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Hackintosh in XServe G5 Rack


enjoyfebruary
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Here is the revised idea for the hackintosh I plan on building:

- XServe G5 case - I plan on cutting the case down so it's not quite so long. As far as the Sata backplane goes it'll just take a little PSU modification to power it. I'll use a small 220 watt Mini-ITX power supply which should be enough to power everything. I'm searching eBay everyday for a cheap as is Xserve case but they seem to be pretty rare.

- Supermicro MBD-X7SLA-H-O - In doing some research I'm pretty sure that this board will be compatible.

- Optical Drive - I just need a slim ide converter which will be attached to the motherboard end of the existing Apple cable.

- Firewire 400- 2+1 PCIe 1x card connected via a flexible riser but oriented inside the case and not in a pci-slot.

- Wireless N - So this server is going to sit in a closet so I would like it to be hardwired to as few things as possible. So I plan on building a 802.11n card to get it on the network. It's going to be an Apple Airport Extreme mini PCIe card married to a PCIe 1x adapter. To save space it will not take up a slot but I will mount it inside of the case and the antennas will be outside of the case. So the card will also be connected via a flexible riser as well.

- Cooling! -Since i've moved to an Atom 330 board I feel that heat isn't going to be a huge issue though I will still have a pci slot blower to move the air around.

- Storage - I'm going to use a spare 80Gb HD for the OS and two 2Tb Western Digital AV-GP drives in a Raid 1 for all my media.

 

So yeah. Blah Blah Blah. I don't even have the case yet so i'll post updates when I finally get the ball rolling. Thanks.

 

post-253180-1281556768_thumb.jpg

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Your #1 problem will be keeping the CPU quiet.

 

Your only options will be 1U server heatsinks, none of which could even be called remotely quiet. If anything I would look into modding the original heatsinks to see if you could use those, with new fans. Having used many 1U computers, any rackmounts I have or have built, or have seen in use are 3U and 4U to keep the noise down.

 

It's a bonus to fit more in a rack, but very few people will toss 12 1U screamers when they can spend some extra cash and get 3 more powerful 4U servers that are much quieter.

 

I don't think the stock Intel heatsink is small enough to fit in there even, not with the motherboard mounted and CPU in place.

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Your #1 problem will be keeping the CPU quiet.

 

Your only options will be 1U server heatsinks, none of which could even be called remotely quiet. If anything I would look into modding the original heatsinks to see if you could use those, with new fans. Having used many 1U computers, any rackmounts I have or have built, or have seen in use are 3U and 4U to keep the noise down.

 

It's a bonus to fit more in a rack, but very few people will toss 12 1U screamers when they can spend some extra cash and get 3 more powerful 4U servers that are much quieter.

 

I don't think the stock Intel heatsink is small enough to fit in there even, not with the motherboard mounted and CPU in place.

 

 

As far as cooling goes I plan on using this cooler.

 

http://www.gelidsolutions.com/products/ind...id=12&id=40

 

I've used Gelid fans before so I'm hoping this will be just as quiet.

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Exacly why do you need a dedicated graphics card? couldn't you just use the onboard x4500 instead, because i don't think you would need great graphics card compatibility in a headless server? Plus you don't need to worry about overheating the gfx or getting a gfx card extender.

 

Also how do you plan to do your exhaust out? It might not get very hot at first, but if all the cpu fan is circulating the air inside the XServe, then your computer is going to heat up really quickly.

 

But if you manage to pass those hurdles, please post pics. :)

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  • 4 weeks later...
Exacly why do you need a dedicated graphics card? couldn't you just use the onboard x4500 instead, because i don't think you would need great graphics card compatibility in a headless server? Plus you don't need to worry about overheating the gfx or getting a gfx card extender.

 

Also how do you plan to do your exhaust out? It might not get very hot at first, but if all the cpu fan is circulating the air inside the XServe, then your computer is going to heat up really quickly.

 

But if you manage to pass those hurdles, please post pics. :)

 

I've changed the motherboard to an Supermicro MBD-X7SLA-H-O. It has the GMA 950 so I should be good to go for graphics. So i've nixed the graphics card which will leave room for a pci slot blower. That should keep most of the air moving.

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  • 2 months later...
I've changed the motherboard to an Supermicro MBD-X7SLA-H-O. It has the GMA 950 so I should be good to go for graphics. So i've nixed the graphics card which will leave room for a pci slot blower. That should keep most of the air moving.

 

Did you get the Supermicro board working? I'm looking at buying it for a OSX Server set-up. Everything looks like it would work, but that doesn't really mean it will. I was wondering what your experience was.

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