“Screw with thick upper shank” was my nickname in college.

The screws with the thick upper shank are called shoulder screws, they're specifically engineered for mounting.

That type of screw is conventionally known as a shoulder screw or shoulder bolt, and you'll get some usable results if you search for "hard drive shoulder screw" or "hard drive caddy screw", though you'll need to make sure you check the threading, I believe floppy drives actually use the fine thread typical of a CD-ROM.

Find yourself someone who looks at you the way Mike looks at retro computers! 😂 Congrats on one million views!

That first system was an enigma. It had a ballin' motherboard and a mid-range Core 2 Duo and a GeForce 8400GS. Kinda feel like the owner went into a shop (Best Buy, maybe, given the PSU brand?) and asked for a bundle to upgrade their PC and got sold this super-expensive motherboard "You'll be able to upgrade this a ton!" and then they took the cheaper components to go with it xD

I think the best thing about messing around with old systems is.. no matter HOW MANY you've done (I've done) it NEVER gets old.. I LOVE the archaeology.. It's just SO much fun.. I've probably been through, ah man a thousand systems in my lifetime? I don't know, maybe 500.. WAY too many to remember every one of them.. basically EVERYONE who goes to like 8 churches around me, because people talk and when someone finds a good computer guy who basically works for free, they tend to tell everyone they know.. luckily I am that person.. although I get less and less calls today as newer computers are just easier to fix or they just upgrade to new systems more today, as they're actually much cheaper now than ever before.. I kind of miss it actually..

Ay why is Mike so handsome though

I guess we can call this the "Mikeron" episode, thanks for the work you put in! 😉

That "Micro Speaker" unlocked memories from school. Both my primary school and high school had many whitebox computers equipped with them. They would've been Socket 370 or 478 based on the era. I'm guessing the second PC's PSU has that separate VGA/HDD connector because higher-end GPUs already needed power in the late-AGP era, so Molex was their only option.

I appreciate your videos and your style. Much better than most vintage pc channels.

The D975XBX2 was a really high end board back in the day, Micron had systems with the OEM version without the VRM heatsinks. Looks like you've gotten a nice example of a retail board. I actually have a later production ClientPro 565 that came from a game development class at Boise State University, has the OEM version of the same board and a 320mb 8800GTS.

I own a Core2 Quad Q9650 and a Q8300 (3.00 GHz and 2.5 GHz respectively). These were screamers in the day and can still hold their own. They run MUCH cooler than the Pentium 4 series. I got these processors for a song. For some reason they have become prized possessions.

Hi Mike thanx for the content. I just know that when you started the channel, you never thought that you would have viewers from as far as Zimbabwe in Africa. Keep up the good work. I have learnt a lot about retro computing from watching your videos.

Would be cool to have a modern sleeper build out these cases! Maybe an idea for the channel?

Ooeh, picking up two old pc's with an old CRT tomorrow, for free! Can't wait to work on those systems

Nice computers again. Keep up the good job in 2024. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands

For really stuck on thermal pads like those you might want to grab some plastic razor blades. They get stuff off easier than guitar picks and became my favorite scraping tool when I learned they existed.

Congratulations on 1 million views in 1 year!

Congratulations on the first million views and anniversary! Here's to many more!

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

Here's to another million views, Mike!

Whenever I've come across screws like the one's in the first PC I've called them collared screws. I would normally use normal screws and a few washers to replicate the funny screw🤣🤣

I worked at Micron Computer which became Micron Electronics and then finally MPC from 1994 - 2008. Those systems were built in Nampa, Idaho. Those cases bring back memories.

Oh, those speakers will get audiophiles raving all right... (The screws, on Amazon at least, are hard drive screws with shock absorption rubber washer)

Shoulder screw is the name for the screws.

Congratulations on the 1 million views and on the first anniversary! Keep up the great work! Happy Holidays and a happy new year!

I can hear Kramer describing the first case. "Poise, counts!"

I use fingernail polish remover for the old thermal paste. And those would be shoulder screws.

Love your videos, sweetie. Keep goin!

My mother bought a Micron Millenia P3-800 at Best Buy while I was away at college. She told me about the specs and I said it sounded good. The thing died about a year into its lifespan - just outside of warranty, of course. It's a sample size of one, sure, but I'm not surprised neither of these machines have their original motherboards.

Another good day when Mike uploads! Thanks man!

Yay! Another MikeTech Video! 👍🏻 Was wondering if I missed a new one… Great stuff as always. Cheers 🍻

Those intel "enthusiast" boards were actually pretty nice in that time period, i had one for the first generation "i" processors, they were also a bit on the expensive side, they did the whole flame thing and loved to throw skulls on them which was a big selling point for me 😂

My main PC was a LGA775 for years, it still runs Win10 with no issues. I only upgraded last year because I wanted to run Win11 on my desktop and I also wanted more than 16gb of RAM. It was really my first well built PC that wasn't just a random hack job, but I don't know what to do with it now! It deserves some purpose!

As always great video of some oldish unique tech :) relay brings back memories.

Came back right when I needed him most!

Two very cool Systems with nice upgrades. I have A Micron Millennia with the same case as System one Model GA7DX ODY with an Athlon 1200 socket 462 Made 01/05 2001. Gigabyte motherboard. Thanks for the Video.

I love your channel!

Awesome video, Mike!😊

Thank you for very entertaining video!

great video, thank you

thanks for another great bit of friday night entertainment that goes good along side a late night dinner after work

That MSI S754 mainboards are great for building an overkill Win98SE machines. I collected couple of them from computers I rescued from Computer Reset (they have Semprons inside). With 512MB RAM, they are incredibly fast!

Merry Christmas Mike 😉

Love your videos. I'm really hoping you will one day reach 1M subs and have yourself a gold play button. I was looking hard at that drive bay speaker set to see if it was the same one LGR showed a while back, but I think it's a different model. Kinda crazy that there would be two of those very similar but not the same.

Congrats on 1M views! On to 2M!

I remember having a micron pc that for some reason only had 3 ram slots 🤪 looking amazing btw 💕

a case with spare screws installed in a secret little spot is amazing. and i always loved oddware stuff like bay mounted speakers and stuff like that.

your vids are so relaxing to watch. keep going these vids! U got my Sub! greetings from germany :)

Thanks for the fun and informative content! I love old computers. My oldest is a home built AMD K6-3/400 @ 450mhz machine that I build in 1999. Runs 98SE and a few old games, even has a Belkin wifi device! A machine that I'll have to give a refurbing to someday.

26:12 too many memories this episode! These aopen drives came with a black and beige bezel in the retail box from memory ❤

Love your humor 😂

That movable speaker got me. Glad the case didn’t break when you put it back in. The KZfaq audio made me want to put plugs in my ears lol. That dust ridden heat sync fan got me too. Wow someone stole the hard drive out of the second system. Nice it included screws lol. I’m looking forward to see what you do with the speakers from the first system.

Also, I always love your jokes and puns. 😂

I don't know what it is with DDR2 modules, but even back when they were fairly new they were always flaky. Whether on an AM2 or LGA 775 motherboard, they would always have weird flaky RAM issues that required re-seating/wiggling them before the PC would boot again. My theory is that the fingers in the RAM slots are sensitive to vibration/temperature variations for one reason or another. I serviced multiple Dell Optiplex machines of that era in an office environment during my sysadmin years. Would constantly get calls/tickets about said machines freezing or giving the RAM beep code after a reboot. It was always a quick fix, I'd just pop the side cover off and give the RAM modules a wiggle in their slots. Nine times out of ten, the machine would boot up normally after that and work for months after without issue. That Micron case is amazing, though. Love how easy it is to service!

Thank you for the video. I wish you a happy Christmas and all the best in the New Year . 🤝👋🎄🍾🥂 Dziękuję za film . Życzę szczęsliwych Świąt Bożego Narodzenia , oraz Wszystkiego dobrego w Nowym roku 🎄🎆🎇

Great video. I still have and love both of those chips. Still have the core 2 duo in a running system. That first sleeper system would have been my dream in college, looks like 90s, runs like 00s. Keep up the good work 👍

I had one of those Mad Dog PSU NOS a couple years back. I wouldn't say it's the best power supply, but the switch changes the fan settings from Auto, to Standard, and then Turbo. I ran the fans on Auto because it kept the noise down fairly well. That PSU went with an AthlonXP 2400+ retro PC I raffled off on my stream when I hit 800 followers. Said PSU is still working, so there is that.

Cool Sytems. ❤

First, nothing like seeing that gorgeous face on a Friday morning. Second, my friend had a Micron PC with a Pentium and I listed after that machine. It was so fast and we played the crap out of Doom on it. Those were the days.

happy holidays

When you played KZfaq music through those speakers I was really hoping it was gonna be Scarlet Fire

That LGA 775 board looks pretty awesome,would make a nice high end Vista build

love to see how the computers work and your explinations for them! Would you ever do something like this for a newer computer?

That 975X board is a gem!

Seeing that MSI motherboard in the second case brings back memories. My very first computer I built for myself had that same motherboard in it. The MSI K8-MMV MS-7142 with the VIA VT8273R Raid Chipset remember it fondly keep in mind though that on board raid chip only supports SATA 1 drive speeds and will actually refuse to boot with some hard drives if they are newer then SATA 1. You can find sometimes though that there are drives that allow you to run them in SATA 1 speed with a jumper on the drive then it will work just fine. Oh in case you are curious the best CPU for that motherboard is the Athlon 3400+ Venice core, the clawhammer core has a 3700+ that works also but it lacks some CPU instructions. Athlon 64 3400+ Venice is the better choice just wanted to throw that in there. The Mad Dog Multimedia power supply brings back some memories as well use to sell a lot of them at the computer store I worked at

Should've played Scarlet Fire with those speakers LOL🤣🤣

Have the first version of that Intel board, D975XBX, doesn’t support the quad core CPU’s but works with it anyway with a new enough board revision, only issue is the CPU fan runs at full speed 100% of the time. Stuck a QX6800 in it, was a massive upgrade over the Pentium D 830 that was in it. Still have it to this day, waiting for a case to go into since 2014.

"Not a fan" of how the fan connects 🤣

I believe the Athlon 64 was the CPU I used building my first PC. Been over 20 years now so it is a little hard to remember. Been building pc's ever since

I also had the Intel desktop board here until recently. The thing with the coolers is normal. But I sold it because I didn't need it. It was real high-end back then. I always find it funny when people buy such high-end boards and then equip them with low-end graphics cards. You don't need a 975 board for this. The first slot has x16, the second x8 and the third x4. But I would have liked it better if the original hardware had still been in the computers.

I honestly had lost track of Micron. I remember they had opened pc stores here and given they had a fab plant here in utah, I would have thought they would have kept them around longer. I remember them in the pre ghz era, but honestly surprised to see they had lasted until 2ghz era in early 2000's. I'm surprised to see a zalman cooler in there. Honestly when I first bought my pc, I had bought an OEM cpu from a local store that sold OEM parts to pass the savings off to the customers. They had a small cpu cooler and a bigger one they sold. They recommended the larger one for my athlon XP 1800+. I overclocked it to 2ghz, but dear god was that fan loud. I had to wait until I had some money and ended up buying a thermaltake cpu cooler. It was still on the loud side and cooled reasonably well. When these zalman cpu coolers came out, I had upgraded to an athlon 3200+ and I got the copper one. My friend heard how much quieter my case became when I got all new fans with a fan controller and this cpu fan. He went out and bought his and the seller said save a little bit of money and go with the nickel/copper one. He said he preferred it as the copper was a better conductor as it still is what touches the cpu and the nickel was better at releasing the heat. I don't know if that was true or not, but it sounded good. I mean the sound was night and day different. I try to have a fairly quiet computer within reason now, but I remember how bad it was before that. Zalman were a game changer for sure and those hsf's were just so much cooler to look at and they still provided airflow to all of your nearby components. I remember having the heatpipe one later and then that was the least I seen or heard from zalman. I thought their products were fresh and innovative and wanted to continue to support them, but last I had seen, they look like all the others, just copying the cooler master 212 cooler design.

The motherboard in the first system was Intel's first gamer board, and would even allow you to OC your CPU, which Intel rarely, rarely supported. It's nickname is BadAxe or BadAxe2, based on the Intel i975x chipset, and offered ATI Crossfire. They were pretty darn expensive when they were new, going for around $300.00. I bought one off eBay about 8 months ago for $75, and stuck a Core2Quad Q6700 in it, 8 gig of RAM, and an nVidia GTX280 video card. No, it's not current gen fast, but for the time it's from, it's speedy enough. I have Win7 Ultimate on an SSD, and for old school fun, I have XP Pro x64 on a 150GB Velociraptor 10K rpm hard drive.

Marry christmas. Good video btw...

Those old Zalman coolers are always nice to see. Wonder if they performed decently and went out of style or they were discontinued because they sucked. Shoutout to the MAD DOG power supply for working well and being genuinely interesting.

Brah that cooler was caked with Delicious mite dust hopes you wearied .5 micron respirator for that son, love your chan mikey brah , keep vids coming son

You can repin those DuPont headers to match any header layout

They're called shoulder screws

If they are like the bolts that hold on lawnmower wheels, those screws are called “shoulder screws” Mike.

At a thrift store once, I found a sealed Micron software pack. It didn't look like the typical OEM software package you get though, might have been bundled software. I will have to find it and take a peek.

OMG yay a video...

If the pump doesn't work, pump it a few times when submerged in a sink of water

Search for shoulder screws or bolts. 👍

Micron also made a ton of upgrades for vintage Macintosh computers. Everything from CPU accelerators to video cards. They make one of the most coveted upgrades, the "Micron Exceed Grayscale" adapter, which replaces the neck board on the CRT of a compact Macintosh SE/30. When used in conjunction with a Micron Exceed video card, it allows the display to show full grayscale instead of just bitmap B&W. It can also output color to an external screen for a true multiple display setup (mirrored or spanned.) Not bad for 1989.

I had an 8400gs back as a teenager. It could run Crysis at mid minimum settings on my 15 inch square LCD.

Nice LGR reference

That Micron case reminds me of the old Dell ATX cases, but updated.

I wonder if that heatsink would make much of an interesting noise if you hold it against the bridge or somewhere of a guitar while stroking it. Maybe transfer some of the sound in to the strings and in to the pickups. It'd probably be a very very low signal though but it might sound cool.

Nice video! But be careful with the Goo Gone. I've found that it can really damage some kinds of plastic.

It was odd how well the front panel headers on Micron PCs matched up with off-the-shelf motherboards. I upgraded a few motherboards in Micron boxes and didn't have to do any hackery to get the power button, power LED, and HDD LED working.

I believe that those are what are referred to as Shoulder screws.

Those screws are called "Shoulder Screws"

19:57 lol, my birthday too!

case design in the early to mid 00's was the best

I wonder if Mad Dog Multimedia was an Office Max brand. My local one was full of add in cards and cdrom drives from them. They made the first video card I ever bough, a geforce4 mx440.

Great vids mike! LGA on the modern side. 😂 I bet that case fooled you. Cases were allready black and fancy in the 775 era.

This is Intel 975 motherboard. of course they have to go for VRU heatsinks. Competition in 975 range was unforgiving. :)

the "good posture" part 🤣🤣

Those front panel connectors are not hard to modify, if needed. Just use a paperclip. Have done it multiple times on the same case, even. Some of those oem cases are beasts, rather that than a sheet metal knifebox.

6:19 that's probably the best motherboard you can have for an XP build i would keep that if you ever wanted to do a build that covers a wide range of games and it has a wide FSB range, so it's nice for trying out a lot of cpu's.