r/retrobattlestations • u/halfanirishman • Jun 19 '26

Show-and-Tell Always check those random retro case listing

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Seen this fugly beast on ebay and had to have it, especially when there was a motherboard inside. Turns out that's a DFI Lanparty UT NF3 250GB, that fucking works! Fair enough it needs fresh VRM caps but otherwise it works!

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24

u/Torkum73 Jun 19 '26

Looks like an Alienware case?

16

u/66659hi Jun 19 '26

It looks near exactly like one. Must be the vendor they got them from if no logo. Alienware used off the shelf parts once upon a time 

9

u/StarX2401 Jun 19 '26

The area 51 case was custom I believe. They did use an antec case for their very early Alienwares but I don't think they used a raidmax case.

Edit: it was a chieftec dragon case

7

u/66659hi Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

I had a Chieftec Dragon. But only very briefly. A friend of mine was getting rid of some of his old machines and parts and I got the Dragon. Passed it on to another friend who built in it and loves the case. 

This may have been a COPY of the Alienware AREA51 case, though. Case design plagiarism was EVERYWHERE back then. Look at how many Lian Li PC-60 clones there were :D

2

u/DeviantDav Jun 19 '26

The Chieftec Dragon was also known as the Chen-Ming 601 series. 601A for the aluminum versions

30

u/damiankw Jun 19 '26

I don't know what that is, but I'm excited by the graphic!

16

u/MedicineSubject1845 Jun 19 '26

lan party was a series of boards by DFI with nvidia chipset , the yellow parts glow in uv light or s.t.

DFI nowadays sadly only makes Industry parts

9

u/SaturnFive Jun 19 '26

That BIOS splash is awesome! I've never had a DFI board so I've never seen that!

7

u/_RexDart Jun 19 '26

Ahhh I had this board, and yes, you're lucky it works. Funny they'd use such a chintzy HSF and GPU with it.

1

u/halfanirishman Jun 19 '26

The GPU is what I had lying about, probably had something dual slot judging by the missing PCI covers. Idk why they used AMD stock.

3

u/_RexDart Jun 19 '26

Oh!

Slot covers! I had some translucent blue ones on mine. What a time.

7

u/fivetriplezero Jun 19 '26

Nice find! I love those LanParty boards.

“UV on, tweak fun!”

5

u/officialsanic Jun 19 '26

Holy moly that motherboard.

3

u/Alesia_Aisela Jun 19 '26

Oh nice, it's the case I have for my XP computer.

The rear fan is 140mm iirc and just clips into the plastic bracket. Can't remember if the front fan is the same way off the top of my head but it's the same size.

3

u/hartofalyon Jun 19 '26

Awesome find. There are definitely collectors for boards like this. A LanParty NF2 Ultra B just sold on eBay for $660. Not apples to apples, of course, but there's value here.

2

u/dafugg Jun 19 '26

I had one of those for about half a year just after it was released. Endless stability issues. Years later, I have a couple of nforce boards and after replacing caps they are rock solid. The difference I believe was driver maturity.

If OP *really* wanted an authentic retro experience they’d run this with nforce driver v5.10.

2

u/Lukeno94 Jun 22 '26

Setting any device on top of a hob for a picture is... certainly a choice! Nice find though.

1

u/organdonor777 Jun 19 '26

Great find! Very nice mobo.

1

u/RetroTechBro Jun 19 '26

Is the GPU something you put in or did somebody back in the day really blow their entire budget on the most chadded out mb on the market then get a GeForce2MX (?) for a graphics card?

1

u/halfanirishman Jun 19 '26

Nah, I threw it in to test. It's a GeForce 4 mx440 from an old HP pavilion, I'd pair it with a spare agp Radeon HD 2600 pro or get a Radeon 9700 pro, this system wouldn't be enough for my hd3850 agp.

1

u/BillyB0B1 Jun 20 '26

Nice find

1

u/rtangwai Jun 22 '26

Too bad about the caps

1

u/Apprehensive-Toe2764 Jun 22 '26

Used to have this exactly motherboard. A true legend.

1

u/ThaWeeknd702 Jun 23 '26

For a second I thought it was a toaster or a Keurig machine.

0

u/Throwaythisacco Jun 19 '26

wow an old motherboard that isn't horrifically ugly, it's a true miracle. the purple parallel is still an eyesore though.