30 replies to this topic

[meltman]

Hello everyone!
Thought I'd post up a couple of G5 mods I've done to give inspiration to others. Awhile back I helped a friend of mine mod a G5 using a Lian Li tray. We finished the whole mod minus front panel cable in one night. I was so impressed with how it turned out I set off to find myself a G5.

Sadly, I didn't take many pics of the building of his. We used the PSU on top and HDD cage in front strategy.




Here's my friends completed, sorry the pics aren't clearer:



I found a G5 -complete with dead PSU on Craigslist for $40!


For mine, I purchased a Mountain Mods motherboard tray with the dual 80's option. For those who dont know, they come in pieces and screw together which is actually pretty nice for G5 modding.


Doing a little test fitting:


And cranked out a front panel harness today. I need to get some sleeving for it.


Here's the Mountain Mods rear panel trimmed for the latch how I want it. I opted to block as few holes as possible with my mod vs the one I did previous.


Here's where I left off today. The short stock standoffs are perfect height to hold up the motherboard tray! I popped the long ones out with pliers.






I'm planning on dremeling up the stock 92mm fan grills since I cant find anything that looks anywhere near the same to buy. I have not seen anyone do this before - not to say no one has. Should be cool and retain some stock look




I wanted to mount the hard drive cage "right side up" unlike the previous mod I did. This required spacers to space it away from the DVD tray. I decided to recycle the standoffs I pulled from the motherboard by drilling them all the way through and tapping them. Here's one drilled through waiting for the tap.


Here's the cage attached. I did it this way so that if I want to add a second (or third) cage in the future it will be as simple as trimming the metal part, drilling 3 holes, and bolting it to the cage above.


The last major cutting item was the powersupply which went up top:





Only thing left is to figure out how I want to secure the motherboard tray rear. I'm thinking some nice machine screws and nuts on the inside. It needs to remain removable so I can get the power supply out in the future.

[meltman]

Update:
Here's the motherboard tray attached from the back. You can see the small black screws holding the tray down in the stock standoffs. You can also see I added two screws to hold the tray to the case above the 80mm fans. I had to do this to keep the mesh flush with the rear tray panel.


Here it is with the PC installed. I do not yet have 80mm fans for it so I just ran the 120 on the CPU cooler. I'm going to install dual 80s and build a shroud to pull through the heatsink so there will be no fan on the heatsink directly.


Shot from the rear - until I make the fan grills and get some fans.


Powered up and running.



To do:
*Micro switches for the rom eject and possibly a reset switch
*80mm fans and cut fan grills
*Possibly a hard drive light. I'm wanting to actually put a second LED behind (next to?) the power LED so the power LED blinks with disk activity.

comments? I appreciate all feedback.

[JBraddock]

meltman, on Sep 12 2011, 05:20 PM, said:

Here's where I left off today. The short stock standoffs are perfect height to hold up the motherboard tray! I popped the long ones out with pliers.

Hello meltman,

You've made quite a progress. Congrats.   I also bought a G5 case to mod when I have time but sadly it got damaged in the post. So I haven't tried it myself but I have a couple of suggestions/questions if I may.

Have you ever considered widening the back plate all the way up to the corners to cover perforated aluminium. See below for what I mean. (via). Alternatively, you can use perforated aluminium sheet to keep the original look as much as possible. To me, this way it seems more 'complete'. The way you use the power supply is brilliant so i would keep it that way and wouldn't open a big hole on the back.

Since you already have the back plate, it is just a matter of cutting a piece of aluminium that can cover the back and then open the necessary holes for the plate.

 NX4P2298.jpg   191.93K   145 downloads

meltman, on Sep 12 2011, 05:20 PM, said:

I'm planning on dremeling up the stock 92mm fan grills since I cant find anything that looks anywhere near the same to buy. I have not seen anyone do this before - not to say no one has. Should be cool and retain some stock look

Again, I think with such a change, you may even have more fan choices such as a 140mm fan, assuming you shift it to the very left as much as possible. Not sure if you could put a two 92mm fan but If you could that would be frosting on the cake as you then would be able to use the original rear fan assembly.

Are you going to put any fan to the front?

[meltman]

I actually specifically wanted to leave as many holes exposed as possible. Covering them would be a shame on such a nice case.

I would have liked to have a single 120mm fan but there were no backplates available that would fit width wise so I chose the dual 80s.

There wont be any fans in the front. I want as few fans as possible. My old case had a single 120 for all the cpu work so I'm hoping that dual 80s will pull the same load without too much more noise.

[meltman]

I did get my 80mm fans (finally!). Last night I cut up the stock fan grill to make ones that will fit on the 80s.



Man, those are gonna look AWESOME back there!


Need 8 screws and nuts and that will be done!



I'll get the proper hardware today and get them bolted up tonight. Very cool.

[striggell]

looks nice - I love the mountain mods tray!!

[meltman]

Finally sourced the right size screws for the twins in the rear. I'm flat impressed with the Enermax enlobal bearing fans I purchased. They move more air and are quieter than the 120mm Antec fan that was on the heatsink prior.

Final pics unless I get ambitious and build an air guide shroud for the heatsink. Enjoy!

[JBraddock]

meltman, on Sep 13 2011, 08:55 PM, said:

I actually specifically wanted to leave as many holes exposed as possible. Covering them would be a shame on such a nice case.

I would have liked to have a single 120mm fan but there were no backplates available that would fit width wise so I chose the dual 80s.

There wont be any fans in the front. I want as few fans as possible. My old case had a single 120 for all the cpu work so I'm hoping that dual 80s will pull the same load without too much more noise.

Not the top area but I would cover the left area to have complete back panel.
Overall, it looks nice and clean.

[glossymexican]

I completely disagree. He wanted to maintain the integrity of the case. There is a reason why so many people mod this case, it is gorgeous. Why cover it up with cheap metal?

[nickjf20]

Hi,

I'm hoping to do one of these G5 mods myself -- just searching around for a case on ebay UK atm

I'm getting an i7-920, 6GB RAM, 1TB HDD, 500W OEM PSU, and a VFX 5770 for £350 off a friend


I was just wondering if you could tell me (links) to the sites you used for the 18 pin front panel connector and the sleeving ?

This will be my first 'build' so I want to make it look as nice as possible.

Thanks,

Nick

[meltman]

I bought my G5 as a complete computer so I cut the stock front panel harness in half.

The sleeving came on the powersupply already so I have not actually had to buy any. I'd look on eBay though.

[nickjf20]

Ahh right, the one I'm buying will be complete as well, so I'll mock something up. How did you do the audio connectors as I've heard the 'on connect' is inverted by ATX standards ?

Could I be really needy and ask for the pin outs you used as well ?

Thanks,

Nick


I'll have a look on ebay for some nice sleeving and heat wrap

[meltman]

nickjf20, on Oct 31 2011, 10:26 PM, said:

Ahh right, the one I'm buying will be complete as well, so I'll mock something up. How did you do the audio connectors as I've heard the 'on connect' is inverted by ATX standards ?

Could I be really needy and ask for the pin outs you used as well ?

Thanks,

Nick


I'll have a look on ebay for some nice sleeving and heat wrap

FPAudio does not work because of the sense issue. I dont really care though because I never use that port.
Here's the diagram pack I used: Link

[nickjf20]

Thanks for the diagram

I'll see how it all goes -- just bought a full broken powermac off ebay for £80 which is about $120 I think. Should be able to get £50 for the PSU, but I don't know what's broken from the rest of it ...

Your mod looks great, and I'll do one of those when I upgrade my mATX mobo to a proper full sized ATX, so I'll keep this bookmarked

I'm going to try a minimal mod, no alterations at all from the outside, and will hopefully get my college to help with a pcb for the rear IO.

[nickjf20]

One more thing, where did you get the motherboard header connectors from ?

I've searched for them but can't find anything yet ...

[meltman]

nickjf20, on Nov 2 2011, 08:01 PM, said:

One more thing, where did you get the motherboard header connectors from ?

I've searched for them but can't find anything yet ...

I had an old case that I cut them off of.

[nickjf20]

Looks like that's what I'm going to have to do

Not even eBay has them ...

[mars2006]

I'm planning to mod one myself, how did you get the PSU up there?

[nickjf20]

I think I'll try to emulate your design as much as possible -- If I can mount the tray in such a position that I can cut it more and use the stock rear fan assembly, that should be great

I'll probably mount the PSU at the bottom rather than at the top, simply so I can chop half of the top divider so the motherboard tray can go higher. It'll also mean that when I upgrade, it'll be easier.

[atrain85]

Any chance you would make and sell a pre-modded G5 case?