A sleeper is a slow car that has been retrofitted with a faster engine (or other modifications) to perform much better than expected. A sleeper PC is the exact same.
I was originally going to pack a modern gaming computer into a beige case such as an old IBM PC, but hit a snag early on. Retro PC cases are not easy to find, and you usually have to buy the entire computer. When I searched the local surplus stores and the Portland FreeGeek, all I found were relatively modern desktops from a high school computer lab.
I was inspired by a post on Reddit that had a more 90’s to early 2000’s gaming PC case. It reminded me of the back of PC magazines, showing Pentium 4 computers with crazy case designs.
These cases ended up being pretty rare (as they were only sold as part of a prebuilt with dubious quality). I managed to find a slightly later Alienware desktop, just the case for $20.
