i know this is a really old post, but just for reference, if anybody is wanting to resuse the old standoffs, they accept "switchbox" screws. im not sure of their exact specifications, but that is what they are called here in the UK. they are in between m3 and m3.5 with a tighter thread i believe!

just thought it would be good to add to the archives!!



by the way ultimeus, here is a better explained version of the power switch/led wiring. good luck my friend, hope it helps you out!

The power button shares the firewire ground. If you have not connected the firewire up right, then the frontpanel wont work as it was intended to. You are not supposed to be using "pow switch -", the power switch ground actually shares the firewire ground. The cable labeled firewire ground needs to be connected to a ground pin on your motherboard. If your board has no firewire header, then running it to a usb ground pin might work.

You can use the ground for the PowerSwitch, if you are not using the Firewire. So the Ground will be the PW+ and the other one would be PW- and you have one wire for LED

So I ended up buying 2 G5 Cases, 1 in good condition and beaten up pretty badly. However the one in bad condition has the dvd and hd trays which i successfully extracted and put into the new case. Any one have any suggetions on removing the power button piece. I got the usb,fw,and audio panel out. I just cant get that final piece on the power button that surrounds the actual button.

Waouw, it"s been a long I took it out, but I remember there is this tiny piece of metal which keeps the part in position. have to look for a picture in this same thread.

Edit : my memory was not correct. Just had a look to a spare part .There is indeed a piece of metal which hold the panel in place . It is an open circle , you have to lift it up to liberate the power button. Will add some pix later.

What i am trying to do exactly is remove the metal that holds the button in its place. Because I need to remove the button from one case and put it into another. The metal appears to be welded on here or something. It is the metal bezel that is viewable from the outside of the case, the stops the button from falling out. That is what I am tryng to remove.

Does anyone know if we can use any other screws to fasten the dvd drive to tray? Instead of buying the dvd-drive standoffs like these http://www.mac-pro.com/Power-Mac-G5-Optical-Drive-Standoffs or the hard drive screws like these http://www.mac-pro.com/922-6253 . I am looking to somehow attach these, any suggestions would be appreciated.

You mean the button you're pushing on to start the computer ?
Well first you have to liberate the green button panel, then you will acces to the piece which hold the button in place, just lift it and you button is free. BTW, we are talking about the G5 case ? I have to check, eventually, with my Mac Pro case if the button are identically kept in place.

About the screws, try any which fit the Drive holes.

Here some pix, difficult to do inside the case because of the brightness, I took the pix with the removed parts on the table .

Left of the green panel, the light grey spot is the open circle which maintains the panel in place.
Right of the green panel, the bright grey spot is the metal piece under the green panel which maintains the button in place.
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

Once the panel button out,
Click to view attachment

you will see the metal keeping the button in place and underneath the button itself
Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Now you only have to put back the parts in the other case in the reverse order.

I use this to extract the parts :
Click to view attachment

I have all of those parts you extracted, however my case does not have the housing on the front panel to hold all the buttons pieces together, any suggestions? If i were to put my button assembly in now it wouldnt stay together and would fall through the front. Your second picture shows it best, the housing that the actual button circuit board itself is attached too

Could you upload a pix of the front of your case ? I am afraid to understand that there is a big hole in the front panel case ??

Which case is it ? G5 or Mac Pro ?

If look at your case from the outside with the button removed, u will see a little silver ring on the inside of the hole where the button fits in. I do not have that. And also if u look from the inside with the button removed, u will see like a little circle that the button pieces fits into..i dont haev that either Any suggestiosn?


Any idea what screws size works for the hd tray, or mounting the dvd drive?

edit: its a g5 case

I think I start to understand. The easier way of the two possibilities is to cut out the front panel case and transfert it with the all button system from one case to the other. The less easier is to cut and transfert just the button system, because you have to cut both button system and use a special metal glue .

If you want to transfert the hole front panel I can send pix of separate panels showing where to unscrew and where to cut with a dremel. I used this way to transfert the back panel from one G5 case to another.

About the screws I don't know the size, but what is used to secure the PCI cards or to attach the Drives inside the G3 and G4 towers should fit. Will add pix.

m3 i believe

I'm having an issue with my build.

Could any of you guys with power supplies that are disassembled and mounted take a volt meter and see if you are getting any voltage between ground and the heat sinks on your supplies.

Thanks

well all i am waiting on now is my water cooling parts, some m3 rod, i need to sort out the g5 mobo and solder up the front panel and the one drive fan i saved.

i got my parts:

Intel Core i7 920 @2.66 (thus the PowerMac i7)

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5

6GB (3x2GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3

LG GGC-H20L Bluray

1TB Western Digital WD1001FALS Black (OS X)

1.5TB Seagate ST31500341AS Barracuda. (time machine and windows)

Ati Radeon 4870x2 (for windows)

Nvidia 7300GT (for OS X)

i already have it set up and running leopard, and its a great system, much more powerful than my mac pro. will post some pictures when its in the case. its currently running "naked" on my desk.

also got a new monitor, i have been wondering whether to do it or not, but i bit the bullet and got a 30" dell. WOW, its fantastic. it leaves me speechless.

Geekbench score 8031! works mac pro only gets 4200 something, that has 10gb of ram, and a radeon x1900xt!! this is stock, i will be overclocking this as well!

Nice mod's everybody. Im doing a G5 mod with EFI-X compatible parts and unmodified back panel. Anyone know where I can get a short cheap firewire 9pin to firewire 9pin panel mount cable? And some G5 standoff screws? Went to my local hardware store and the have a lot of screws, but we didn't find a screw that fitted.

Also, Im trying to get the G5 front panel to work. Can anyone help me, and maybe make a little picture of this for me? This is the front panel plugs on the motherboard looks like:



I just need help with the power button and led, I think I can handle USB, Firewire and sound .

Thanks in advance!

where abouts are you located? here in the UK "switch box" screws fit perfectly. the screws i mean are the ones that are probably holding your light switch panel to the body.

In post 702, you'll find a diagram of the G5 front panel or you can check this out : amantheboy"s diagrams
Which standoff from G5 do yo need and how many ? PM me ...Cheers,

I dont need the standoffs, I just need some screws that will fit in the standoffs, however thank you. Im located in Iceland and I could not find a screw that fits, and tried many of them! I asked a employee and he didn't know what "screwbox" screws were. Okay, so for the front panel I just connect power led + and power button +? And they are marked MSG+ and PW+ on the image?

Yes but you still have to connect the ground. In the same post 702, nervouschimp said :

"The power button shares the firewire ground. If you have not connected the firewire up right, then the frontpanel wont work as it was intended to. You are not supposed to be using "pow switch -", the power switch ground actually shares the firewire ground. The cable labeled firewire ground needs to be connected to a ground pin on your motherboard. If your board has no firewire header, then running it to a usb ground pin might work."

Okay thank you. Could anyone tell me what cables I should buy from frontx to wire the front panel? Like I said before, I live in Iceland and I don't wanna be ordering many orders for this.

If you have an old flat cable like to connect the Ide HDD to the mobo, use this cable by seperating the wires.Like here :

And just solder them on?

Not exactly, on the front panel side you solder onto the wires and on the mobo side, the easier is to sold onto the original pc wires with plugs .
You can buy this header and the cables from frontx and look for install internal ports manual Or you use separates cables and headers or you use one big header and plug in the cables in the right holes like for USB or Firewire header.

Okay thank you .

You're welcome Opes.

After looking through this entire topic I would rather just pay someone for a case that I can just drop parts into and be good to go. Any takers?

lol but thats the fun part....

To make my Intel G5, I purchased the Mac (fried by the previous owner) complete with all the hardware, and completely gutted it, leaving only the shelf platform at top of the case. To remove the annoying aluminum standoffs, I used a grinder and just knocked them off. I did try the hacksaw approach but found it was too time consuming.

Once I had a clean slate to work with, I used a sabre saw to cut the back off a spare PC case. Note; if you do this find an old PC case that is made from sturdy sheet metal and take all safety precautions.

I now had the back for a standard ATX PC case ready to "graft" into the back of the G5. I trimmed the sheet metal to accomodate the flip handle used to open the case.

Using the motherboard platform from the old PC case and placing it inside the G5 case where I wanted to mount the motherboard, I fitted the ATX back I had cut from the PC to match the motherboard, and from the inside of the G5 case, traced around it with a sharpie marker. Once I had the outline I used the outline to cut out the back of the G5 case leaving enough border to affix the PC sheetmetal back using sheet metal screws through the existing perforations in the back of the G5 case.

Now I was ready to put it together. First using a generous amount of "liquid nails adhesive", I placed the motherboard platform into the case. It worked great! I let the liquid nails cure over night, and I then fitted the PC ATX back to the motherboard platform and the back of the G5 case from the inside.

Once I had it in position, I used self tapping 8 x 1/2 Truss washer lath screws through the existing holes on the outside of the case to affix the ATX back to the G5 case. It worked like a charm. Once the back was affixed, I used the grinder to knock off the sharp screw ends.

I slipped the 915 GAVL motherboard in to make sure everything fit. It fit perfectly.

The next challenge was the power supply. Long story short, I ordered a 430W low profile ATX power supply from New Egg, and shoved it into the narrow space at the top of the case where the hard drive bays had been. I moved it to the back of the case more or less where you would expect a power supply to be, and using the power supply as a template cut a rectangular hole in the back of the case just large enough for the supply. Once again, I left enough G5 case around the hole to be able to mount the power supply. It worked out really well. I was able to use the exsiting perforation in the G5 aluminum case, and the standard holes in the back of the power supply with standard PC screws to firmly mount the power supply to the case.

I did have to cut a rectangular hole in the upper aluminum shelf partitionto allow power, and drive cables to be routed down to the motherboard, but that was an easy modification.

I replaced the G5 front panel hardware with hardware from the old PC (using the original aluminum Mac power button), and ran internal USB 2.0, and Fire Wire extensions to the slots used for the front panel Mac USB and Fire Wire ports.

The installation left plenty of room for drives, so I overdid it and put in five (including the HP DVD DL "superdrive").

The system configuation is as follows:

Drive one: 320MB Kalway OSX Leopard 10.5.2 + VMware Fusion
Drive two: 320MB Win XP Pro
Drive Three:500MB Time Machine
Drive Four: Not yet in use
Drive Five: DVD RW +/- DL (ATA)

Intel 915GAVL motherboard
Intel Northridge Pentium Extreme processor @ 3.8 GHZ (RUNS HOT!)
Coolit Freezone CPU cooling system
Nvidia 8500 GT 512K (with patched kext)
Old Linksys PCI Wireless G adapter (4320)
Generic PCI Fire Wire Card with internal port
Generic PCI USB Card with internal ports
USB bluetooth on internal port

The machine looks and runs great, and will now accomodate any ATX motherboard.

Next Project: Dual quad G5.

i know its a little late, but all you need to do is get some pliers and the stand offs come straight out... took me all of ummm 20 seconds. lol then i realised i wanted them in those places... doh!

I considered that, but didn't want to risk "puckering" the sides of the case. Believe me - the industrial hand grinder made short work of the standoffs. If you have found you can take them off with pliers without deforming the sheet metal - I may give that a try next time.

The real fun was mounting the Coolit Freezone refrigeration system. It's supposed to mount to the rear case fan vent, but the unit is HUGE and I ended up drilling an exhaust grid in the bottom of the case and mounting the Freezone to exhaust out the bottom.

http://www.coolitsystems.com/index.php?opt...=3&Itemid=5

You won't - I used the same method, just grip with pliers, and gently tilt standoffs to the side - they come out fairly easily. Between 30-60 seconds - and it doesn't leave the stubs....

Taking the plunge, I have the x86 components from another build and just got a salvaged G5 enclosure that the university trashed...

Now I've searched through PSU modding threads but have not found an answer to this so please don't think I'm just jumping on the silver spooner bandwagon, but how long, or is it even necessary to leave the PSUs to dissipate any charge before opening them up and working on them? I can use a DVOM and have worked with audio wiring harnesses before but power makes me nervous

Thanks in advance!

A couple of hours should do it:)
Anyways, i ordered my G5 case off ebay today, 100$ brand new from ebay, to bad the shipping was 75:p
Now i cant wait until it arrives, wanting to do this for a long time now.

My MB has 10 pin (9 actual connections) usb headers. Do I nedd to use a 10 pin plug and double wire, or can I just use the 5 pin plug listed here?

I'm making a Powerhack G5, you can find images HERE. I will upload more fotos when I advance in my project.

Thanks for all the information on this topic.

yes you can use the 5 pin wire

Baudouin


do you still have those logic board for sale?

Anybody else got hold of some?

Yes Smoothy I got them . Shipping to UK will be around 26 euro. You can PM for the buying price .

cool, ill drop you a PM later on....

did anybody successfully manage to use the ethernet from off the logic board?

In all this mods I've never seen one using the original G5/Mac Pro PSU, and I wonder why:

- is it not possible?
- possible, but too much work?
- thus the PSU output different voltages from the ones required by an ATX mobo?

I have a chance of getting my hands on a fully working G5 for the lowest price and I'm wondering how much of it I can use while modding it to a MacIntel.. I know, I know!! It is almost a crime to vandalize a perfectly working G5 mobo just to get the I/O.. but that's what's needed.

if you go right back to like page 10ish i did mention why i wasnt going to use my psu.... basically you can get all of the wires out of it for ATX except for 4 wires. its not to say you cant get them from somewhere but im not that good with psu's (i have fried more than i have fixed) and i didnt want to be damaging my hardware so i left it.

NO, NO man it would really be a crime to kill a working mobo. We can switch the mobo's ; I send you a dead mobo and you send me the working one, I will pay for the shipping costs. Just show the back of the case so I know wich model you need.

has anybody managed to do this yet? or can anybody give a sort of how to?

I don't get it. Why did so many of you don't use the HDD storage solutions with the cooling fan next to it? Also these cuts in the case on the back...I need to photograph my case. I really haven't changed to much. U will see...

well just to let you know.... we aren't all cutting holes in the back of our cases. i am using one of the hdd fans, the small flat one, but i have no room for the other one, otherwise that one would be in there also!

just gotta say that im loving safari 4!!!!!

I've left the top compartment as original, except dropped the fan voltages to 5V. But the fans are still the noisiest ones in the case, and I can hear the disk chattering quite clearly cos there's no sound insulation for it. The CPU and case fan are pretty quiet ( used one of the case back fans instead of both). I have the ATX PSU inside the G5 PSU case with the original fans, again at 5V.

As there is a lot of space inside, I'm thinking of fitting the spare HDD case from my P180 to cut down the drive noise and to let me disconnect one or both fans in the top compartment. The CPU runs from about 31 deg to 50 depending on load, so the interior can stand a bit more heat.

I cut the back to take an ATX tray cut down to 4 slots, and used a mATX motherboard (P5E-VM HDMI). I've got a GA-EP35-DS4 mobo that I could use instead. Perhaps the next case that comes along ...

post pics!!

Pics or never happend