Case Mod - In Progress Powermac G5 mod - 7'th of December - Semi finished, beta 1 :)

Gree Cyprot/Englis - Danish, Tomato Tomato

I have seen some of their work and it looks like it's only limited by your imagination! The sw is in German, English and French and it is quite simple and intuitive. Tou simply make your drawing, save it and use the bundled "Order Frontpanel" program to order. I will calculate prices at once, so that is über cool.

 

Took some pic's with my louse N95 8GB Not quality, but atleast there is a little progress I finally got another mobotray, one from Lian-LI PC-60. I discarded the idea of using the beige steel plate... This looks semi nice allready imho. Lian-LI PC60 and G5 goes hand in hand right Cyprio?

The mobotray in place:







I still need to trim it a littlebit and cut a bigger hole for the rear fan and make a cutout for the latch.

Still haven't decided if I'm gonna aircool or watercool... But I have the watercooling, but not the aircooling, I guess it's an easy choice But don't know how I will ever fit one 3x120 radi and two 1x120 rads

EDIT: Sorry for the bad pics, and all the crap inside the case, I use it to store materials when I'm not modding

 

He he...
Gotta watercool, and you know it!

I'm a sucker for overkill, but on the other hand... Why not just use the 360 rad, and save the others for another project?

I only use the standard one from the G5, and though I only have W/C on CPU and NB, it keeps at room temperature! Looking forward to seeing the temps when I put the GFX and SB in the loop though...

 

Yeah... Water it is, I guess Don't know where to fit the 360 either hehe... Maybee it could be mounted in the bottom of the case, think it just might fit. But it is 46mm high, and plus fans the it's a beefy 71mm sandwich. Think it might interfer with the mobo, but i'm not sure. The case might be wide enough to mount the rad in the bottom, but not centered- then there might be space enough.
Save them for another project you say? Yeah I could do that, still have the urge to modify my htpc, but it uses and AMD E4850 (45w) cpu, not the "hottest" CPU in any way =)

Sounds like rather OK performance with that stock apple water cooling unit! Maybee you could post some pics of how you connected it? I got my case totally scrapped, only SATA cables and wires for the mediabay was included

 

Henrik i think you will struggle to fit 3 rads in the G5 as its a small case imo. Also kind of agree with Angel - do you need them?

ps are you planning to drill out all those holes on the backplate?

 

Well overkill is so nice! But you are probbably right, I don't need all 3. I just plan on cutting, no drilling. For a moment I was thinking of your solution - super sleek! But don't think that I am patient enough for that kind of work hehe.

Btw. what legnt standoffs does your mobo tray have? I got mine without standoffs, so gotta try to find something that fits!

 

From what i can see the ones i have left over from the Lian Li tray are 6mm Henrik.

 

Oh my, finally got some work done! My gf's at her parrents house for the weekend so I free to do what I want That means MODDING TIME!!

First off... I can't really be sitting home alone on a saturday night without a friend? No, good thing Captain Morgan stopped by withs spiced gold



Anyhow, I cut some mobotray away clearing the sidepanel latch:


Here from another angle:


I have just bleeded my gaming rig and dismounted the 360 rad, man it's gonna be a very tight fit in the G5!

My trusty ol' gamer rig:


Stay tuned for more pictures!!!

 

Ah nice, thank you! I made a temporary solution, 15mm x 3mm screws, mounted from the rearside of mobotray, then add 2 nuts and washers and it's like 5,7mm It will work for my mockup until I get some real standoffs.

 

Steady as she goes... My drink is disapering faster than I can speak, but Ideas just keep coming

It is a very very tight fit, but the 360 rad will fit in the bottom of the case :-D

More pics? YES!

Here is one with semi crappy mockup hardware installed:


Room enough eh? distance between ram and fan is more or less3 mm


The rad in its full glory (Notice the rather phat 80mm fan, it's the original from the mediabay. I will keep it there for now


It's around 2000 hrs here in Denmark, considering wheater to make cutout for the rad, just draw it or summeing the party ppl :S I will most likely just crash the couch and watch some movies.

This is it for tonight, I think...

 

Ah what the heck, another picture!

This is where I will cut the venthole for the 360 rad:

 

Woohoo! Update time! The first beta version of the system is now up and running.. Here is some more pics:








The not-so-nice edges will be hidden by an AC Ryan rad grill in a very near future. Think that I will nedd to add air filters aswell, this case will just vaccume the floor


Time for some REAL hardware






Suddenly the case seems very crowded!


Some nasty blue light






Some creepy fact's:
The PSU is at the moment a serious piece of ghetto-mod. It is held in place by 4 doublesided sticky-pads Works for now, but I think that I shpuld either mod this psu og get a modular one and mod it to fit more seemlessly in the top.

The cables have not been arranged in a nice way yet.

The TO DO list:
Make suspend for PSU.
Rewire original power LED and button.
Rewire original USB and Firewire.
Construct an eject button for optical drive.
Make an dual 2.5" drive cage.
Power-inlet.

The bad -expensive- thing's:

Need to seriously trim down the wires of the psu og buy a nice modular one.
Need 2 x 2,5" SATA (Velociraptor) drives, normal 3.5" are not really an otion anymore with this case and it's cooling

 

Sucess! I got the original power button and power LED working today.

Still need to make solution for psu and HDD's.

 

Think that I maybee should paint the fans and the sides of the rad "apple grey" ? Should I chop my PSU or do you guys know a modular one with very short ATX24P cable?

 

I dont think you should paint your fans, but I think it might be a neat idea to make a fangrill/cover that covers the whole rad/bottom of the case in apple grey? And I think you meant to write "PSU" instead of "CPU", it might not be a good idea to chop your cpu

 

Yeah could look neat. I am going to buy a rad grill anyway, something like this:



Ans yes, PSU, not CPU

 

Exactly, I think that would look a lot cleaner, and more Apple'ish in grey than your fans would And I do think a modular psu would be a nice addition, unless you're pretty confident in your splicing skills

 

If you were to get 3,5" drives, you could use the HDD rack that came with the G5!
Just did some meassuring on mine (NO E.E.L.! :LOL , and there is plenty of room to rotate it 90 degrees, if that would be an option?

Put it here, upside down:



Just a thought!

Btw, if you need any advise on anything, or perhaps some help, I'm just around the corner!

 

Splicing is no problem Just "hard" and rather booring work hehe... But Either way I will have to chop chop chop some wires, they will all just be too damn long. So if I'm goint to woid warranty anyway, why buy a new PSU

Yeah, they _could_ be mounted somewhat like that, the problem is that my GFX's are long, abiyt 4 cm longer than my mb is wide :S But I think they can fit if rotated 90 degrees. Just have to make another mounting system.
Right around the corner eh?

 

You could bet a modular PSU and extra cables from elsewhere to splice. The mfr will never know, keeping the warranty