I've been a Bit-Tech lurker for almost a year now, constantly planning mods and brainstorming ideas, but never actually doing any modding for myself. So, this is my first mod project. Three years ago I purchased an empty Power Mac G4 Graphite case off eBay for $80 (yeah, I paid too much), with the intent on modding it into an ATX case. Things got in the way, and I never actually got around to doing the mod. Today I pulled it out and started working on it. Eventually I intend to replace the blueish gray color with a darker black form, so I chose to name the project DarkMac. Of course, the insides wont have anything mac like, since I'll be using an ATX mobo, probably with an Athlon 64. This is the initial case. The thing that I love about the G4 design is how Apple put the motherboard on the door. When you open the case, the board is immediately accessible. This also comes in handy if you need to use the computer as a testing machine for other components, since you can just open it up and plug into the board right there. The drive trays are also extremely easy to access, and the optical bay actually slides out of the case. Unfortunately the case I bought did not come with the circuit board for the front buttons/power LED/speaker. I've found the board on eBay, but it costs over $100 and thats way more then I want to spend. I'll probably end up replacing the entire front face of the case anyway. My first challenge was to cut away an opening for the motherboard ports. Since Apple custom designs their cases for their motherboards, there's no need for them to use the standard port faceplate. Thankfully the standard plate does fit into this space, so I just had to cut an opening for it. I attacked it with my dremel and had the opening cut in under half an hour. In retrospect, I should have used a coping saw or jig saw for this part. The cuts I made with the dremel's router bit are pretty ugly. I'll have to clean this up with a hand file. The next step was to remove the existing standoffs. The Mac graphite standoff placement is completely different from the uATX standard which I'll be using, so I need to put in my own standoffs. Before I did this I removed the acrylic cover on the door so that I could work with just the metal. The pieces of tape in this photo were securing the old AirPort antenna wire, which I removed. I got off half of the standoffs before my dremel got too hot to hold on to, so I've set the project aside for the rest of the day. My largest challenge with this project will be figuring out how to keep the optical drive from impacting the RAM slots. On the original motherboard, the ram slots sit perpendicular to the ports (unlike ATX, where they are parallel). Because of this, they fit perfectly above the optical drive bay. Most ATX boards position the RAM slots right in the way of this bay, so either I have to find a board that doesn't interfere, or I have to move the optical drive. Most likely it will be the latter, unless I switch to a Mini-ITX board (something I'd rather not do).
nice idea, but i think you might have a problem fitting a fullsize ATX mobo in there, however a mATX will fit. good luck
Heh. Great job so far, the Graphite G4 cases always looked nice. Hope your mod turns out good, although with your planning so far, it seems like it will! *EDIT* uATX=mATX. The u is just a substitute for the micro symbol. The fact is established that he will most likely be using a uATX/mATX/micro-ATX board, whatever you want to call it.
mATX-Boards will fit, ATX-Boards will not. I am also looking forward to see you fitting a CDROM, i always had my problems with that when modding a G4 to a PC.
you paid $80 dollars for just the case? i paid $10 for the whole g4 from my high school! but good mod idea
If you were to carry out everthing you intend it's seems like you'ed be lossing the whole point of moding a G4 case. The G4 case was one of the best standard computer cases. I'd like to see an improvment of it. Not an entire redesign.
I love the design of the case, from it's built in handles, to the way they cooled the whole thing with just the PSU and a single 120mm fan, and that door simply kicks ass. These are things I wont be changing. The real mods will be in repositioning the DVD drive (either moving it to the very top, or dropping it to the bottom), and in the recoloring of the case. I also want to do some stuff with lighting and cable routing, but the mod I'm really excited to try is I want to put a stereo VU meter on the front of the case that's tied into the audio output. I've already got the parts list and schematic worked out, I just need to buy the stuff. I'll see about putting up a piece of concept art of what I want to do. I would love to build an entire case from scratch, incorporating the G4 case ideas into a standard ATX form factor, but I simply don't have the money to pull that off. Yeah, I did, pretty silly huh? It was the only one on eBay, and at the time I was still living with my parents so I had the cash to spend. Thanks for the support, hopefully it wont be too long before I have another update for you guys.
