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My PowerHac g4


akira9000
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Hi Guys,

 

been lurking on here for months, would like to thank everybody's input over that time on the various threads I've been listening in to. I use a Macbook pro for everyday work and wanted some kind of expandable media server for home but feel the Macmini is not expandable enough and the MacPro is just overkill. Just before Xmas 2008 I started pulling together a few bits and a G4 case to build a hackintosh.

Finally finished it last week ( if you can call a hackintosh finished )

 

Hardware:

Asus P5E-VM HDMI

Intel c2d E5200 running at 2.94Ghz

8Gb of Corsair Ram

1Tb Samsung F2 eco drive ( + an old 2.5" drive out of a PS3 for Ubuntu 64bit )

Palit 9500GT fanless with CI/QE enabled

Seasonic S12 350W psu

 

Machine barely makes a sound.

 

Found an old G4 quicksilver case on ebay for �25

 

Installed retail Leopard using custom Boot132 ISO found on a thread somewhere here and Chameleon R2.0rc1

Now updated to 10.5.7 everything working apart from sleep won't wake up. Can live with that

 

Geekbench 3992.Not gonna set the world on fire but really enjoyed putting it together/problem solving and serves 1080p through Plex to the TV in the lounge flawlessly!

 

Gonna sit on this until next year and then upgrade to an i7 no doubt

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I might just steal that case from you. :( Could you post a wiring diagram from the front i/o panel to the motherboard? As well as what you did to mount the mobo to the tray?

 

 

I wish that backplate did screw off! As anyone who is gonna try one of these mods should know, getting the IO of the mobo to fit in as tidy as possible is a pain. The original apple mesh plate is riveted on so I had to make a trip to the hardware store to get some metal cutting blades for my jigsaw. As I remember the process went something like this -

 

 

1.After all the apple innards were stripped out I placed the asus board with the gfx card attached on the bare case to mark the new screw holes.

2.drilled 4 or 5 holes and made new motherboard standoffs with 50mm ( might have been 40mm ) m3 bolts and made spacers with m3 nyloc bolts to give an even level for the motherboard in place. Next time i think m2 bolts would give a little bit more room to play with when you have to actually fix the mobo in place. With m3 you have to be pretty much spot on.

3.because of the new positions of the standoffs I had to dremmel out a couple of bits of plastic from the opening mechanism so the door could still function

 

I ditched the entire Apple front panel circuit as resoldering the powerswitch, power light, reset and speaker to a standard ATX connector was a lot of work for very little pay off. I bought a really nice switch which had pins for its own built in LED when the power was active and just had to solder 4 wires ( 2 for the switch part, 2 for the LED part ) to a spare motherboard front panel connector that you can easily get on ebay or maplin/RS if you're in the UK.

If you hold the switch in , it acts as a reset too so I've just lost the speaker.

 

To attach the switch I got a small transparent acrylic disc with a hole drilled in it and glued it to the inside of the old speaker mount - see image

switch.jpg

 

 

And on a side note, 8Gb of Ram means no room for the optical drive bay, even when trimmed to accommodate a laptop style drive

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I see, so you made your own switch then. That's not a bad idea actually. :rolleyes: Any plans to take out the front i/o panel buttons in the front, and just smooth it over with putty or something?

 

What you can do though is for the optical drive, is you can raise up where the drive would sit, cut into the case a new seat for it, and mold over the old position of it.

 

OR, how you thought of slim drives? Newegg has a slim dvd burner for like $50 that's sata, and it would actually work really well if you take the front plate off.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827118017

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I could have drilled out the existing switch to take the larger diameter of my switch but didn't want to risk the front panel cracking. It was one of the last things I did and after all the hours I'd spent getting it that far, if the front panel had cracked I think I would have pushed me over the edge :P . When you do a mod like this a solution for one problem seems to lead to a new problem you never even thought of. Filling the original switch cavities with putty seems a bit overkill to me. I think the layout of the G4 internals and overall design was just about perfect when new. These mods will never look as slick as an original so I think you have to draw the line somewhere.

 

As for the optical, as I mentioned in my earlier post, even a short depth laptop drive will not fit with that mobo with every RAM slot occupied. I chopped off practically half the original drive cage which was a great fit but the drive itself was still a no go. I know other motherboards will leave enough space.

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I could have drilled out the existing switch to take the larger diameter of my switch but didn't want to risk the front panel cracking. It was one of the last things I did and after all the hours I'd spent getting it that far, if the front panel had cracked I think I would have pushed me over the edge ;) . When you do a mod like this a solution for one problem seems to lead to a new problem you never even thought of. Filling the original switch cavities with putty seems a bit overkill to me. I think the layout of the G4 internals and overall design was just about perfect when new. These mods will never look as slick as an original so I think you have to draw the line somewhere.

 

As for the optical, as I mentioned in my earlier post, even a short depth laptop drive will not fit with that mobo with every RAM slot occupied. I chopped off practically half the original drive cage which was a great fit but the drive itself was still a no go. I know other motherboards will leave enough space.

 

There are boards out there that would mount just fine, and still leave room for it. But, why spend the money when you can get an external drive or a cage for a drive via usb, or firewire? It'll work the same. =]

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what CPU/HD temperatures do you have?

 

that Sammy F2 HDD is just ridiculous, between 20c - 25c MAX.

And in real world use they are very fast too. Don't be put off by the 5400rpm. Much quieter than my F1s

 

the cpu uses the stock fan/heatsink and hovers at 50c - 60c which is absolutely fine for a whisper quiet pc. My Macbook Pro is usually at 55c after all. I Don't get obsessive about core temps like I used to. Current spec c2ds can really take a hammering. If I get some time in the next couple of weeks I will trim the rear exhaust hole where the PSU sits and mount it "upside down". Then the Seasonic's 12cm fan will be facing the right way and suck air off the cpu and push it out the case.

 

I think that will drop the cpu temp by at least 5c.

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  • 6 months later...
This case will be for sale soon as I have just finished a G5 mod

I really like that case, especially how it opens up... really easy for showing off/upgrading/resetting BIOS if needed, etc. How much are you selling for?

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  • 3 weeks later...
Looks nice, congratulations :D . Now you just need a plate for the connectors. I believe you can screw it of, you don't need to saw it as you did.

 

I know the Blue and white G3 had a screw on IO panel, but every G4 I know needs to be cut to accept an ATX board.

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  • 2 weeks later...

On the Quicksilver, the IO panel and expansion slot mounts are all one piece, so I drilled out all the rivets on mine, took out that whole piece, then did one cut to separate the IO panel from the expansion slot mounts, and then used some small nuts and bolts to re-attach the expansion slot mounts. An alternative would be to grab a rivet gun and redo the rivets.

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  • 1 month later...
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