Case Mod - In Progress Project: "G5 Retaliation" March 19th. Alive and kicking! Happy days!

I love G5 mods!(Who doesn't, honestly) I'm following this one. From your previous work, this is going to be amazing.

 

We all love a good G5 mod anyday, You're never going to guess what i just bought for €75.......

hint: It comes from Steve and his friends and it has a G and a 5 in it's name...

Well succes on the mod, while i start planning mine.

Good Luck.

 

Brett89 <-- Thx... I hope I won't let you down!

DonCorleone76 <-- STOP! We don't need anymore G5 -> PC mods! *LOL* Drop me a note when you start posting!

First up... I'm busy as **** at work right now, so I'm pretty beat when the day is done... Therefore I don't feel like doing 12 hour days, to do this...
But on the other hand... I'm not one to go home and get bored!

Did the first cut on the case today, got the hdd rotated 90 degrees as well:



After this was done, I was able to figure out how and where to mount the ATX mobo.
The thing is that, as I mentioned earlier, I'm not going to rip apart a normal case, to cut it, and make it easy to mount the mobo in the G5... Meassured the old case, and the G5, several times... Found out that I am going to mount a piece of 3mm aluminum on the back... Then I'll mount the mobo on that.

In the G5 I will have to raise the board a little more than normal, because of the way it is made.
Hense, the spacers from the back to the board must be longer than normal. (Dunno where my caliper is, so I'll just take the whole thing to my workshop, and meassure it again! )
I'm gonna be at work tomorrow, about 1½ hours earlier than normal to start making the whole backboard... Follow the red lines around the case, and you get the idea of how it's gonna look!

And in the picture you will also see how the hdd-mount are sitting now!




Btw, sry for the small pics,since I had to tare my PC apart, I'm on my brand new laptop, and haven't gotten around to install any picture editing prgrams yet!

That's it for now, I hope to be back with an update on the mobo-mount tomorrow, and then the weekend is dedicated to finishing the water heatsinks, and some other stuff for this!

 

Nice work so far man, it is truly a pain to separate to inner from the outer casing isn't it....

Oh and btw, i'm in the aquiring of parts stage and also in the desinging in my head stage,
I think it will be another 3 to 4 weeks before the actual modding will start, but i have some nice ideas.

We will see what the future will hold for us.

 

Made the backboard for the mobo today. Did the meassurements yesterday with a ruler... And by god, sometimes I impress myself!
If I was Ace Ventura, I would say "Liiiike a gloooove" *LOL*



Please notice that there is room to build my PSU inside the standard case that goes in the bottom!

I had to make some spacers from the backboard to the mobo also. 7.8mm + 7.6 mm - 2mm= 13.4 mm. Mounted:



And finally... The moneyshot!



From behind:



The observant reader may notice that the 7950GX2 is moved down a notch, so half of it is not in the slots on the back... This is because they (Apple) only provides 4 slots, and to make it SLI ready, it was nessecary!

I used an epoxy glue, to fasten the spacers to the backboard, to make them sit accurately. I'll let it set, which it has probably already done, and take the backboard with the spacers on it, to work tomorrow. The spacers have a 3mm thread all the way through it, and then I can drill down through them, and set them with a 3mm countersunk screw from the back!
Just need to use a 2.5mm drill, then I can make the hole larger from the back, afterwards!

That's it for now, I'll hopefully return with another update tomorrow, and if not, then saturday!

 

Sweet! Nice job, man.

 

i never knew the G5 had water cooling. so cool! well i know not all G5's had it.

i like the first case in ur home, the cheapo turn stylish with brushed ally or steel. i didn't look that close you see.

 

As I hoped, there's a little update today!

The spacers got screwed on to the backboard today, and it worked like a charm... (as expected! )
The whole thing looks like this now... Mobo, Gfx, Cd-drive and Harddrives mounted! :



I should probably explain the backboard! It's a piece of 2mm aluminum sheet. I just figured I'd keep the protective layer on, untill I'm almost done!

Front view:



Back View:



... Then we move on to the PSU... OMG... Take a look at a 600W/35 amp on 3 channels PSU from Apple, and then look at the LG 520 W/40 amp on 2 rails...

The Apple:



LG:



... Crazy, right? *LOL*

The PSU before I took it apart, and it had to fit inside the flat box from Apple:



Difficult? Naah... Just remove the casing, and the huge fan, then you have enough space to put in the PSU, AND make a birdbath! *LOL*



Hmm... what to do with the space left over?

That's it for now, hopefully I will go to work tomorrow and do the last Waterblock, and the tops for the both of them, and while the cnc is working, I will do the PSU... BUT... It's a lot of work (time) and... I'm gonna go to the lokal bar in a minute so...

 

Wow. I like it! Utilize as much of the stock design as possible. Good job! Hell, that extra space could house a DDC prolly, or perhaps lighting stuff. Or an ashtray . Good job, regardless man. Good job.

 

E.E.L. Ambiense<-- The idea is to mix stock with my own idea of how an upgrade should look! (And as we all know, Apple can't do perfection, but I can! *LOL*)
This is my second mod ever, and I intend to do this to the limit of my own mind... Design-wise that is, the build itself is no problem...
But I truly hope I will not let anybody down!

I've seen a couple of mods of a G5 --> PC, but they all use a PC backplate to make it happen... And they all look really cool, but I just wanted to do something else!

 

Uploadit.org is apparently down... Hence all the missing pics... Sry..

 

WoW, your a fast modder aren't you, pumping out updates like there was no tomorrow.

But anyways, looking good man, But im curious as to what you tend to do about the mobo-connections.

'Til the next update. Theo

 

DonCorleone76<-- I assume that by "mobo-connections" you mean the cables from the PSU to the mobo?

And btw... Who knows if tomorrow will come! ;-) *LOL*

 

Small update... Got the PSU mounted inside the PSU case today...
I just need to solder it, and then throw it in...
But I'm too lazy, it was a baaaaaad night yesterday, so today is spent on the couch watching soccer!

PSU top:



PSU side:



Hopefully tomorrow will bring more strength to me, and I will go at it again!

 

Got bored, waiting for the game... I soldered the PSU to the outside connection.

And I also put in the fans, and had to solder them to the old connection for the PSU...
As you see, I don't like yellow, therefore I just cut the wire... *LOL*

As far as I know, the yellow is the sensor wire, and apparently there is no yellow on the PSU, hence I cut it... I guess the PSU itself has a sensor, which controls the voltage of the fan... Just hope it will not go crazy, but I guess we'll find out!


The soldering:



The finished mount:




And I might get around to attaching the yellow wire to the fan-controller on the mobo for the cpu, or something, just to get a readout, when the watercooling goes in!

I promise, no more updates today!

And btw, if any sponsors are watching, I'd love a waterblock for the 7950 GX2... Or maybe 2... Since this is the way I'm going when my economy allows me to buy another 7950 GX2, and a SLI mobo!

 

I actually ment the connections on the backplane of the motherboard, are you going to use the orginal ones or are you going to implement a new piece of aloy for it.

But your right, the yellow wire from the fan is only for rpm read-out. You could do without it i think most psu's have a temp controlled fan.

Looking good man.

 

I'm hurt... you said you would work on the waterblocks...

If you want a sponsor, you need to e-mail them. The odds of a possible sponsor seeing this are slim.
But...
You are one of the few modders here who could probably make his own gpu+memory waterblock. (Oh wait...there's still the issue of the crazy-shaped O ring seal.)
Make your own! That would be awesome! (And if you wreck an expensive gpu trying it, you can't kill me for recommending it. I'm on the other side of the planet!!)

 

For the space leftover in the psu-box, you could also put in another psu for lighting, more drives, or...

Or leave it empty, or put all the cables you dont need from the psu in there.

also waiting for that waterblock, it's so cool

 

Mmm...the reason is quite simple - when I planned the original mod, I purchased the AMD Socket 939 mobo - shortly thereafter Intel Core2 Duo was released, and, I decided to rather go with Intel, really after the processing power this will bring - then, after the decision to go with Intel, I also decided to do a standard ATX setup, as this will allow me to retain the case through various cpu/motherboard and gfx card combinations/upgrades.

I have a 30" ACD monitor, and need to use powerful gfx cards, especially for the newer titles - so, SLi ain't to far-fetched, and I need to be able to accommodate that eventuality.

So, with the new backpanel design, I can use any std atx combination - yes, my intitial ideas were exactly the same as yours, even up to the point of gutting the old Apple 600W PSU, and retrofitting new atx internals - the extra space, btw, was going to be for the watercooling reservoir

Anyway, I am starting on my setup again, after a lenghty break - work committments, et al.....I have fitted the radiator, without using any mounting brackets.....it looks very good - now, I need to decide which one of my 2 Swiftech pumps to use - logic says the MCP 655, so, let's see.

I luv your progress on this, looking very good - do yourself a favor though, and redo your backplate to really "fit like a glove" have a look at my log - you know you want to hide those ugly Apple casescrews......I did the same as you, and then decided to redo - it is well worth the effort!

Keep it going, I will check back and watch your efforts with interest

 

very, very cool mod.

I agree with the pleas for a CUSTOM GPU BLOCK.

pander to the masses!