Just joking Aqua.. I love your work <Grin>

It is with extreme pride that i introduce the long awaited FLUFF PRO

Matching Apple's ergonomicity and looks was a really tough task indeed. The G5 case is a true masterpiece of functionality and sober, pleasing looks. All mods that I have seen, including my previous one, were way too inclined toward the PC world, with cables, cuts, holes, screws where they ought not to be.

But how the hell are we going to fit a motherboard in AND keep the original ports?

Let's see!



Here's a very rough initial setup (the hardware used is listed in the signature)
I used the superb Noctua heatsinks and fans to keep the baby cool and silent, and indeed it is.

The biggest problem was to fit the motherboard and the ports. I had to literally take the web apart to find proper small and tight receptacles in order to accommodate all ports without drilling a hole in the beautiful case.



And so I did, and attached the receptacles to internal or external cables on my motherboard. The Gigabyte mobo is superb, as it has all required internal connectors to do a neat job.



Very messy I'm actually planning to build a film-thin circuit to be placed behind the motherboard with all the wiring paths in order to avoid this ugly wire setup.



Here's an internal shot of one of the ethernet ports: goes straight into the mobo's gigabit LAN.

Let's do some magic now! The case has a FW800 port! Whohoo, we want that!

Basically, the FW800 is retro-compatible to FW400 via bilingual cable. Therefore, the FW800 port can be attached to one of the onboard FW400 ports (with half speed) but I wanted a way to keep the possibility to use the port at full speed. Easypeasy, just slap a connector in the middle of the cable, and eventually connect a true FW800 to an internal board!



Here is the receptacle. It was REALLY difficult to find it, therefore I bought on eBay a cheap second hand Sonnet card and happily vandalised it



And here we go with the infamous connector I was talking about earlier:



This baby fits in the onboard FW connector of the board. The other 2 firewire connectors will be attached internally on the motherbard's internal connectors.

Now, the power supply.

I used a superb Enermax Liberty 630W, able to perform in the most stressful situations without fans. I had to take it apart and place it internally in the power supply bay.



It has a nice modular design that allowed me to easily connect all the current and eventual future peripherals in my Mac.



You can also see the fan board. This stuff is really good. It has several sensors and 4 fan connectors. You will have to program the board, and it will work by itself thereafter, no need of a particular OS or whatever. Basically the fans in the case will blow air when, where and how much is needed. Result? Hey is the Mac on or...

Here's the sensor on the chipset...



Here's the one on the GFX Card



The only impossible thing was to add 2x TOSLink connectors. Way too big, would never fet So what do we do? Well, we can add a Digital In and a Digital Out, of course, they will just be Coaxial instead of Optical. No change at all in the sound quality. The connectors are attached internally in the SPDIF connectors.

Here's a first rough shots of the ports. Still some are missing.



It did pay off though...

All ports managed to fit retaining the full functionality!





Time to clean up and assemble the baby.

Here's a shot with the cable duct I used to gather all the vertical cables in the case:



On top of the duct I will later on place 2x 120mm fans independently controlled by the thermo board.

Now, the front panel! I bought the very latest G5 case, which uses a hell of a complicated front panel, here's a shot and my beautifully handwritten diagram





PLEASE NOTE. The board has a proprietary Firewire bus with a proprietary connector. Hence I had to dissolder the FW connector from the board and connect it to an independent cable. Worked well enough

Now a minor thingy, connect the power cable for the drives to the power supply. Piece of cake, cut up the original cable and attached an enermax connector. Voila'!



Also, the Optical drive power cable is designed for an IDE unit, I just added a cascade SATA style connector, and worked very well.



Very well, time now to clean it up, unwrap it and place the cables in a good way, here's the result!



Here's the Fluff Pro in all its beauty:



Some rear shots:







Here's a shot with the plexiglass deflector:



And here's my Fluff, ready for battle <3



I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to Mr. Yeep for lending me his expertise and great mind to make all this come true.

And of course a big thank you to all of you modders, who inspired me and gave me precious ideas for my big project!

Torque

Wow, that's a nice build. How did you attach the mobo and what are you going to do with all that space in the front

Thanks

The mobo (and the rest) is attached onto an aluminium plate, and I'm planning to build a neat aluminium HD rack with a nice perforated grill on top in the empty space in the front, as I'm also planning to install an Highpoint PCI-E RAID 5 Card

nice what powersupply did you have and I want to replace mine and use the stock powersupply enclousure and the top part that covers it can post some pics of that thanks

Awsome job. I did the same seach to find a way to use the original rear holes but your solution was very messy creative

There is actually a reason why the cables are so messy. I could have made them the very right size and not have to bend them and cellotape them on the mounting plate... But how about if one day i change motherboard and the wires won't be long enough? In the process is the design and building of a circuit film to place behind the motherboard with little connectors. This way we can make custom cables for each motherboard without having to throw away everything each time OMGWEDONTUSEPUNCTUATIONUHLOLOL:D :DJust jokin' :PAs I said,the power supply used is an Enermax Liberty 630W, and the plate covering it is the Powermac's original one, without any modification.Of course, the power supply must necessarily be insulated to avoid a terrible death by electrification And so I did by mounting it in between 2 thin plexiglass panels, to avoid any contact with the plate or the bottom of the case. Fits beautifully without other modifications than simply taking it apart. On top of that I also added a molex connector to attach it to the power socket on the case, this way I'll make my life a lot easier the day I will decide to upgrade the power supply

Your mod is really looking good, how did you get your audio ports connected at the back?
Keep up the good work.

Looks like you did a really good job there.

That was fairly simple, there are 4 female jacks in the back of the case, 2 of them are connected to the onboard rear analogue audio in and out, and the other 2 are connected to the internal motherboard SPDIF in and out. The front jack is connected to the frontpanel audio out on the mobo.

Pro job at the back panel !! Congratz.
I shut down the all electricity of the house three times before understanding why there was a plastic sheet at the top of the PSU. Which you replace by a plexi panel. . After modding mine I included this sheet.

Yea, that backpanel is pro! I wanted to do someting very similar, but it showed as bit more difficult than I expected... But I was kinda scared about putting ATX psu into Apple psu housing, and it went much smoother than I thought... No probs like Baudouin had ) But I miss that "floor" sheet covering psu.. Anyone got it for sale?

// I even got that black covers on 24pin atx power connector, like Apple psu had... I love it should I post photo of my inside?

I have been looking for that for ages and ages... Any clue on where I can find it?

Please post your pics

TorqueX86, did you paint your fans?
because i didn't know the Noctua fans came in silver.

Thank you! I'm so glad I wasn't the only one that was annoyed by that. Slow down, take a breath, use some punctuation! Haha. I imagine amantheboy08 on the verge of peeing his pants every time he's posting. Just as he hits the "Add Reply" button, he takes off sprinting for the bathroom.

Ok, I'll stop being an @sshole now.

Hey, I did paint them, but grey, just like the Apple stock ones. I chose a Tamiya primer grey paint, which is very opaque and rather resistant. If you manage to find it, it's a great paint.

very very nice..... wish i had your expertise

they look good, did you have to tape them up and whatnot to keep the bearing from sticking?

good job on the mod, but i think i'll go cyprio's route, personally

don't take it wrong, yours looks spectacular, but that's too much wiring for me

I just taped the cables, nothing else. If you wanna do that to go ahead, it's safe, but be sure to use Primer type paint, as the regular (especially the glossy) type tends to be a dust magnet... Primer is ok

Yes, Thats exaclty what happens, I never read what I write so it always comes out wrong, I hate when I do that, and thats usually all the time don't worry your not being an "@sshole" I do that all the time.

Congtats Torque86, that is a really clean mod! I would be proud of that myself - it is the best I have seen!!. I am thinking of doing another Mac pro case which will have to be a Micro ATX board, but I want to put in 2 9800 GTX cards as I have done here. Anyone know of a core 2 MICRO-ATX board with 2 16x slots in it (even if 1 runs at 4x)?

Abit LG-95C but its not a good overclocker i have 1 availble

Are all those fans Noctua, and what did you used to mount them, I'm thinking about doing the same.

Thank You.

Hey Aqua ^^

The G33M-D2SR has indeed got a PCI-E 4x slot, but I dunno, anyway OSX will not recognise any SLI setup...

If u want muscle in Windows ( /barf ) you can fit a 9800GX2 and it will work in single mode in OSX and SLI in Winbarf...

TBH much better a full 16X *2 con a GX2 than a full 16X + 4X that maybe won't even fit...

The fans are mounted on an L-Shape aluminium support, you can find that easily in any hardware (intended as tools, screwdrivers and such) and make 2 round holes on the edge to not stop the airflow.

Then under the L-Support there is a cable cover, which I bought at the same shop, which consists of 2 parts, that joined together make a sort of a duct where the wires will pass. And btw, when they are joined they are also very solidly together, I can even raise the whole computer by the fans!

thank you im going to try that once I get the power supply done. I need to buy the G5 power suppyl enclousre

@Torque

Care to share any of the resources (websites, part numbers, etc) you used to get your parts for the rear panel? Sharing is caring!

I'm just still undecided on what to do with my rear connections, I'm currently "ridin dirty" with the cables just run through the empty port spaces. I can't bring myself to fire up the dremmel to the back just yet.

Nice, I like how the rear ports are fully working.

Don't rape it! It's perfectly doable.

Here are my sources:

USB = searched for "usb receptacles" on ebay, got 20 for $10, brand new.

Firewire = cannibalised an old card.

FW800 = as per pics

Audio and Digital audio: eBay, search for "jack monoral female" for the digital and "jack stereo female" for the audio

LAN = Cannibalised some broken USB to LAN cards, they were small and tight enough for the deed.

The ports are mounted on a custom made aluminium frame. USe your dremel on that!

[quote name='TorqueX86' date='Apr 21 2008, 07:42 PM' post='718245']
Just joking Aqua.. I love your work <Grin>

You can also see the fan board. This stuff is really good. It has several sensors and 4 fan connectors. You will have to program the board, and it will work by itself thereafter, no need of a particular OS or whatever. Basically the fans in the case will blow air when, where and how much is needed. Result? Hey is the Mac on or...


Torque, you did a very good job, the result is clean and beautiful.
I like to ask you something: what kind of fan board do you use and where do you find it?

JL

Thanks for the info! I also found a site that has some interesting components that could be useful to others http://www.cypressindustries.com/

is that a noctua cpu fan/heatsink, you have inspired me clean, elegant, and roomy, mine right now is all cluttered, i need to modify the power supply to be able to fit a G5 one. Because it is sticking out like a beast. Yeah, Noctua those fans look nice.

nice work pal!
bella li!

Thanks for the nice comments Noctua fans don't only look nice, they sound like angels too I sit close to my Mac and even when fans spin at full speed I cannot hear it.

^^

Hey how did you get the usb ports set up? Did you use the internal connectors on the motherboard or what? I can't figure out how i'm going to do this in my case :S

what cpu fan is that, i got a noctua one but the

Noctua NH-U12F

and do you think it is possible to use the G5 enclosure with a Regular ATX motherboard

I don't think so, without sawing-hacking-cutting off pieces of the case and/or losing slots and/or drives spaces...

My motherboard has nothing to envy to a full atx one, im very happy with it!

I have a full atx mobo in my case. Its an Asus P5W DH Deluxe. I didn't want to cut the case so I moved the mobo down a bit. I lost 1 PCI Express 16x slot and two PCI Express 1x slots. But thats okay for now. I'm using the other PCI Express 16x slot (only runs at 8x however). I don't need anything extra at the moment.

That sounds quite clever, but I personally wouldnt trade a full ATX with a halvened PCI Express speed and the removal of the power supply plate... The whole purpose of my mod was to make a perfectly stealthy mod...

Anyway, working on it again to remove the clutter of wires behind the motherboard. This time I will hide an USB/FW hub where the power supply is, and utilise only 2 small ribbon cables, one for USB and one for FW :-)

Please post pictures when your done I've been working on my back panel a little bit. So far all i have is Digital Out, Audio In, Audio Out, and both Ethernet ports (I think my wiring got screwed up because the ethernet doesn't work anymore with the adapters). For usb I use the front panel and just connect a hub to it. The wire coming out of the Digital Input slot is my wifi antenna wire

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics. I can't find my camera



Here's the back



As you can see I still have a lot of work to do. I can't decide how i want my usb ports connected. Either from a usb extension cable or a usb receptor from the motherboard connectors





It emits a blue glow becuase my power supply has LED's in it. I plan to take them out but i don't want to void my warranty yet!





The inside is quite cluttered! I bought a 850 watt powersupply so it has a lot of extra cables. I need to find a place to put them and i also need a way to mount the powersupply.

Any updates torque? i'd like to see more pictures of your work

Thanks for the interest :-)

The answer is: YES. I'm setting up these modifications to the case at the moment:

- Add a hybrid USB2/Firewire hub internally, in the power supply area, so that I can only use one USB and one FW internal plugs and all the ports of the case will be perfectly working without cluttering wires and cables.

- Add a hard drive bracket in the front part. Not sure whether to add a 3.5" or a 2.5" for SSD drives, I'll see about that!

Stay tuned uh?

UPDATE for me!!



I took out the crappy wireless that comes with the p5w and bought myself a shiny new Belkin Wireless G card!





I added two usb ports and the firewire 400 port! I still need a firewire 800 port and a toslink coupler for the surround sound. I'm quite satisfied with my current setup though so i probably won't get those things for a while cuz i'm lazy...





Here's what it looks like without the mobo in there.





Excuse my mess inside! i have so many wires i don't know what to do!!





Still no firewire from front panel though... I only have one connector on my mobo.

I finally got some proper cooling installed. I bought 4 noctua fans. I've only installed 2 of them but my overall temperatures of everything have dropped over 10ºC! Its amazing! Maybe i will post pics soon.

I'm building a PC in the coming month or two for gaming and FL Studio in a Coolermaster Cosmos S case, still primarily using my MacBook Pro as I prefer OS X over Windows. I was going to do a G5 Hack last year but decided against it because I was worried I'd have to Dremel the back. I didn't really want to cut ANYTHING on the G5 case and I am still very confused about what exactly you've used in terms of receptacles.

Did you just glue a receptacle onto the rear I/O panel and run the other end into the motherboard where a usb cable would usually plug into? So a Male to Female receptacle?

Also did you glue the female end onto a plate first and then onto the I/O panel or just glue it straight to the I/O panel.

Any closer pictures or more input would really help me out as I do want to mod a G5 case someday! Perhaps build a cheap Hack for File Storage!



Thanks!

AUGUST UPDATE:

I'm (finally) going holidays tomorrow, and will bring my Fluff with me.

I intend to add a RAID rack and a hybrid hub to remove once and for all the cable clutter behind the motherboard. I will also redo the internal wiring using better and thicker shielded cables to avoind electric noise and all.

In september I also decided to order a custom aluminium grill to place on the raid rack and processor, i just need to figure it out how to use the blasted 3d program for the blueprints

I'll be back in about 20 days, pics will follow!

/Aloha

Like i said in another topic, just take a look at frontx.com. they have all the necessary receptacles for usb, firewire 400, and audio. Thats where i got my stuff from. For ethernet i just got an LAN joiner from my local computer shop and cut it in half and then soldered a short ethernet cable onto both halfs of the joiner. this makes it so i have dual ethernet ports. Hope that makes sense. If you have any more questions just ask (i.e. what exact parts did i use).

Also, i just glued my ports directly to the case, but TorqueX86 used a metal plate for his.

As for usb/firewire. I wouldn't plug the usb/firewire into the back of the motherboard. Use an internal motherboard connector like this:


All i did to make them fit into the small space between the case and the mobo was cut off the black plastic part with an Xacto knife so it was just the actual connecter and the wires connected to it. Don't know if that makes sense but if i can i will post more pics.

Cheers!
~bmxer55

P.S. Torque: Sorry if you feel like i'm taking over your thread! I don't mean to!

one more question torque

how did you use the original power cable up for the sata drives and the cd drive, (8 pin or 6 pin connector i think)?

amantheboy,
check post 15 in my thread : http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...=93600&st=0

you'll find pictures and infos

thx baudouin

Well, there are 2 versions of the G5 case, the PCI64 and the PCI-E one. I have the latter, and that one uses a small 4-pin cable, that was very easily adapted to fit into one fo the power sockets of my power supply.

The PCI64 version has a special connector, you can make a customised and perfectly fitting cable by cutting up a normal ATX power connector using the 6 (was it 6 or 8?) matching holes. I did so with my first G5 case and worked perfectly.

Hope that helps!

PS. New pictures of my Fluff Pro RAID soon.