Adam's ATX G5 Project

[ShiroiHusky]

Hey all!

 

I recently purchased a non-functioning G5 from eBay for £80, which is a pretty good deal seeing that the case retails at £250 new from independent stockists here. Aside from a few minor scuffs and a bit of dust, the case was in perfect shape.

 

 

Now, the plans I have for this case are pretty hefty seeing as this is my first mod project ever but I'm sure it'll be fun and a great experience!

 

I essentially want to a create, as cleanly as possible, a full ATX (7 expansion bays) G5 case with no extreme workarounds for some of the original cases shortcomings.

 

I want to use a normal case back panel instead of the G5's stock I/O area much like many others have done, but I don't want to have the raised-up, bolted-on motherboard tray, instead I want the rear of the case to be flush fitted, with any gaps filled in with epoxy.

 

The case will be painted entirely black, with the edges of the outer cage reworked so they are a nice silver, like so:

 

 

As for the inside, I want to have the power supply located top-rear like the mac pro. I've seen this done before but I'm not sure how, I made a small box to the size of the largest PSU around (200mm x 150mm x 86mm) and It just wouldn't fit up top, even though I've seen other power supplies of the same 86mm height fit fine. I may have to take this the same route MrBean did with his Bad Apple mod and create a slightly lower custom shelf.

 

I do not want to have to mount the PSU at the bottom of the case, either whole or dismantled. (I like warranties)

 

Also, in a similar fashion to the ATCS 840 and HAF cases, hard drives will be mounted at the lower front of the case, with room for several 3.5" drives and 1 or 2 SSDs.

 

 

If anyone can help point me in the right direction to achieve some parts of this (such as the PSU mounting) or share their experiences in modding a G5, I'd be very grateful!

 

This project'll be taking up a great deal of my time this summer

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I won't be populating this case with parts just yet, I'm waiting on the new LGA-2011 parts this autumn before I start purchasing. However I do know it'll be high spec and I want to use the Corsair AX1200 PSU, hence my earlier measurements.

 

-Adam

[eelhead]

Hi Adam,

 

I'm Adam as well by the way lol

 

I did a G5 mod as well. links:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=255820

http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=16300

 

I can't really help you with your PSU mounting because I placed mine inside the original G5's PSU case. It's all been working great. I also used only half of the upper tray to hold the DvD drive and I got an extra HDD tray to be able to use 4 HDD's if I want, I have three now.

 

Are you looking at a no cut mod? I went straight for the cut lol. At first I was going to use the original stand offs and found out the hard way there are two different size ones. I had it all together all was working, rear fans fitted around mobo's audio ports, till I relized I needed more PCI openings. My only solution was t open the back out more but I needed the lower ones under the GPU for a home made Air Port card so out went the modded rear fans and I went with a premade mobo tray with rear panel. After I set that in I should of went with that right off the bat.

 

Basically it's pretty straight forward, I'm sure if you run into any issues or have any questions there are a poop load of us here that you could bounce ideas off of.

 

Oh and if your going to do a no cut, which might be an option for you because of your PSU mounting area, check out zammykoos thread if you haven't yet http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=255055

and Gus.Carrie is making fron IO cables as well

If you go no cut you could move mobo forward below DvD and have HDD tray/s below the PSU? just an option.

Good luck though what ever you choose.

[rorydaredking]

Hey all!

 

I recently purchased a non-functioning G5 from eBay for £80, which is a pretty good deal seeing that the case retails at £250 new from independent stockists here. Aside from a few minor scuffs and a bit of dust, the case was in perfect shape.

 

 

Now, the plans I have for this case are pretty hefty seeing as this is my first mod project ever but I'm sure it'll be fun and a great experience!

 

I essentially want to a create, as cleanly as possible, a full ATX (7 expansion bays) G5 case with no extreme workarounds for some of the original cases shortcomings.

 

I want to use a normal case back panel instead of the G5's stock I/O area much like many others have done, but I don't want to have the raised-up, bolted-on motherboard tray, instead I want the rear of the case to be flush fitted, with any gaps filled in with epoxy.

 

The case will be painted entirely black, with the edges of the outer cage reworked so they are a nice silver, like so:

 

 

As for the inside, I want to have the power supply located top-rear like the mac pro. I've seen this done before but I'm not sure how, I made a small box to the size of the largest PSU around (200mm x 150mm x 86mm) and It just wouldn't fit up top, even though I've seen other power supplies of the same 86mm height fit fine. I may have to take this the same route MrBean did with his Bad Apple mod and create a slightly lower custom shelf.

 

I do not want to have to mount the PSU at the bottom of the case, either whole or dismantled. (I like warranties)

 

Also, in a similar fashion to the ATCS 840 and HAF cases, hard drives will be mounted at the lower front of the case, with room for several 3.5" drives and 1 or 2 SSDs.

 

 

If anyone can help point me in the right direction to achieve some parts of this (such as the PSU mounting) or share their experiences in modding a G5, I'd be very grateful!

 

This project'll be taking up a great deal of my time this summer

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I won't be populating this case with parts just yet, I'm waiting on the new LGA-2011 parts this autumn before I start purchasing. However I do know it'll be high spec and I want to use the Corsair AX1200 PSU, hence my earlier measurements.

 

-Adam

My psu fitted snugly, right where you said you were putting yours. No mounting needed. Only problem is that the fan is about 92% blocked. So I am going to drill a fair few holes in the mounting plate to line up with the fan in the PSU. Its tight between the Bd drive and the psu in mine too. about 1.5 inches, and with all the cables, its very snug in there.

[ShiroiHusky]

@rorydaredking hmm, odd. I literally went to corsairs website, looked at the PSU's measurements and made a cardboard box exactly the same size, no matter how I try, I just cannot get it to fit without it wanting to bend the plate downwards. Are you using a standard size PSU or a longer one? (150mm vs 200mm).

 

I'll worry about that once I've got a back plate sorted for the motherboard. I might mount it just below the curve using a custom bracket and a lian-li PSU mounting plate (screws onto the PSU, slot the PSU in, then screw the plate to the case) although mounting one of their new tool-less PSU holder things is very tempting too!

 

PSU Plate

 

Tool-less Holder

 

@eelhead So many Adam's! I've studied with 5 over the past 3 years

 

I'm planning on mounting my own custom motherboard tray using standard motherboard standoffs.

 

I was lucky when I was taking apart my old lian-li case for spares for this project that the motherboard standoffs were M3 threaded male and female, rather than the usual 6/32 male, these fit perfectly not only into themselves, but into the torx head bolts that run around the rim of the G5, holding the outer and inner cases together.

 

My plan is to remove roughly half of these, insert two of the lian-li motherboard standoffs, and mount my custom tray upon them, for support in the middle I'll create some little acrylic pads and cable guides, as this gives me a good 2cm of space under the tray for cable routing.

[rorydaredking]

@rorydaredking hmm, odd. I literally went to corsairs website, looked at the PSU's measurements and made a cardboard box exactly the same size, no matter how I try, I just cannot get it to fit without it wanting to bend the plate downwards. Are you using a standard size PSU or a longer one? (150mm vs 200mm).

 

I'll worry about that once I've got a back plate sorted for the motherboard. I might mount it just below the curve using a custom bracket and a lian-li PSU mounting plate (screws onto the PSU, slot the PSU in, then screw the plate to the case) although mounting one of their new tool-less PSU holder things is very tempting too!

 

PSU Plate

 

Tool-less Holder

 

@eelhead So many Adam's! I've studied with 5 over the past 3 years

 

I'm planning on mounting my own custom motherboard tray using standard motherboard standoffs.

 

I was lucky when I was taking apart my old lian-li case for spares for this project that the motherboard standoffs were M3 threaded male and female, rather than the usual 6/32 male, these fit perfectly not only into themselves, but into the torx head bolts that run around the rim of the G5, holding the outer and inner cases together.

 

My plan is to remove roughly half of these, insert two of the lian-li motherboard standoffs, and mount my custom tray upon them, for support in the middle I'll create some little acrylic pads and cable guides, as this gives me a good 2cm of space under the tray for cable routing.

Like I said its literally 0mm spare. had to take the tray out , then put the psu in, then put the tray back in. Its 15cm. ocz modxstream pro 550w. Have a look and compare the measurements

[ShiroiHusky]

Ahh, that'd be the issue, a longer PSU'd mean it'd have to negate the bolts that hold the two L-shaped case peices together, which ain't gonna happen :/ I'll just mount it a little lower and cut a bit of the tray out, then form a U shaped bucket for the PSU and hang it on the old tray. Seems do-able.

 

@eelhead, Oh, forgot to mention actually, I'm cutting the case for this mod. I just ordered an IO panel from MountainMods which should be here soonish.

 

I can't go without 7 slots as I plan to run 2 dual-slot graphics cards in SLI as well as having space for my sound card and blackmagic capture card (both PCIe) and possibly one of the OCZ revodrive x2 PCIe SSDs if I can find an LGA 2011 mobo with an x1 top slot (my current has no slot 1 as the northbridge heatsink is chunky).

 

Front panel I'm going to try and get a lian-li front panel module to fit like Cyprio did in his mod, just had the same power switch he used come in the mail too. I really liked that front design. Just wish lian-li did modules with USB3 that weren't the passthrough cables from the rear IO, seems messy.

[ShiroiHusky]

Quick Update...

 

After pondering whether or not to leave the tray as it is, I broke out the tools and cut off the offending peice!

 

 

Take that, tray!

 

Not a bad cut for my first time ever using a dremel, and using a needle file to smooth the edges, imo. (I can't for the life of me find the big file I used to have!) How did I do?

 

 

This is going to let me mount the PSU a lot lower. I think I'll get a custom bracket done up in SketchUp and sent off to one of the computer modding places we have here in the UK (ChilledPC if anyone's from the UK and interested, they do a great custom fabrication service).

 

I was looking around at places in the case I could mount such a bracket, and realised that what was my worst enemy before, could now be my best friend... Those nuts on the top that hold the L shaped inner case sections together, I could replace the strip of metal there with an O shaped frame, forming the rear of a PSU bucket, with the front stuck to the top with JB weld, and extra support from the PSU itself screwed to the back. Done correctly, this could prove to be a very clean way to mount the power supply!

 

To SketchUp I go!

 

EDIT: Ignore the glue marks in the first pic, those are where the air baffle latch used to be, I won't be using the baffle in this project.

[zammykoo]

Looks like it's going quite well. Did you use a guide to cut the plate? It looks really straight, keep it up!

 

By the way, eelhead mentioned in his last post about my PSU fitment:

(see my custom PSU bracket here)

 

PS: is that a Haro bmx?

[ShiroiHusky]

Looks like it's going quite well. Did you use a guide to cut the plate? It looks really straight, keep it up!

 

By the way, eelhead mentioned in his last post about my PSU fitment:

(see my custom PSU bracket here)

 

PS: is that a Haro bmx?

 

Haha, it is indeed! The '08 model F4 in fact Currently waiting on some new calipers right now though, it's not been used in a while so the brakes went a bit lackluster

 

The bracket looks good, very well produced! But I must say I'm not a fan of having the PSU mounted at the bottom in the G5, as with a full ATX setup it'd mean having the expansion slots protrude up and over the central divider, and longer graphic cards might be a pain to get to fit in with the rear of the DVD/BD drive.

 

I'm now looking at mounting mine similar to hsv2kk, just below the curve of the case. Here

 

The cut... I didn't have many measuring tools on me so I just stuck down some masking tape, drew a line parallel to the edge that dips down to where the hard drives went. Cut it with the dremel and filed it down. I could've used the sanding/grinding discs with the dremel too but I'd rather get some practice on some scraps first.

[zammykoo]

Haha, it is indeed! The '08 model F4 in fact Currently waiting on some new calipers right now though, it's not been used in a while so the brakes went a bit lackluster

 

The bracket looks good, very well produced! But I must say I'm not a fan of having the PSU mounted at the bottom in the G5, as with a full ATX setup it'd mean having the expansion slots protrude up and over the central divider, and longer graphic cards might be a pain to get to fit in with the rear of the DVD/BD drive.

 

I'm now looking at mounting mine similar to hsv2kk, just below the curve of the case. Here

 

The cut... I didn't have many measuring tools on me so I just stuck down some masking tape, drew a line parallel to the edge that dips down to where the hard drives went. Cut it with the dremel and filed it down. I could've used the sanding/grinding discs with the dremel too but I'd rather get some practice on some scraps first.

 

Nice, I knew it looked familiar. I bought an old beat up Haro a while back to restore. I've disassembled everything and finished repainting, got a couple of new parts but never finished the project, I'll post pics of those if you'd like. I too need to get new brakes, the bike never came with them because the previous owner removed them for some reason.

 

As far as the PSU, I too didn't like the bottom placement because it protrudes so far up... but I also liked the factory placement of the hdd slots. But in the end I think I was able to fit it in there okay, and am pretty satisfied.

 

And for the sanding, I find using fine sandpaper while gliding up and down the edges seem to work better than using a dremel with a sanding disc, since the sand paper creates a more even surface contact. At least that's from my experience.

[ShiroiHusky]

And for the sanding, I find using fine sandpaper while gliding up and down the edges seem to work better than using a dremel with a sanding disc, since the sand paper creates a more even surface contact. At least that's from my experience.

 

Thanks zammykoo! I'll keep that in mind when I have to smooth the mobo tray edges. Might find somewhere that'll cut it on a big table saw or something though, it's a bit much cutting a 46x35cm panel with a dremel. This tray alone took me down half a cutting wheel!

[student_al]

Hi All, I was wondering if anyone knew the width of aluminum on case the g5 case? And even possibly, what type of aluminum it is - ie what grade of aluminum. Thanks!

[ShiroiHusky]

I just picked up a 1.5mm sheet and it looks very close to the size used for the inner casing, however it may be anything down to 1.2mm. The outer casing seems more like 3mm but I might be wrong.

 

About the grade, I'd honestly not have a clue about that, I'm not a metalworker I'm afraid.

[ShiroiHusky]

Oh, zam, it's typical that just after saying I was waiting on them, my brakes turned up! 2x Odyssey Evo. II, one black one white.

 

[ShiroiHusky]

Right, I know now exactly how to get a sturdy mount for my power supply, and have it mounted flush to the rear like in most normal desktops.

 

However, this means creating a bracket. I can picture it in my head, but I have absolutely no experience in CAD software and SketchUp has its limitations for me.

 

Here's the plan:

 

 

Using the 12 bolts that run across the top, I can replace the original metal strip with one that bends down in a rectangular shape and supports the PSU from beneath, with this I can add in a floor with vent hole for the PSU, making a sort of scoop shape.

 

Now, I noticed while I was taking the case apart, another mounting spot that wasn't being used by anything:

 

 

Further forward than the bolted on support, a second arm can be added which extends out and upwards, then gets screwed into this lone mount, giving support for a heavy PSU along almost the entire length. The red blob in the top right is the approximate location of the bolts.

 

Anyone here good with CAD and able to help? Or lend some advice on how to measure it all properly? I'd be very grateful for any assistance.

[zammykoo]

Cool brakes, I wanted to get those odyssey ones too. How are they?

 

Looking forward to seeing your psu mount progress!

 

As far as 3d modeling, I am getting into Rhino 3d, it's probably not as technical as Cad softwares. So I do all of my technical drawings and measurements in Illustrator and then import into Rhino to create the 3d model.

 

I'm currently working (with whatever leftover spare time I have) on a replica model of the Tron Legacy identity disc for my brother's LED project. So I found it easier to work in 2d in illustrator for precise measurements.

[ShiroiHusky]

I can't say how the brakes are just yet I'm afraid, Need to take them back off and grease them at some stage, just wanted to see how they went on. That and I'm running 2 flats

[ShiroiHusky]

Ok, scratch the last Idea, forgot the latch mechanism completely! So here's idea #2, a second tray how original...

 

Should be quite cheap to have cut properly, and as it uses the 3 screw mounts on each side like the original tray, it has optimum support! No complex brackets or anything Just gotta make sure the PSU's protected from the 3 torx bolts on the other side, rubber strips should cover this (put one near the bolts, 2 as runners on the bottom and 1 on the near side so the PSU doesn't get scratched up.

 

Images of the mockup tray, Bit wonky but it serves its purpose:

 

-Excuse the finger, sticky-taped cardboard is pretty flimsy and tended to flop down.

-There's one of those 3 bolts I have to watch out for, space is very tight!

-Made from my Dremel's box (Yay recycling!)

Comes down a bit further than usual, I might be able to raise this slightly but I have to watch out for that top case curve! The mobo will sit below that line, the rear will be a new custom panel epoxied in place and supported with alu strips like Cyprio's mod.