Let's explore some mystery custom PC towers!

You have my eternal gratitude!

Stuff I used in the video:

These are all either custom builds or products of some really small manufacturers. Been going slightly mad not knowing exactly what's in them, so let's rectify that!

0:00 Intro

System 1:
0:19 System 1 Tour
1:15 S1 Teardown and repairs
7:03 S1 Testing
9:30 S1 RTC hack and verdict

System 2
12:09 System 2 Tour
13:22 S2 Teardown and repairs
19:04 S2 Cleanup and testing
24:59 S2 OS Tour
26:36 S2 FDD repair and verdict

System 3
27:36 System 3 Tour
28:47 S3 Teardown and inspect
32:59 S3 Component testing
36:22 S3 Verdict

System 4
36:40 System 4 Tour
37:44 S4 Teardown and cleanup
41:38 S4 Drive repairs and testing
45:23 S4 Verdict

45:36 Outro

[TomStorey]

The sticker over the speaker performs potentially two functions, but making it quieter isn't really one of them.

It's either for allowing a vacuum pickup tool to have a flat surface to grab the component during assembly (the same reason why you sometimes see a small piece of tape on USB connectors), and/or (perhaps more likely) to prevent ingress of cleaning fluid during an ultrasonic cleaning process at the end of assembly.

Making it quieter is just a side effect of the sticker being left in place after assembly and cleaning.

[tony--james]

Awesome, it's Friday, Tired of watching Titanic all week, now it's time to watch Mike Dive into these computers!! I'm ready lol

[wolfblaide]

What would we do without Mike's wonderful "all right" remarks each step of the way of dismantling his latest PC finds, at the end of the week?! Love it Mike... keep up the good work. :)

[crabdonkey]

The inability of some drives of that period is related to lower reflectance of CD-Rs. Early DVDs were bad at reading CD-R for first generation.

[davinp]

That CR2023 battery is the same battery used in my Toyota key fob. The original battery lasted about 5 years before I had to replace it

[AndrewErwin]

"...I'm guessing the rapidly blinking light means anger..."
HAHAHAHA! That was the funniest thing I have heard all day... thanks for your content, keep it coming.

[davidg]

The hack job on that third system was impressive, but still makes me feel a little better that my hack jobs have never been anywhere close to that! Quite a mixed bag today! Great video as usual!

[GothGuy]

I guess the spiders that used to live on the dial up modem were trying to get on the world wide web, and send an email to relatives in another PC somewhere in the world 😆

[mattparker]

16:33 that *is* a cool switch, but still, nothing can beat a 1980s 386 red flip switch, the kerchunk on that badboy....

[sldkjh]

The super glue and baking soda method is also very good for fixing broken face plates. Keep up the nice videos!

[blackheart]

Wow what an assortment of unknown systems. The third one was a little disappointing. They remind me of going to the computer parts stores and getting things needed for our computers. I miss those days. Your videos take me down memory lane to an assortment of memories watching you fix or build systems. Your sense of humor is great, I love it! As always looking forward to your next video! I think I’ll rename my Fridays as Computer Friday!

[GGigabiteM]

20:45 - The capacitors aren't what you have to worry about, it's the primary side heatsink, which is just above them. Most power supplies have that heatsink in-circuit with the primary switching mosfets, meaning that it's anywhere between 60-375v RMS, depending on the switching topology used. Some power supplies are of piss poor design and can have that live heatsink just 1/16th of an inch from the lid with no insulation between them.

I had an Antec SL350 that was such a design. Had a spectacular bang one time when a ground wire broke out of a molex connector and a one in a million shot, the wire whipped back and the end went directly into the vent of the PSU housing and touched the heatsink. Sounded like a gunshot and blew a deep crater in the heatsink. PSU was unfixable, that bang destroyed the mosfets, the PWM controller, bridge rectifier and controller IC.

The capacitors are perfectly safe to touch powered on, since their legs are hidden under the board. The heatsink, not so much. Accidentally brush against it and you'll be swearing right quick. The capacitors can keep that heatsink charged up from minutes to several hours if the bleed down resistors are missing or damaged. Best to poke a multimeter across the heatsink and the PSU body to make sure there's no voltage left. Don't try shorting this heatsink out, because you'll most likely blow up the main switching mosfets and destroy the supply.

[The.Orchard]

Wow! An AT/DIN keyboard port *and* USB header on the same logic board! I've definitely never seen that.

[retropcs]

I found a trick to revive floppy drives which won't move even with new grease. The trick is to spray some contact cleaner into the stepper motor that actuates the head, you can spray some in there through the holes in the back and so far it has revived 100% of the floppy drives that I did it on

[cthriftfl]

Nice! Cracked me up! That case was Jank! Pay attention to those weird coincidences. Those are glitches in the Matrix.

[cullmaster]

Great Channel 👍🏻 YouTube algorithm brought me here 🎉 Seen a few of your vids as a new subscriber. This is great viewing. Brings me back to when I used to build these PCs back in the day as a day job and as a hobby. I’m surprised No coin cell manufacture is sponsoring you. The amount of them you go through repairing these retro systems, they should do. How do you not get bruised hands or cuts when pulling these parts out? I always find that’s the issue I get…😊 Keep up the video content… Cheers from the U.K 🍻

[fridaycaliforniaa]

26:53 « _Another one boots the DOS_ » Queen, circa 2023.

[mikemartinell]

Just wanted to say there was a period of time when it seemed like CD-ROM drives just wouldn't read CD-R disks for some reason. Like in the late 90s or early 2000s it seemed like we had a bunch of different brands with that issue. Finally started to order every system with a CD burner, just so we knew that they would read. Great channel and fun to see you restoring the same type of systems I started my career on.

[DjResR]

That Nero burner program sure brings back memories, I still have the archive of pirated music CDs from mid-2000's._

[mattparker]

YES! I AM FALLING IN LOVE WITH MIKETECH!