So here is the deal. I bought empty PowerMac G5 enclosure on ebay for $100 (new). Now I'm trying to fit PC components in that box. So far i've cut all unnecesary standoffs wich are used for mounting G5 logic board and are not compatible with ATX motherboards. Now I'm waiting to get new ones... my friend will make them.

Here are some pictures of the enclosure and the progress so far. G5 project

After i manage to fit ATX motherboard into the enclosure I will remove all ATX back panel connectors and replace them with new ones that will fit holes on the back side of PowerMacs enclosure.

But I have one problem. I'm looking for new intel 915G motherboard (for the best OS X compatibility) but i'm unable to find full ATX motherboard that is "compatible" with PowerMac enclosure. I need PCI Express slot on fourth place counting from the bottom... Just like my NF4 motherboard. I searched all manufacturers web sites, but I was unable to find anything like it. Not even a 915P model... There are only mini ATX motherboards with that layout, but I want full size ATX.
Does anybody know of a motherboard that is "compatible"? Please tell me if you do...

There is someone else in these forums that has done what you're doing - ATX into a G5 case. Try a search to find him and see what board he is using. As I recall, things went pretty smooth for him.

oooh Thats nice!

I was thinking of modding my iMac (G3) into an x86 machine, but gave up.. way to much work you have to have a non standard mobo, etc. Then there's the heat issues, lackof room for video cards etc. But anyway, that case is beutiful. Good luck.

BTX. o.O

Take a look at the PowerMac Intel cases and see what they've modified to fit it all in. It uses a pretty standard 915G motherboard (915GUXXL or something or other) so just grab one and see if you can get any good shots of the inside and back.

in the developer kits with the apple hardware it useds a modified intel d915guxlk codenamed barracuda the only thing different between the retail d915guxlk and the barracuda board is the barracuda board has the same mac ports as a reg mac to fit a normal g5 case.

i have done it...

asus p5ld2-vm (micro atx) board.

you must create cable that reach the rear of the g5 tower and the rear of the motherboard. (or you can cut it but if you want it to be nice...)
there is not much place than 2 cm !!!!

fill non-used port place with glue gun ( put adesive outside and glue inside and when the glue is cold remove adesive)
for front buttons, you must cut the small board (on the button socket level) otherwise the computer start up himself and the button is not responding.

reach usb and fw with any cables to the motherboard (long enough to go under the board and reach there ports) and to the fw pci board

create a cable motherboard vga to pci bracket.

sata cable must be changed : they are too small
install new and put them under mainboard too

for the alim : i have used X-shuttle small alim !!! (inside the box, down)
you must only reach the rear of the g5 box alim connector place to the x-shuttle alim board...connect apple alim to x-shuttle connector (reffer to the cd connector to find colors with tester...all cables are black..)

(Moderator edit - translation - alim = power supply!)

and all is well working.

(the alim is ok, i have oc my prescott 3 ghz to 3,9 ghz !!!)

one more think...

for motherboard support,

remove apple supports (move them left to right, they are only in 1/2mm of alu, WHEN YOU REMOVE THEM THERE IS ALUMINIUM UNDER...DONT BE AFFRAID )
do not put them to trash !!!!

i have created gomme supports with cutted apple screw support inside
(fix it with real glue on the g5 box, with real glue, you can't extract it when motherboard is fixed...)

hope this help you

I've done it too. My case was new but stripped of all internal components including bezel I/O board, and internal mounting hardware. I actually paid extra for the optical drive door! My how things have changed. I could've ordered the rest of the parts for $20 a pop, but all I really needed were the drive mounts, which I made myself out of a $5 sheet of aluminum. I had plans making my own bezel I/O board and also making an "adapter board" that would plug into the back of my motherboard and relocate the mobo's rear I/O ports to the case's rear I/O panel. But I havn't really had time to implement that elegant solution. In the meantime, I've basically rerouted all the essential ports (VGA, stereo-out, ethernet) to the first PCI slot. I also bought one of those PCI brackets with four USB ports, that plugs into the auxiliary USB 2.0 ports on the motherboard (it's a standard part, I forget what it's called). Anyway it's a temporary solution, but it works great. Other than that, my rig is pretty slick. I even got the power LED working.

But there's a couple of things I noticed from the pictures that I've done a little differently. First, you should remove the optical drive bezzel (from the drive, not the G5 case). The reason is it doesn't play nicely with the case's drive door, and you could also have some clearance issues. The optical drives in the real G5s have their bezels removed too, so that's how it's supposed to work. It's easy to do. First, stick a paper clip in the drive to eject the tray. Then carefully pop the plate off the tray. If you need to remove the rest of the bezel, you can do so simply by pressing a few small tabs on around the perimeter with a small flat blade screw driver.

The second thing I noticed was that you used a hack saw to remove the standoffs. I guess it's too late now, but you could've just used a pair of pliers. Just rock them slightly and give a good tug, and they come out cleanly. But that's just FYI, I know it's too late. Anyway, nice job so far, and welcome to the club.

You know what's missing? An Apple Cinema Display , that monitor just looks unfit with the G5 case hehe

I have done it , too

use intel d915gag

http://bbs.gzeshop.com/viewthread.php?tid=...&extra=page%3D1

I know, I know. At least it's silver though. I'm waiting till 10.4.4 gets cracked, so I can get safely get rid of this awful motherboard (which doesn't have DVI) so I can hook up a proper LCD. However, since the pic was taken, I got myself an Apple Pro Keyboard which somewhat offsets the fugly CRT. I was thinking about getting one of those ADD2-N cards, but AIR, some folks with my mobo had problems with the card, so I figured it wasn't worth the trouble. So, for now, I must continue frying my eyes at 1280x960@60Hz. The next lower setting is 1024x768@85Hz, so I'm screwed both ways. I'd be perfectly willing to settle for 1152x864@72Hz, but no such setting is available in OS X . And I don't want to buy an X600 since I have a perfectly good BFG 6800GT. Indeed, I'm in quite a pickle. Maybe I'll give the ADD2-N card a shot after all.

Mr. Peck,
You can mod a G5 case like a pro, but you can't make/find a decent desktop background.

For shame.

-sj

aww man if i get the parts everything neeeded can somebody do it for me? im willing to pay let me know-templeton peck i like your mod..is the front panel fully working? where the usb,firewire and powerbutton is.

Are PSUs easy to install in those?

Nice projects Tribsman, Peck, and thanks for the guide Ced1610.

flashbase, we can't read it can you post a link to some pictures.

Check this out

http://www.overclockers.com/tips1133/index.asp

A couple of people have asked me how to make the front panel I/O board work. Since my case didn't come with that board I can't say how to make it work, but I can tell you how to make the power button/LED work. The power button/LED is on a 3 wire plug, meaning 2 wires provide power to the LED (a + current and a ground) and the third wire shorts to ground when the button is pressed. So you'll need to connect the following pins from the I/O panel header of your motherboard to the plug in the correct order: PLED+, GND, PWRBTN# (these names came straight out of the ASRock Instruction Manual - they may vary by manufacturer). The only problem is I don't remember what the correct order is so you might have to go through all 6 combinations to find the one that works. Some combinations will yeild strange results (i.e. the LED will be dim or the LED will only come on while the button is held in). If this happens it means it's the wrong combination.

Nothing's easy to install in these. But I found a pretty simple solution to the PSU problem. I completely removed the PSU from it's housing and glued it to a piece of foam rubber from the underside of a mouse pad (for insulation). Then I secured the unit to the bottom-rear of the case via the two screw holes which just happened to line up precisely with the holes in the PSU. I made a small bracket for the AC jack which I attached to the two cooling fins of the PSU. I know this probably sounds a bit unorthadox, but if you saw the G5 case you'd see the logic. Heat isn't an issue either since the PSU is right next to a pair of 80mm cooling fans (I didn't need the original PSU fan anymore). I think this is the most efficient way to cool the PSU.

The only other way to do it would be to somehow mount the PSU roughly 5" from the rear of the case and make a short extension cable and a custom bracket to relocate the AC jack to the port on the case. This is probably a little bit more difficult to do, but if you're paranoid about having an exposed PSU in your case it might be the way to go.

haha im one of the paranoided ones... that's what im basically gonna do, but does anyone know where i can get one of these brackets?

http://www.overclockers.com/tips1133/index.asp

This has to be one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. I don't know, it struck a nerve with my juvenile joke-playing sense of humour.

The fact that he got 1300 emails in 48 hours from horrified Mac fans is amazing just in itself.

This overclocking site was a personal fav of mine back when....

Maybe somebody else things it's funny.

Jim

BTW- nowadays I am volunteering for the Darwine project, and have made a request to add a link to the OSX Project on Darwine's home page. I submitted the new php file to the CVS and I think it is going to be updated.

has anyone had success using the original G5 fans?

Heey,

I'm also building a Pentium 4 into a PowerMac G5 case. It's nearly finished, I only have to do some little thing such as the powerbutton an USB at the front of the case. Here are some pics:









(My english may be not so good but that's because I'm from the Nethelands)

That's wicked. One of these days I'll muster up enough cash and courage to take on such a task. Those white LED fans and the matte aluminum case come together like prostiutes and STDs (that was a compliment)

I am going to do this mod also. Have the case just waiting to figure out how to do it. How did you mount the front fans and power supply?

Anyone have any tips or pointers?

ahoi bob050,

great job !!looks really nice & clean - great !!

how and where you placed the power supply? and how you have fastened the board?
detailed pics would be nice....

greetz knobsi

That is so slick. Kudos

That's not my rig, that's Dafut's

Right now im in the process of mounting the motherboard on the original standoffs but not in their original location.

Anyone know what size fans are needed for the back pannel? is it 92mm?

ohhhhuiiii.... shame on me; seemed to be blinded of this modded case during my post


@ dafut: can you share your secrets about fixing the board with the case and the power supply placement?
would be great !!

tia, knobis

I thing, like me some guys can use shuffle power supply...
they are pretty small and ca be installed in place of the original powersupply, under the small part of aluminium, at the down of the mainboard.

I'll try to explain how i put in the mainboard and the powersupply.




I started with a G5 case and a rear of a normal case (how do you call that in English?).






I made a howl in the rear of the case so i could put in the normal rear. I fastened it in the original screw holes. (I also modded the normal rear so i could put in 2 80mm fans.)






For the powersupply i made a kind of brace out of plastic. (I don't know how to explian it exactly in english)

My English ain't very good I'm srry for that. I'm 16 and still learning english at school(I'm Dutch).

Nice work!
Can you post a pic of the rear side?
Thx in advance

hey someone have tried out with an g4 case i´m wondering to get one from a friend but i don´t know if it is possible

thx

micro ATX is possible but not sure about Full Size ATX

i Love the g5 mods but i truly dislike all this neon lighting and what not inside a g5 case..
is like people with honda civics with no taste....g5 ricers are disgusting.

none the less major props for accompishing such a task

HOLY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kudos to all who've done this!

My only question is, is there a way to set a button on the front of the case to eject the optical drive tray? Would the SATA cables that come with the G5 work with AMD/Intel boards? I assume they would.

I know this is not it, but you might avoid all the work of having to mod the G5's case. Let me know what you think.













Off course, if you don't like the color you can always use one of these:

EDIT or this

It's nice locuras, but it's still not as smooth, sleek, and sexy as the G5 PowerMac.

That case stinks! I bought it thinking it might be the best look-alike to a PowerMac but it definately isn't. It's SUPER noisy for one (it sounds like there's a hurricane going on in there), and that's not metal in the front, it's plastic painted silver. To make things worse, the plastic looks really cheap, like the plastic you get from those cheap CD players people buy at walmart. The slots in the back don't fit your cards correctly either, so you might just be better off modifying an actual G5 case. Somehow that case ended up in the back of my explorer, where it now just tumbles back and forth at every stop. That's one crappy case I tell ya'...

wow whattaboard nice project and pics and result im gonna make a board tooo. actually what i have in mind is to make 8-way system but a modded mac os x x86 pc is closer. woooh nice.!

Guys any succes with original apple fans? I'm trying to figure it out but no luck so far. I looked up the original Apple PowerMac G5 service manual (page 101), and there is pinout for CPUs front (removable) fans. It looks like those two just an usual fans with PWM control, but i tried to connect those two in the drive bay, but it does not work.

Any ideas?

Or maybe does somebody know how to disassemble drive bay? So I could take a closer look at those fans inside... I cant remove the locking mecanism...

OK i succesfully disassembled the drive bay and one of the fans. Inside the fan there is a chip LB1668, wich is a Sanyo unipolar brushless motor driver.

I hope I'll be able to crack it and put up working wiring diagram for those fans...

Hi,
I'm using original Apple fans of the drive bay...
You have to connect the first and the second wires togheter... they correspond to the red wire in a common fan
The other wire is the third and it's the black wire in a common fan
The fourth wire I suppose controls the fan (like the yellow one in common fans) but it doesn't work for me... I don't know why...
Your second question... how to disassemble the drive bay?
You have to unlock the alluminium divider (between drive bay - HD and DVDRW - and the mainboard)
To unlock this divider you have to unlock firstly the door's looking mechanisn...
I will look for some pictures that could help you...
Meanwhile I will try to explain you even if it's not very simple without images...
Under the edge of the alluminium divider you will find a gray plastic fillet with 3 side panel looking parts inside
These little plugs have a little clip that keep them in the right position.
If you remove the clip you can remove also these 3 metallic parts.
Once you removed these parts you have to remove also the little plug on the right end of the plastic fillet...
This plug has another little clip on the top.
This plug connects the fillet to the rear external allumium mechanism to open the case.
Once you removed even this plug you will find some screws that fasten the plastic fillet
If you remove these screws you can remove the fillet.
Now you have to remove the black screws that you can see under the alluminium divider (these screws fasten the HD bracket and the fans in front of it).
Now you can unlock the divider and you have free access to the HD bracket and to the fans.
I don't know if you understand clearly what I mean...
Have a nice day
Bye

I cracked it! :> mwahahahah

Ok... here is the pinout...

1 +12V
2 rpm sensor
3 GND
4 +12V

Pin 1 on the blower (5-pin connector) is the one wich is used and pin 5 is not connected on the blower...

The drive bay fan is a little bit trickyer, because it has only 4 pins, but it is esentialy the same as the blower only there is no pin 5...
So if you look at the connctor with notches UP and wires going away from you, pin 1 is the leftmost.

And I DO NOT recomend connecting the drive bay fan to the motherboard it chunks 0.4A of current and I think that the motherboards these days are not designed for souch a amount of current. It is also VERY loud... so I tried it at lower voltage and it works quite happy from 4V on... and it is quite civilised up to 6V... The blower is a bit more quiet. And it also consumes less current up to 0.2A. It also works from 4V and up to 7V it is very quiet...

I hope you will find that information usefull...

Happy modding!

Few pictures:





You can see the fans spining and how you should connect it...

Nice project, im personaly going to fit my pc in a G5 case but i would like to use the original power supply if possible, and is just intrested in if someone have done it and have some tips about it.

P.S Do anyone have the specs on the 600W G5 PSU? Amps and everything.

Thanks for the info about the fans, helps no end. Anybody know what size screw would fit in the perforated front of the powermac case?

Hello... I've been busy prepareing my G5 case for local LAN party wich will start in Friday...

Here is a sneak peak of my current work...

I've painted two fans from black... to G5 gray... almost identical to original fans in the drive bay.
Those two will be placed at the back side of the case (behind CPUs)


First try to fit the new motherboard and PSU (at the bottom)


PSU front detail (I shortened all the cables and modified them to fit the case almost perfectly...


PSU back detail, I glued the mains power connector to the case (I know not the nicest solution :>)


Here you can see that there is place for one aditional HDD at the bottom, and also the PSU fans (60mm)
those fans are just an temporary solution until I get new (more quiet) fans tomorow.


First picture with hard drives and DVDRW mounted...


Detail of expansion card area. (TV tuner at the top, WiFi card, USB bracket and graphics card), you can also see the routing of SATA cables (those are supposed to be black...)


Backside fans mounted


Geting closer...


Liftoff


That blue fan is just vulgar... I've disconnected LED diodes so it is not glowing blue anymore

Next step will be new siletn fans for the PSU, PSU bay cover (wich is already made but i haven mounted it yet, because i need to change PSU fans), and after that I only need to connect drive bay fans and paint the SATA cables :>

What do you think?

Looks great mate. I'm stuck on whether to put a full atx back on but leave the original fans on, stick with just four expansion slots, and another option which i have forgot. I'm hopefully watercooling mine

Good work, keep it up and keep us posted!

Update... with more pictures

PSU bay cover:


Frontpanel with working LED, switch and USB... Firewire is not working and i'm not sure why...


A little bit messy around SATA connectors... (I need to paint those black...)


I also got new fans for PSU bay area... very quiet even at 12V...


And a new power connector stand... the glue thing was not OK:


PSU bay cover in place:


View from the top:


Screws hold it in place:


Nice screws


And a final shot:


Aint it nice? :>

Yes, it is great. What size are those screws you have used on the psu cover?