How to fit PC in a G5 PowerMac enclosure :> Options

[CZ*DarkLight]

Nervouschimp: definetly, if you wont mess up somethig (and I believe you wont), I thought about this idea too but its too hitech to do it for me. Anyway, I would love to see this kind of Hack-iMac

[HacOSXuser]

got rid of my watercooling kit. just wasnt satisfied with the way it looked. or performed really.
so heres my old:

New:

i got a P5K-VM too. great board for leopard.

[teknojunkie]

got rid of my watercooling kit. just wasnt satisfied with the way it looked. or performed really. so heres my old:New:i got a P5K-VM too. great board for leopard.

now clean up the wiring and you are good and get the front panel board=]

so my front-mounted board, and cabling method would very easily allow for this:An iMac Pro.What do you guys think? should I make this happen?

y not if you can make it happen it will do, but crazy foo, a mac mini, and imac and a G5 hahaha, and would make everything fit on the door like the isight and the monitor so if you ever want to stick the regular door on it you can too. nice.

[nervouschimp]

the iMac Pro mod is actually looking quite practical and cost-effective. the iSight will actually be an xbox 360 live cam, and it will be mounted to the drive shelf, not the side door, so that it can be aimed just right while the door is off. the screen will be a 17-inch widescreen 1440x900 8ms LCD that can be had for $150, and it will fit perfectly. I will be using a hanns-g desktop monitor, and stripping it from the casing, as this is the only affordable method. Using a laptop screen would cost more, require more work, and more parts to convert the LVDS to DVI.... not worth it. I think I will get started on this.....

[HacOSXuser]

the iMac Pro mod is actually looking quite practical and cost-effective. the iSight will actually be an xbox 360 live cam, and it will be mounted to the drive shelf, not the side door, so that it can be aimed just right while the door is off. the screen will be a 17-inch widescreen 1440x900 8ms LCD that can be had for $150, and it will fit perfectly. I will be using a hanns-g desktop monitor, and stripping it from the casing, as this is the only affordable method. Using a laptop screen would cost more, require more work, and more parts to convert the LVDS to DVI.... not worth it. I think I will get started on this.....

well when i first saw your picture of the design i thought of using the 360 live camera too. its a great camera for photobooth as it is what i use ! =]

[teknojunkie]

so its gonna be used as your secondary display right.

[nervouschimp]

so its gonna be used as your secondary display right.

yeah, I've got an Apple 30-inch cinema display on a humanscale m7 arm for my primary display. It's the perfect setup.

the built in screen is mostly novelty, but there are plenty of uses for the built-in display... eh, I'm sure I'll just fill it up with widgets, or play movies on it while I work. I thought that I would make the desktop background a photo of the inside of a real G5 to create an interesting visual. It would look like a window kit with apps running in it..... silly, I know...

[teknojunkie]

so you already mounted the board and everything, oh yeah the power supply did you find a way to desolder the ones you need and don't

[nervouschimp]

so you already mounted the board and everything, oh yeah the power supply did you find a way to desolder the ones you need and don't

haven't mounted the board. the m3.5 screws I got didn't end up fitting the G5 standoffs, so I have set of G5 case screws coming. I just decided to shorten the PSU cables that were bugging me, just started to do that.... but it's time consuming.

[HacOSXuser]

nice idea. Keep us posted

[nervouschimp]

well, the wifey in her infinite wisdom has talked sense into me. my efforts and cash would be better spent on performance.... so no iMac pro.....

[stefh]

Hi you guys... I am also building my PC into the G5 case. I also got a broken G5 mobo and probably working G5 CPU with it (I took off the G5 plate which I am sure will fit somewhere nice inside). (Everything together for only 50 euros ) I desoldered all the backside connectors, front connector and HDD fans connectors from the broken mainboard so I was able to solder on the connectors instead of on the cables. Now it will still be possible to disconnect them. YEAH, who cares!
I also want to keep the backside original because this case is too beautiful to take apart. So I am also doing the cable extension mod inside the case.

So far, thanks to you people who gave us the right pin outs of the G5 front connector and fan connectors:

- Power Button and front USB work
- HDD Fans work
- Modifed original hard drive power cables to molux connector so it fits onto my ATX PSU.

I guess I can get the front FireWire working.

FireWire white wire on apple connector pin 1
FireWire black wire on apple connector pin 2 (just like the LED GND and Power button GND)
FireWire blue wire on apple connector pin 7
FireWire orange wire on apple connector pin 8
FireWire green wire on apple connector pin 3
FireWire red wire on apple connector pin 4

But my problem is the Audio connector. (see attachment for my MOBO audio connector pin out)
According earlier posts the G5 front audio pin out is as follows:

15 audio sense
16 audio com
17 audio right
18 audio left

The first problem that occurs is which layout to choose? HD Audio or AC'97?

When looking to my MOBO audio pinout for HD Audio, I was thinking the following:
pin 5 (LINE2_R) goes to G5 front pin 17 (AUDIO RIGHT)
pin 9 (LINE2_L) goes to G5 front pin 18 (AUDIO LEFT)
pin ?? goes to G5 front pin 15 (AUDIO SENSE) (I got FSENSE1 and FSENSE2 in the diagram, which one?)
pin ?? goes to G5 front pin 16 (AUDIO COM)

When looking to my MOBO audio pinout for AC'97, I was thinking the following:
pin 5 (Line out R) goes to G5 front pin 17 (AUDIO RIGHT)
pin 9 (Line out L) goes to G5 front pin 18 (AUDIO LEFT)
pin ?? goes to G5 front pin 15 (AUDIO SENSE) (Is there more to choose from?)
pin ?? goes to G5 front pin 16 (AUDIO COM) (Is there more to choose from?)

Conclusion is that in both cases I can already solder pin 5 en pin 9 from the audio connector to pin 17 and pin 18 of the G5 Front connector. But what to solder onto G5 front pin 15 and 16? Plese help me out! Thanks!

Another question, I have nothing to solder to pin 5 (CHASSIS GND FW s-ground) and pin 6 (CHASSIS GND USB s-ground) of the G5 connector? Am I right?

I will provide you with a picture when I am finished.

Attached File(s)

 audio_pin_out.PNG ( 30.72K ) Number of downloads: 117

 

[teknojunkie]

Hi you guys... I am also building my PC into the G5 case. I also got a broken G5 mobo and probably working G5 CPU with it (I took off the G5 plate which I am sure will fit somewhere nice inside). (Everything together for only 50 euros ) I desoldered all the backside connectors, front connector and HDD fans connectors from the broken mainboard so I was able to solder on the connectors instead of on the cables. Now it will still be possible to disconnect them. YEAH, who cares!
I also want to keep the backside original because this case is too beautiful to take apart. So I am also doing the cable extension mod inside the case.

So far, thanks to you people who gave us the right pin outs of the G5 front connector and fan connectors:

- Power Button and front USB work
- HDD Fans work
- Modifed original hard drive power cables to molux connector so it fits onto my ATX PSU.

I guess I can get the front FireWire working.

FireWire white wire on apple connector pin 1
FireWire black wire on apple connector pin 2 (just like the LED GND and Power button GND)
FireWire blue wire on apple connector pin 7
FireWire orange wire on apple connector pin 8
FireWire green wire on apple connector pin 3
FireWire red wire on apple connector pin 4

But my problem is the Audio connector. (see attachment for my MOBO audio connector pin out)
According earlier posts the G5 front audio pin out is as follows:

15 audio sense
16 audio com
17 audio right
18 audio left

The first problem that occurs is which layout to choose? HD Audio or AC'97?

When looking to my MOBO audio pinout for HD Audio, I was thinking the following:
pin 5 (LINE2_R) goes to G5 front pin 17 (AUDIO RIGHT)
pin 9 (LINE2_L) goes to G5 front pin 18 (AUDIO LEFT)
pin ?? goes to G5 front pin 15 (AUDIO SENSE) (I got FSENSE1 and FSENSE2 in the diagram, which one?)
pin ?? goes to G5 front pin 16 (AUDIO COM)

When looking to my MOBO audio pinout for AC'97, I was thinking the following:
pin 5 (Line out R) goes to G5 front pin 17 (AUDIO RIGHT)
pin 9 (Line out L) goes to G5 front pin 18 (AUDIO LEFT)
pin ?? goes to G5 front pin 15 (AUDIO SENSE) (Is there more to choose from?)
pin ?? goes to G5 front pin 16 (AUDIO COM) (Is there more to choose from?)

Conclusion is that in both cases I can already solder pin 5 en pin 9 from the audio connector to pin 17 and pin 18 of the G5 Front connector. But what to solder onto G5 front pin 15 and 16? Plese help me out! Thanks!

Another question, I have nothing to solder to pin 5 (CHASSIS GND FW s-ground) and pin 6 (CHASSIS GND USB s-ground) of the G5 connector? Am I right?

I will provide you with a picture when I am finished.

if you go back to page like 20 nervouschimp finished his back to keep it by defualt so yeah.

[andyman1080]

I found audio com[mon] to be ground. So I wired L and R like you did and then wired 16 to my front panel audio ground. Don't really need to worry about HD vs. AC97 because the base pinouts are the same. I didn't wire up the sense yet because I was more concerned with other tasks but it's something to try. I would do it to sense 1. I believe it's for the OS to know if you have headphones plugged in so it can use the system volume control for that output.

Since I'm posting btw, just wanted to thank nervouschimp for the inspiration of retaining the stock rear panel, zonoskar for the inspiration of using the stock mobo standoffs and fitting a coolermaster psu in the g5 psu case, and everyone else who provided help in the thread. I'm near the final stages of my G5 retrofit. Last night I did my usb and firewire jumpers. My ethernet, fw800 and audio jumpers need some shaving with a dremel before they'll fit. Once those jumpers are epoxied in i'll be able to put everything back in the case..Here are some quick pictures I snapped last night. (sorry about the quality, iphone camera sucks..)









System specs are:
Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (w/ Tunic Tower 120)
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
4gb Kingston HyperX DDR2 1066 (still having problems with this much memory, troubleshooting the solution, for now maxmem=3072)
2 Samsung Spinpoint 750GB drives in Raid 0 to PCI express SI 3132 card
ASUS 512MB 8600GT (w/ Zalman VNF100 fanless)
Pci express fw800/fw400 card
DLink DWA-552 802.11n
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray/HDDVD combo drive
Coolermaster Real Power Pro 550w retrofit into G5 PSU case
Leopard Retail.. 10.5.2 with EFI string for gfx for now

I 5volted the G5 drive bay blower, rear panel blowers and power supply fans. I'm planning on starting out with those as my only fans and then making changes if it's too noisy. I liked zonoskar's idea of retaining the stock power supply fan and mounting it at an angle but not sure if it'll provide adequate airflow. If the 2 60mm fans are too noisy I will replace them with that method. (page 16 of this thread)

I don't plan to overclock much past 3.66ghz since (per an anandtech article) the power consumption of this cpu ramps up really fast under full load while overclocked. they found literally double the power consumption at 3.8ghz. so i'm going to take the fan out of the tunic tower and just rely on airflow from the rear panel blowers to keep it comfortable.

[teknojunkie]

looking good andyman1080 if you have time can you put pics up of your modded PSU thanks

[nervouschimp]

I found audio com[mon] to be ground. So I wired L and R like you did and then wired 16 to my front panel audio ground. Don't really need to worry about HD vs. AC97 because the base pinouts are the same. I didn't wire up the sense yet because I was more concerned with other tasks but it's something to try. I would do it to sense 1. I believe it's for the OS to know if you have headphones plugged in so it can use the system volume control for that output.

Since I'm posting btw, just wanted to thank nervouschimp for the inspiration of retaining the stock rear panel, zonoskar for the inspiration of using the stock mobo standoffs and fitting a coolermaster psu in the g5 psu case, and everyone else who provided help in the thread. I'm near the final stages of my G5 retrofit. Last night I did my usb and firewire jumpers. My ethernet, fw800 and audio jumpers need some shaving with a dremel before they'll fit. Once those jumpers are epoxied in i'll be able to put everything back in the case..Here are some quick pictures I snapped last night. (sorry about the quality, iphone camera sucks..)

cool. are you going to restore the entire back panel? if you use the G5 standoffs alone, how will you support your cards? where are you positioning the board? to modify my sockets, I just used a hobby knife with a new blade, made quick work of it... just kind of carved them down til they fit right. also, did you glue your sockets right up the aluminum? and what kind of adhesive is that you are using? do you feel the bond will hold up to daily abuse?

[olinboy1]

Add another G5 case to the list. My mod is underway!

I only wish I had bought a motherboard that was mATX, but thanks to all the modders that have gone before me, I've seen it can be done with a full ATX.

I'm still undecided on the "to cut (the back panel) or not to cut" debate. I'm going to work on adapting the front panel connections in the meantime.

Thanks again to everyone who has made this an invaluable resource to modding these cases!

[ѕӎѳѳҭңӌ]

^^ Wow... neatness ^^

[olinboy1]

Even if the dremel-in-box photo above wasn't a dead giveaway, this is the first type of project I've ever attempted. I'm glad I didn't totally hack the drive floor to bits!

Also, I thought it was interesting that there are actually three different kinds of standoffs inside the G5 case. I tried to get a "standard" motherboard mounting screw into either of the standoffs that will accept screws, but it seems like the thread pattern might be a little more compact in the G5 standoffs. I could probaby force it to screw in, but I'd rather not have it bind up on me later. Can anyone give some input as to which screw will fit the G5 standoffs correctly?

I'm mocking up my Asus P5K Deluxe wifi/ap board right now with a trusty "stuntman" from olden days just to see how my clearance will be. I Photoshopped the Deluxe board in there over the top of the old ATX board for fun. Thanks for the photo newegg!

Attached File(s)

 standoff_sizes.jpg ( 125.71K ) Number of downloads: 77
 cutting_barrier.jpg ( 142.48K ) Number of downloads: 99
 motherboard_clearance.jpg ( 212.88K ) Number of downloads: 149
 motherboard_mockup.jpg ( 348.27K ) Number of downloads: 186

 

[tuukka H]

Add another G5 case to the list. My mod is underway!

I only wish I had bought a motherboard that was mATX, but thanks to all the modders that have gone before me, I've seen it can be done with a full ATX.

I'm still undecided on the "to cut (the back panel) or not to cut" debate. I'm going to work on adapting the front panel connections in the meantime.

Thanks again to everyone who has made this an invaluable resource to modding these cases!

Is that iPhone or Touch? If its iPhone what is that very cool case?