Building a MacPro, Yes, a MacPro not a Hackintosh Options

[Kane Adams]

Thats what these are for


lol J/K.

[skyhighmac]

They do look a bit big.

[nagal]

Thats what these are for


lol J/K.

lol!

[nagal]

I got the heat sinks today. For some reason the Post Office did not deliver them but a quick call and I verified I could pickup the package at the Post Office. It is odd that the package was there but the carrier did not even attempt to deliver it today. Anyways, I will be getting that $30 back since they failed to deliver in 2 days

Here are the beauties straight out of the box



I quickly found out that these heat sinks were not going to mount into the stock mounting. For one, Apple used M3.5 screws (just like the rest of the motherboard mountings) and the heat sinks came with what appears to be 6-32 which I am taking is standard for Xeons in the PC world. The second thing, was the heat sink mounting was not aligning with the retention brackets on the motherboard. There was no other choice but to come up with my own mounting method but first all the stand offs in the case for the CPUs needed to be removed

Before attack of the pliers



After.... its hard to see the difference



Next I had to spend some time figuring out a mounting method. My main concerns where keeping the heat sinks tight and not bending the board due to pressure and weight. I ended up with a very simple design that looks to provide this. I started by removing the screws that came with the heat sinks for mounting them to the motherboard. Since I no long had stand offs to help support the weight of the heat sinks, I needed screws long enough to touch the case to help provide that support. A trip to the box o crap (not being my first case mod I have LOTS of nuts, bolts, screws) I dug up some socket head 6-32 1.5" stainless steel screws and nuts. The screws were a little too long but bolt cutters quickly fixed that. The box o crap was severely lacking in washer so a quick trip to Lowes and I had a lot of #6 and #8 washers and only $3 lighter in the wallet. My mounting design is simple, a #6 washer fits almost perfect tight into the hole of the motherboard where the retention bracket was. #8 washer is large enough to apply pressure to the #6 washer in the hole AND the motherboard. a nut holds everything in place. The down side of my design is you have to remove the motherboard from the case to remove the heat sinks. Here is a pic of what I am talking about, notice the bottom left mounting shows the #6 washer inside the whole of the mother board. This was just the test fitting. I did apply electrical tape to the side of the #8 washers that touch the motherboard just to be safe.



After the test fitting and seeing it was going to work, time to put it all together. Here is a picture of the CPUs with Shin Etsu thermal grease. Shin Etsu is better (or so it is said) than Arctic Silver 5 and I prefer it as it comes in a little syringe which makes it easier to apply than AS5. I did not do the BSEL mod to the CPUs yet so once everything works, I am going to have to tear it all apart just to do that. I did reapply the thermal grease after the picture was taken since I messed up the bottom CPU.



Both heat sink on



Motherboard back in the case! I thought it was going to be a total pain trying to get the motherboard with the heat sinks attached in but it wasn't at all. The wires hanging over the heat sinks are part of the thermal sensors I mentioned in a previous post, I just have not attached them and secured the extra wiring.



At this point, my camera died so no more pictures. I will say this, the high drain batteries I got at Radio Shack lasted about 10 times longer than normal batteries in my camera. So I know where I am going tomorrow morning

After getting the motherboard in it became apparent the front fan housing AND the memory cage were not going to just fit back in. I spent my time focusing on the memory cage first. The memory cage is kind of useless. Its main function seems to be to direct air flow across the memory and provides some minor support for the memory risers. I know Apple engineers its Pro case very well but the case is so open air flow to any components should not be an issue, that is why I *think* the memory cage is a bit useless. Luckly, the fan on the rear of the memory cage is easily removed from the cage. The fan assembly also has the guides/supports for the memory raisers so I will have at least 1/2 of those. I have already figured out how to mount the rear fan without the memory cage. Not sure if this makes any sense but I hope to get some pictures up tomorrow once I get some more batteries.

As for the front fan housing, I will probably ditch it completely and come up with a way to mount the 2 front fans without it. I really wanted to keep as much as possible intact but its a DIY project so improvise is the key

[nagal]

I solved part of my front fan problem. The heat sinks came with some wire clips that are made just for mounting a fan to the heat sink. So, why re-invite the wheel? I have some ideas on how to mount the other fan off of the fan on the heat sinks just need to make a trip to the hardware store tomorrow to hunt down some materials.


I managed to get one more picture out of my batteries so here is the one fan attached.

[aqua-mac]

Great pictures, keep them coming! Those sinks look awesome and the attachment method you have come up with was a good bit of thinking on your feet, good ole box o crap I say!

On my Hack Pro, for the rear fan, I simply drilled 4 holes in the rear fan housing and used some socket head bolts to bolt it to the housing, then refitted that to the case.

If you cut the memory housing at the front, can you still use it, or will you have to remove too much for it still to be useful?

[Kane Adams]

The heat sinks are monsters . lol

[skyhighmac]

Looking good!

[aqua-mac]

Your heatsinks certainly have a bit more muscle than these std jobs:

[nagal]

Rear fan done but still working on the front fan as my first idea did not work. Not too surprised as it was expecting too much of those wire clips. I will post some pics later I am off to the hard ware store for front fan mounting idea #2 as the box o crap let me down on this one

[nagal]

All the modding for this project is done The pieces that are left are all direct drop ins. There is a possible issue with the heat sinks and memory raiser card but I will not know for sure until they arrive which could be tomorrow. Lets start with the rear fan mod. The rear fan assembly consisted of a fan and a housing unit that is part of the memory cage. There is also an exhaust port on the rear of the case that detaches and the housing fits over the exhaust port for an "air tight" seal. Its not really air tight but that is the best way I can find to describe the fit. I need to retain the fan housing as it also has the groves that help to guide the memory raisers in place. The fan was attached to the housing by those pesky rubber fan snaps. I quickly removed those and got 4 normal fan screws (those large self tapping screws) from the box o crap. It will be hard to see in the pictures but the exhaust port is circular with a square base. The base sticks a bit out from the case when the exhaust port is attached. So I lined the fan up and drilled 4 wholes in the base of the exhaust port. I then used some 6-32 screws and nuts to attach the fan to the exhaust port. Next, I slide the fan housing over the fan and base of the exhaust port and secured it with the normal fan screws. The exhaust port attaches to the case on the outside by 4 extremely tiny screws. This allowed me to assembly everything, slide it into place and then secure it by those tiny screws.

Rear fan housing with fan and the exhaust port



Exhaust port with holes drilled. You might notice one of the holes was off so I re drilled but did not noticed until after I took the pic



Rear fan back in the case. Noticed the grooves lining up with the memory riser slots on the motherboard



The front fans were no where as easy as the rear. My first idea did not work out so I needed something new. After playing around I decided it would be best to attach some L-brackets to a hump in the case that is right in front of the heat sinks. Before doing this I needed a way to attach the two 120 MM fans together. I came up with the simple idea of using S hooks as a way to hold some screws together. I tried making some out of a wire clothes hanger but they looked crappy. So I did a quick trip to Lowes to pick some S hooks up. Its nice Lowes is only about 8 minutes from where I live.

The S hook come open. I need them closed. So here is a before (left) and after pic



Fans attached together with the closed s hooks. I did this on both sides. I use a washer just to make sure enough pressure was applied to the s hooks.



The easy part was done. While not hard, finding away to attach the L-brackets was going to be a pain. When I did my G5 case mod, bonding anything to aluminum just sucks, so epoxying the L-brackets was going to be a last resort. I started to look at this hump in the case and noticed that there is had to be something underneath it as there were wires going inside it.It was appeared to be either riveted in or bolt in. On the outside of the case opposite the hump is a big label with all the FCC, UL Listed crap. I started feeling around on it and could feel some screws! I started to try to pry this label off. No luck. I then took my exacto knife and careful ran it along the edge of the sticker a few times until I could slide it under. Next I started to gently pry the sticker off. This is what I found beneath it.



I quickly located the 4 screws holding whatever that is (I am assuming wireless antenna) and took it out. With it out of the way, I could drill holes allowing me to attach the L-brackets with screws and nuts.

Holes drilled and 2 socket head screws (the black dots) in the holes



Here you can see the L-brackets attached to the hump I have been talking about. Sorry this one is so blurry.



The motherboard has to go in before the fans so it was time again to put the motherboard back in. I dropped the motherboard back in, got 4 more of those self tapping fan screws and went to work. From the pic you will see it is a tight fit. Luckily I have a nice set of electronics screw drivers and I was able to find one I could slide through the holes in the front of the case making the job of tightening the fan screws a lot easier. Once the fan assembly was in, I really did not like how there was nothing at the top to secure it. My solution was to use some 2" hex stand offs and some long 6-32 screws. I threaded the hex standoffs into holes on the front of the case and then used the long screws to adjust the spacing and a nut to tighten it all together.

Fans all in place



Front pic where if you look hard you will noticed where the standoffs are threaded in. Sorry for this one being blurry



And finally everything in place!



Like I said before, I expect no problems from here on out. Just have to wait for those finally parts to arrive.

[aqua-mac]

You made a nice job there, the small compartment at the bottom is indeed for inbuilt bluetooth and airport antenna. On my Hackie, I installed the D-Link dongle in here and took a wire to a USB header on the motherboard.

[CLiDE FTW!!1]

Nagal - beautiful job so far!

Do you know the difference between the first and second version of the Mac Pro case? I plan on building one myself!

[nagal]

Nagal - beautiful job so far!

Do you know the difference between the first and second version of the Mac Pro case? I plan on building one myself!

Thanks. I have no idea what the difference is as I have seen a lot of v2 parts when researching this. I honestly believe there is no difference or so minor it would be hard to tell.

[skyhighmac]

Dude! Wanna send me one??? Looking good!

[nagal]

Dude! Wanna send me one??? Looking good!

Sure whats your address?


So I had an opps moment. I forgot to mount the speaker. The speaker is screwed onto a black mounting thing that goes over the hump where the wireless and blue tooth antenna is and is use to help hold the front fan housing in place. I just removed the speaker (4 tiny tiny screws) and used some double side tape to attach it to the case.

The black housing guide thingy, speaker and double sided tape



Speaker in place. I had to remove the fans to get it in. I am not looking forward to tearing this all apart once it comes time to do the BSEL mod



FedEx literally just dropped off the memory riser cards so expect some more pics shortly!

[nagal]

Here they are, the memory riser cards. I got these from www.Mac-Pro.com and I have to say they unlike ApplePalace.com, Mac-Pro are AWESOME!. Shipped the same day I paid for them.



I thought I might have an issue with the memory raiser cards and the heat sinks. Turned out I was wrong, I had a different problem with the fan housing assembly not sticking out far enough. Blurry pic but you can see what I mean



So I pulled the fan assembly out and spaced the fan out from the exhaust port with some 1/4" nylon spacers.



Put it all back together and life is good in memory raiser land. There is still some space and I might put use some washers in addition to the spacers to get a nice tight fit.



Here is a pic of one of the memory riser cards with 4GB in it. I need to order the other 4GB soon as the second memory riser is feeling left out.



So I am waiting on Power Supply and Video Card. It is going to be a long wait at this point.

[~pcwiz]

nagal,

That is just sweet. It looks so snug and awesome in this case. The next project should be taking Mac Pro parts and sticking them in a Cooler Master Stacker 830 Evolution case.


pcwiz

[skyhighmac]

I live at 555 E. Mac Road, no. I really need to buy one of these. What memory do you have in there? Those are pretty hefty heatsinks.

[nagal]

I live at 555 E. Mac Road, no. I really need to buy one of these. What memory do you have in there? Those are pretty hefty heatsinks.

Its 2GB DDR2 667 FB-DIMM. FB-DIMM run a lot hotter than normal DDR2. Why? I don't know but it does according to everything I have read. You can get FB-DIMMs without heat sinks but Apple Certified memory should have them.