavy. Plus magnets sticks to the chassis.

[ThaCrip]

@xMorpheousx416

seems yours is like mine with four CD/DVD drive bays and two floppy bays (internally my case can hold up to five HDD's (currently using three)). two out of four of my CD/DVD bays are in use (with DVD burners) and both floppy bays are in use ( 1)memory card reader and 2)USB 2/USB 3 ports (as my motherboard does not have USB3, so it's got a add-on card (to get USB3) and the front USB device is connected to that to give my front USB2/USB3 ports)).

but I think mine also has a slide lock to on HDD holder and the general CD/DVD burners.

the original 120mm exhaust fan in it (as you can see the basic idea from the picture posted) did not last all that long if I recall correctly (maybe a few years(?)) and I replaced that, but eventually removed that fan (although that fan still works) with what I currently have in it, which is now two 120mm fans (intake/exhaust (by default the case did not have a intake fan though)). but I don't think I got to worry about heat much as the airflow it has is easily more than enough to keep things cool enough. main thing the intake helped with is it keeps a slight breeze on HDD's.

my case also would have seen WinXP through Win10 (I moved to Linux Mint in Jan 2019). although naturally, I never had Win8 on it since it's interface was horrible upon release (as I only briefly tried Win8 in a VM and immediately disliked it as it's interface was made for a tablet not a real computer it's a wonder how they even allowed that to be released to the masses when it's horrible for general desktop/laptop usage. like how they could miss something THAT obvious as that's by far the worst thing Microsoft did on Windows in terms of basic interface function since I have been using PC's from 1995 to date). so to be more specific I would have had WinXP/Vista/7/10 on it at some point.

note: when I eventually do get around to building another PC, I suspect ill opt for a new case (but ill likely keep same monitor etc to save more money) and then transfer my current main PC as a backup. but depending on how much $ I want to save, I 'may' just swap current board into the backup PC's case and continue using my current main PC's case. ill make a decision when I get around to building a new PC. but assuming my current main PC's motherboard does not fail, ill probably be using it as my main PC for the foreseeable future (probably at least 2026-2027+) as it's proven to be nice and reliable as I had the motherboard since May 2012 (so it's 11 years old this month and is the longest I ever owned a main PC as my previous record was 6 years and 2 month) and only the on-board sound died back in 2020 but it was a easy fix by buying a cheap USB based sound card with a 3.5mm jack and then I just disabled the onboard sound in BIOS. my current PSU (Seasonic 520watt) in it is also the longest I had a PSU without it failing as it will be 11 years old in Nov 2023 as prior to that, the two most recent PSU's I had died within about a year of warranty end (which one had a 3 year warranty and the other a 2 year warranty. my current PSU had a 5 year warranty but it will be 11 years old in Nov 2023. if that's any rough indication of things, ill tend to avoid buying PSU's with anything less than a 5 year warranty). both of which where in the current case I got, so it's seen a total of three PSU's counting my current one from March 2006 to date. but my current PSU outlasted the previous two combined by years and counting.

sorry for the novel

p.s. the case I still have from 2001, while it's still in use, the cooling in it is not good with it's design (i.e. no real exhaust besides with PSU pulls out and originally, like I was saying, it's a Alienware case as it had a 80mm fan on side blowing air into case but I don't even bother to connect it to keep noise down etc). but when I occasionally turn it on, I just remove the case door.

[xMorpheousx416]

On 21/05/2023 at 03:34, ThaCrip said:

seems yours is like mine

Yes... both from Antec.

This one's the SOHO Server tower... with the extensions for those really old ISA/PCI cards. Has six drive bays, four optical bays, twin floppy/card reader bays... and the room for either the small form PSU, or the much bigger 1000/1500w.. and everything in between. While it had the slides to easily remove the optical drives, it was still a pain to have to screw the slides to the drives... we hadn't quite gone toolless back at the turn of the century... 😂

She really was a workhorse... and I kept it for as long as I could. I finally let it go so the nagging would stop... yeah, don't ask. The drive bays were flopping around, and even with all five 80mm fans attached, she was a loud case when under workloads.  

 

[ThaCrip]

On 21/05/2023 at 15:57, xMorpheousx416 said:

she was a loud case when under workloads

Yeah, I noticed on my old setup (the one with the 'Alienware' case from 2001) is noticeably louder than my current primary PC.

but after screwing around in the BIOS in the last year or two (on the old 'Alienware' setup), one can set the CPU fan to spin down when CPU is mostly idle and it make a clear difference in general noise of that case as it lowered overall noise quite a bit. because by default the CPU fan seems to run at a certain speed, which makes it rather consistently noisy, but after tweaking a setting in the BIOS, that same CPU fans RPM drops a lot when idle (or thereabouts) as it's only when CPU temp seems to reach a certain point that the CPU fan speed ramps up. but it does not take much of a load for the CPU fan speed RPM to ramp up as if you somewhat tax the CPU (which won't take much since it's older dual core tech), with not even all that much load for some odd seconds, it seems CPU fan speed ramps up. I am not sure what percentage of CPU load it takes (for at least some odd seconds) before CPU fan ramps up, but it's probably not much, maybe 15-20% off the top of my head.

because had it not been for that noisy CPU fan, that case would be rather quiet since PSU fan (120mm) is probably little to no noise, and the GPU fan (which is a small one on a Radeon 5670 512MB GPU) is probably minimal enough to at a idle (even when it comes up some I would not expect to hear much of a difference)), and I don't even have any other fans active in it as there are no fans on motherboard (as neither of my PC's have a fan on motherboard as I would have to go back to the motherboard I had in 2001 for their to be a small fan on the motherboard).

plus, your case there compared to that one I have from 2001 I would say the most obvious advantage yours has is the fans in the back as mine basically has none, just a small section with holes in it for 'heat to escape' (i.e. ain't worth a damn). in short, that case from 2001 is pretty much crap, but it beats buying another case for my old PC, which ain't really worth it as it does not see much use and when I do, I just leave the door off of it to help keep more heat being pumped through the PSU etc.

p.s. but it appears your case has one more HDD than mine as yours seems to be split up into two sections with three HDD's each where as mine is one unit holding up-to all five HDD's.

[Keyboard Cowboy]

Currently rocking an SSUPD Meshroom S that I'm completely in love with.

[StrikedOut]

Just completed an i7 13700 build in my Corsair 5000D Airflow, insane space and easy to build in with lots of cable managment. Recently completed an AMD build in the 4000D too, both nice cases to build in.

[xMorpheousx416]

On 22/05/2023 at 01:56, ThaCrip said:

because had it not been for that noisy CPU fan,

Reminds me... with the Athlon XP 3200+, I had a custom fan for it... with the speed control (a literal volume knob) that used one slot in the top 3.5" bays. Turned up high, it sounded like a turbojet.

 

On 22/05/2023 at 01:56, ThaCrip said:

but it appears your case has one more HDD than mine

Well, it only has ten bays. Those two HDD enclosures, each with three slots... the top one?... the top two slots of it are for floppy drives, card readers... etc, or in my case, the control knob for the CPU fan. It just looks weird from the side view. As you can see pictured above, the top two slots were accessible when you opened the front door... which, after a while, I just took it off as I was tired of opening/closing it when I was adjusting the fan speeds and burning disks.

[Xenon]

Just a quick Update. I bought the NZXT H5 Elite and the Corsair 4000D cases. Building a PC for a friend and she doesn't care what case. After looking at both I think I like the H5 slightly better.  It looks nicer and the cable management is much better.